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Ask HN: Do you recall any book or course that made a topic finally click?

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Re: Ask HN: Do you recall any book or course that made a topic finally click?

#401

Post by bmitc »

jerrygenser wrote: post #146

Andrew Ng's machine learning course on Coursera from almost 10 years changed the trajectory of my entire career. https://www.coursera.org/specializations/machine-learning-in... Statistical rethinking by Richard McElreath also helped me to understand bayesian analysis and simulation -- possibly the best hands on bayesian analysis book for beginners https://xcelab.net/rm/statistical-rethinking/ edit: added links

Would you recommend his original Coursera course or his new course here: https://www.deeplearning.ai/courses/machine-learning-special...?

> Statistical rethinking by Richard McElreath

Thank you for that reference! I'm definitely going to check it out.

If you are able and want to, are you able to elaborate on how you changed the trajectory of your career? I'm a software engineer who was originally wanting to be a mathematician, so I've always been wanting to get back to something a bit more analytical and quantitative.

Re: Ask HN: Do you recall any book or course that made a topic finally click?

#402

Post by foooobaba »

tcmb wrote: post #39

Gilbert Strang's lectures on Linear Algebra: https://ocw.mit.edu/courses/18-06-linear-algebra-spring-2010... LinAlg was the only maths course I needed in my interdisciplinary study program. I had struggled to grasp maths in high school, but these lectures really made it click for me and I passed my university's class with a B+.

Similar to that one, he also teaches a more recent course geared for applications of linear algebra: Matrix Methods In Data Analysis, Signal Processing, And Machine Learning

https://ocw.mit.edu/courses/18-065-matrix-methods-in-data-an...

Re: Ask HN: Do you recall any book or course that made a topic finally click?

#403

Post by werber »

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Letters_from_an_American_Far...

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fanny_Hill

It’s kinda dumb in retrospect but these two books brought significance to the past. They’re both kinda fake, sort of like 18th century reality tv. They’re salacious, they’re not wholesome, they made me love the past because they made me see that not much has changed, we’re still selfish and Horny and awful.

Re: Ask HN: Do you recall any book or course that made a topic finally click?

#404

Post by luuuzeta »

thecoppinger wrote: post #280
luuuzeta wrote: post #148

I've been struggling with wrapping my head around asynchronous programming with callbacks, promises and async/await in JS, however I think it's finally clicking after watching these YouTube videos and creating a document where I explain these concepts as if I'm teaching them to someone else: * Philip Roberts's What the heck is the event loop anyway? - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8aGhZQkoFbQ * The Story of Asynchr…

This is my learning goal right now, I can’t thank you enough!

You're welcome! Rewatch Philip's video as many times as you need until the concepts sink in, before you move into learning promises and await/async [1]. Similarly for Jake Archibald's video.

Good luck!

[1]: from what I gather asynchronous programming using callbacks isn't used anymore but it might be instructive to start with it, understand the issues with it, and why promises replaced this style.

Re: Ask HN: Do you recall any book or course that made a topic finally click?

#405

Post by analog31 »

atlacatl_sv wrote: post #378
analog31 wrote: post #375

Art of Electronics , Horowitz and Hill. As a teenager, I had messed around with guitar amplifiers and effects pedals, and had made some gadgets by copying circuits from magazines. AoE (plus the professor who taught from it of course) made my understanding of transistors and op amps click. The treatment of electronic noise remains useful to me today, nearly 40 years later. Transistor Transistor Logic followed by Z-80…

I've bought the art of electronics and I'm not sure why it's referenced so often. It certainly is not for beginners. I graduated in Electrical Engineering but still didn't find it useful yet.

Interestingly, I was a physics + math major. Maybe the book struck a different nerve for me, than for a real engineer. Also, 40 years ago we had no access to computer simulation, and so we learned to design circuits the way physics students solve physics problems: Deriving equations by hand. Today, that method may be as obsolete for electronics as it is for physics. ;-) We prototyped by hand. Already by the time I was in grad school, the engineering students were heavily into Spice, and it was incorporated into their coursework.

Today, I don't design commercial electronics, but I design small circuits to support my own R&D work in developing measurement equipment, such as making front ends for weird optical detectors and such. Plus hobbies of course.

Re: Ask HN: Do you recall any book or course that made a topic finally click?

#406

Post by luuuzeta »

rahimnathwani wrote: post #316
luuuzeta wrote: post #236

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you liked Stephen King's "On Writing", give William Zinsser's "On Writing Well" a read. It's not a memoir but more like a manual addressing different types of writing from corporate writing to sports to academic.

If you liked William Zinsser's "On Writing Well", give Joseph M. William's "Style: Toward Clarity and Grace" a read.

I'll check it out. Thanks for the recc.

Re: Ask HN: Do you recall any book or course that made a topic finally click?

#408

Post by luuuzeta »

Mathematical proofs didn't click for me, so much so that I ended up failing my Discrete Math class because of it. Before I retook the DM course again, I took a Proof Workshop but I doubt I would've done good without the following books:

* Richard Hammack's The Book of Proof [1]

* Mathematical Proofs by Chartrand, Polimeni, and Zhang

[1]: https://www.people.vcu.edu/~rhammack/BookOfProof/

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