I realized that derivatives are linear • Hacker News Board

Re: I realized that derivatives are linear

#71

Post by fwdpropaganda » Wed, Jun 27, 2018, 8:07 AM UTC

rs86 wrote: post #68

fwdpropaganda wrote: post #39

HN continues to confuse me to no end. Mention some mathematically advanced idea: out come the pitchforks about how you don't need that, all you need is code/market size/scalability/product fit/investment/execution. Mention a banality that anyone who studied algebra knows: frontpage.

My sentiments exactly. I see how the author felt thrilled by his discovery. But hn is getting less interesting each month. Otoh lobsters and Lbda the ultimate keep going strong.

Oh how interesting. Just went on lobste.rs and at the bottom they have the moderation log made public. Really cool. I guess it's unusual because moderators don't like accountability.

What's Lbda though?

Re: I realized that derivatives are linear

#72

Post by enriquto » Wed, Jun 27, 2018, 10:51 AM UTC

geezerjay wrote: post #54

enriquto wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

hey, it is better to be nice in that case! Because you don't know anything when your are born, everyday thousands of people learn about well-known cool things that are new for them: https://www.xkcd.com/1053/ This guy even explained his rediscovery in a beautiful form.

> Because you don't know anything when your are born, everyday thousands of people learn about well-known cool things that are new for them: https://www.xkcd.com/1053/ That doesn't mean that we should praise everyone who announces they discovered or invented basic math properties which for some reasom were ignored although they are basic prerequisites for a specific task. Should we also praise carpenters who discover…

> Should we also praise carpenters who discover the pythagorean theorem?

Most certainly!

Re: I realized that derivatives are linear

#73

Post by OscarCunningham » Wed, Jun 27, 2018, 1:25 PM UTC

OscarCunningham wrote: post #32

tzahola wrote: post #11

Better later than never, I guess. I’ve heard that the next big thing will be this “chain rule”, you should check that out too.

This is HN, they call it "backpropagation".

Heh

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17391607

Re: I realized that derivatives are linear

#74

Post by rs86 » Wed, Jun 27, 2018, 3:45 PM UTC

fwdpropaganda wrote: post #71

rs86 wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My sentiments exactly. I see how the author felt thrilled by his discovery. But hn is getting less interesting each month. Otoh lobsters and Lbda the ultimate keep going strong.

Oh how interesting. Just went on lobste.rs and at the bottom they have the moderation log made public. Really cool. I guess it's unusual because moderators don't like accountability. What's Lbda though?

Ltu, lambda the ultimate

Re: I realized that derivatives are linear

#75

Post by [deleted] » Thu, Jun 28, 2018, 6:02 PM UTC

mehrdadn wrote: post #12

dang wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Please don't post shallow dismissals, especially of other people's work. A good critical comment teaches us something." https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

Hm, I feel like how that comment is read is in the eye of the beholder... it just depends on whether you see the glass half empty or half full. You could read it as a dismissal, or you could read it as an advice or a warning that could very well teach someone (like the OP) something... in this case, I suppose that might be something like: "Here's the important thing to really take away from this incident: it's worth…

[deleted]

Re: I realized that derivatives are linear

#76

Post by speedplane » Fri, Jun 29, 2018, 7:51 AM UTC

blattimwind wrote: post #35

speedplane wrote: post #13

There seems to be a misconception that linear transformations have to look like lines.

One easy way to see that "linear" does not mean "line-like" is looking at matrix transforms: All matrix transforms are linear. And we can do a lot of stuff easily with those, like rotating, distorting, even perspective (with w-normalization).

All matrix transforms are linear. And few people understand matrix transforms. The term itself "linear" transform stems more from the contrast to nonlinear equations, but it still "feels" like a bit of a misnomer. Perhaps it should be called "proportional" or "relatable" transform.

Ehh, then again, it doesn't really matter, people who don't understand it still won't with a nomenclature change.