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Ask HN: What's the best lecture series you've seen?

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Re: Ask HN: What's the best lecture series you've seen?

#211

Post by itsoktocry »

azangru wrote: post #207

I enjoyed Yuval Harari's course A Brief History of Humankind when it was available on Coursera (it can still be found on youtube, although at low video quality — https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CGhTQ4iruLc&list=PLE-kxvSEhk... ). This was before Harari released his book, Sapiens, largely based on this course; and before he started fantasizing about the future.

Harari gets a lot of flack (I guess having wildly popular books and fame does that), but I found both Sapiens and Homo Deus entertaining.

And, yes, I've read some of the criticisms of his work. They seem to take issue with the tiniest claims, even go so far as labeling his work as "dangerous"[0]. "Harari’s motives remain mysterious". It's hilarious.

[0] https://www.currentaffairs.org/2022/07/the-dangerous-populis...

Re: Ask HN: What's the best lecture series you've seen?

#212

Post by yakubin »

hadjian wrote: post #91
nerusskyhigh wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Can you articulate on the first one? In the last semester I tutored for a Linear algebra course which used his book and it was a nightmare. Ideas seems to be presented in reverse order and a lot of students ended up having trouble understanding basic concepts.

So strange. It was the best book I’ve read about the topic. It’s been a while, but I don’t recall anything not presented in the right order. Going from linear equations to a geometric interpretation of the rows, then to linear combination of the columns. Then Gauss-Seidel to LRU. I liked his approach of “ideas first, rigor later”. I think after reading this book, you can easily grab a book with more formalism, if you…

I tried Strang in uni and it was about the worst linear algebra book I tried. Kostrikin on the other hand was perfect — he struck the right balance between geometric intuition and formal rigour.

Re: Ask HN: What's the best lecture series you've seen?

#214

Post by sirwhinesalot »

stjo wrote: post #12

Andrej Karpathy's "Neural Networks: From Zero to Hero". https://karpathy.ai/zero-to-hero.html Just watch the first lecture and you won't be able to not watch the rest. It starts with making your own autograd engine in 100 lines of python, similar to PyTorch and then builds up to a GPT network. He's one of the best in the field, founder of OpenAI, then Director of AI at Tesla. Nothing like the scam tutorials that just…

Logged in just to upvote this, such an excellent resource!

Re: Ask HN: What's the best lecture series you've seen?

#216

Post by floatrock »

Alan Watts for philosophy / religion / zen.

It's almost a trite recommendation because his tidbits are sampled all the time in electronic or meditation music, but they're sampled all the time because he's known for opening western minds up to eastern mysticism in a very down-to-earth approachable, comparative, compassionate, and often humorous way. Who knew that philosophy can make you laugh.

His lectures just show you a different way of looking at the world, and it's a breath of fresh air for the soul.

Re: Ask HN: What's the best lecture series you've seen?

#217

Post by dotancohen »

jnsaff2 wrote: post #48

Timothy Snyder: The Making of Modern Ukraine. [0] gives you invaluable understanding about much more than just Ukraine. MIT 16.885J Aircraft Systems Engineering, Fall 2005 [1] - the aircraft they focus on is the Space Shuttle. Amazingly demystifying. Some of the actual early designers talk there. [0] - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bJczLlwp-d8&list=PLh9mgdi4rN... [1] - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iiYhQtGpRhc&li…

The Aircraft Systems Engineering lectures are great, I'm listening to them now.

It should be noted that the lecturer, Aaron Cohen, contradicts everything that has made SpaceX successful. From reusability, to innovation, to cost-cutting measures, to sticking with traditional contractors. But that is only testament to the challenges that faced SpaceX, it detracts nothing from Professor Cohen's brilliance. It's too bad that he never got to see how both cargo and manned spaceflight had progressed only a decade after his 2010 passing.

Re: Ask HN: What's the best lecture series you've seen?

#218

Post by c-linkage »

Effective Communication by Professor Dalton Kehoe, available on the Great Courses.

https://www.thegreatcourses.com/courses/effective-communicat...

Most people think they are good communicators because they talk all the time, but talking is not communicating. The truth is that good communication is the hardest thing you will ever do.

This course literally changed how I think, write, and speak. It was so good that I listened to it twice. I even had to restart on the second attempt because my wife got hooked on it as well so we would listen to it on long road trips and discuss.

Some key lessons (taken from the website):

* How early cultural learning and deeply learned patterns of reaction in our unconscious mind affect how you see, think, and feel about other people and enhance or undermine your ability to communicate effectively

* How your sense of self develops in everyday talk during your childhood and the ways in which your subconscious is built to sustain and defend your self-esteem, shaping how you think and speak to others for the rest of your life

* The specific styles of talking you use in most situations, including different types of control talk -- the unproductive and needlessly aggressive mode that almost always dooms a conversation to a fatal downward spiral -- and the more desirable alternative of dialogue talk

Re: Ask HN: What's the best lecture series you've seen?

#220

Post by jona-f »

Steve Brunton's youtube channel hasn't been mentioned yet, it's my favorite math lectures. Very approachable and the guy has perfected writing mirrored. No proofs though, rather he's giving a well explained overview.

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCm5mt-A4w61lknZ9lCsZtBw

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