ivansavz

Thanks! I'd like to take the credit for the design, but it's just the LaTeX defaults of the IEEEtran document class.

If anyone needs a quick tutorial on linear algebra, you can check out this printabale four pager that I wrote: https://minireference.com/static/tutorials/linear_algebra_in...

I also have some notebooks with SymPy code examples here: https://github.com/minireference/noBSLAnotebooks

ivansavz

2개월 전discuss

I've been thinking a lot about your point b) over the years.

I'm conceptualizing a piece of knowledge as an interface that can be `implemented` but with different classes (explanations renderings for different audiences).

For example, the "derivative interface" represents knowledge of the concept of derivative operations and basic skills to compute derivatives of various functions. The interface doesn't specify HOW to teach this topic or HOW DEEP, so there are multiple implementations:

  - basic visual explanations (for kids)
  - basic algebra steps (for high school)
  - standard explanation (for undergraduate students)
  - compact explanation (a reviee for grad students)

The above implementation are polymorphism due to the "reader level of knowledge," but there could be other, e.g. derivatives explained using code like in Sec 4.1 in this calculus tutorial[1].

It would be A LOT of work to produce all these explanations but it would make for a kick ass math textbook that you can pick up and learn, no matter what your level is (instead of getting lost or bored and looking for another resource).

[1] https://minireference.com/static/tutorials/calculus_tutorial...

ivansavz

2개월 전discuss

This textbook looks really good! Is this finally going to be the year when I learn thermo? All the problems come with answers provided, so I have no excuse!

I found this article[1] by the author[2] that explain their motivation for the book. It has lots of deep insights about the textbook publishing industry and definitely worth a read.

[1] https://framablog.org/2022/01/20/mais-ou-sont-les-livres-uni... and auto-translation to EN for ppl who don't speak French: https://framablog-org.translate.goog/2022/01/20/mais-ou-sont...

[2] https://news.ycombinator.com/threads?id=2DcAf

ivansavz

3개월 전discuss

A nice video explainer about this dispute: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_YRfSe-f1FE

ivansavz

3개월 전discuss

Thx for the plug @Delphiza

For anyone interested in checking out the book, there is a PDF preview here[1] and printable concept maps[2], which should be useful no matter which book you're reading.

[1] https://minireference.com/static/excerpts/noBSmathphys_v5_pr...

[2] https://minireference.com/static/conceptmaps/math_and_physic...

ivansavz

3개월 전discuss

Yeah the textbook cartel is outrageous. I started a textbook publishing company to fight this!

I was working on web copy describing how crazy the mainstream textbook prices are, and used the price C$300 for the calculus book, trying to be flippant (to exaggerate the competitor price to make my prices look better). I decided to check the price in the bookstore, and to my surprise the price was even higher than that! (sold as bundle: book + exercise manual + solutions manual). When your real prices are higher than the pricing people use as hyperbole, you know there is a problem.

It makes no sense—for a subject that has been around for 300+ years, and virtually unchanged for the past 100.

ivansavz

4개월 전discuss

The technical term for these tiny shortcuts is questionable research practices. They are difficult to study, because scientists are publicly shaming their peers when they use such practices, but in private they continue to use them.

It all depends on the integrity of the researcher, which in turn depends on their upbringing (the example set by their academic advisor).

Relevant links to two podcast episodes about p-hacking:

- https://nulliusinverba.podbean.com/e/p-hacking-i/

- https://nulliusinverba.podbean.com/e/p-hacking-ii/

ivansavz

4개월 전discuss

The link wasn't working for me; here is the archive.org version:

https://web.archive.org/web/20260314130229/http://silas.psfc...

ivansavz

5개월 전discuss

> But how does one separate the good comments from the bad comments?

One thing that works very well for me (in a different context) is to ask to return two lists:

- Things that I must absolutely fix (bugs, typos, logic mistakes, etc.)

- Lesser fixes and other stylistic improvements

Then I look only at the first list.

ivansavz

5개월 전discuss

I really like this essay and I managed to track down the original in French, for anyone who reads French:

https://fr.wikisource.org/wiki/Trait%C3%A9_des_excitants_mod...

The part about coffee is halfway down the page under the heading §III — du café.

ivansavz

5개월 전discuss

Direct link to PDF: https://minireference.com/static/tutorials/calculus_tutorial... [2MB, 25pp]

ivansavz

5개월 전discuss

There is a menu from the top bar to change the "Modern English."

ivansavz

6개월 전discuss

Thanks for all the explanations. I always thought it was regular HTML, but now I know to watch out for the differences.

Can you say a few more words about the library https://github.com/standardebooks/tools ? Can it generate ePub3 from markdown files or do I have to feed it HTML already. Any repo with usage examples of the `--white-label` option would be nice.

ivansavz

7개월 전discuss

I've been in Grayscale for some time now (almost a month), and it's great. I always wanted to have a phone with an eInk display, and this is pretty close feeling (aesthetically).

Scrolling is no longer interesting, and food looks un-appetizing. Making the digital reality look boring is a good deal to make the real world look more exciting.

Thanks to comments from @jtbaker and @SkyPuncher I just added a shortcut to the "pull out" menu so I can now turn off when I need to work with pictures where colors are important.

ivansavz

7개월 전discuss

Thanks Greg for posting!

The website has all the notebooks from the book, as well as well as the complete tutorials on the tech stack (Python, Pandas, Seaborn).

For everyone interested, check out the extended preview PDFs:

- Part 1: DATA and PROBABILITY https://minireference.com/static/excerpts/noBSstats_part1_pr...

- Part 2: STATISTICAL INFERENCE https://minireference.com/static/excerpts/noBSstats_part2_pr...

ivansavz

7개월 전discuss

It seems `(Y @ X)[None]` produces a row vector of shape (1,3),

   (Y @ X)[None]
   
   # array([[14, 32, 50]])

but `(Y @ X)[None].T` works as you described:

   (Y @ X)[None].T
   
   # array([[14],
   #        [32],
   #        [50]])

I don't know either RE supposed to or not, though I know np.newaxis is an alias for None.

ivansavz

7개월 전discuss

The result of `Y @ X` has shape (3,), so the next line (concatenate as columns) fails.

To make `Z` a column vector, we would need something like `Z = (Y @ X)[:,np.newaxis]`.

Although, I'm not sure why the author is using `concatenate` when the more idiomatic function would be stack, so the change you suggest works and is pretty clean:

   Z = Y @ X
   np.stack([Z, Z], axis=1)
   # array([[14, 14],
   #        [32, 32],
   #        [50, 50]])

with convention that vectors are shape (3,) instead of (3,1).

ivansavz

7개월 전discuss

I thought so too, but it doesn't seem to work since X has shape (3,).

This seems to work,

   Z = Y @ X[:,np.newaxis]

thought it is arguably more complicated than calling the `.reshape(3,1)` method.

ivansavz

7개월 전discuss

Yes, I was (and still am) similarly impressed with LLMs ability to understand the intent of my queries and requests.

I've tried several times to understand the "multi-head attention" mechanism that powers this understanding, but I'm yet to build a deep intuition.

Is there any research or expository papers that talk about this "understanding" aspect specifically? How could we measure understand without generation? Are there benchmarks out there specifically designed to test deep/nuanced understanding skills?

Any pointers or recommended reading would be much appreciated.

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