kalid

9 ms·

1. 31.▲
   by kalid 9y ago

   Much appreciated, thank you.
2. 32.▲
   by kalid 9y ago

   Thanks so much for the kind words. I vividly remember cramming for a test my freshman year of college, not having things click, and the final Aha! when a semester of pain disappeared with a few visualizations. The contrast between how most
3. 33.▲
   by kalid 9y ago

   Small fix, I believe it's "Generative" Adversarial Networks.
4. 34.▲
   by kalid 10y ago

   Hi Chris, I wanted to applaud your efforts here. The attitude of "those who can't do, teach" misses how we truly internalize and make use of ideas. Luminaries in a field (Einstein, Feynman, Tao) have "post-rigorous"
5. 35.▲
   by kalid 10y ago

   I had this issue too, and realized you can frame it by setting expectations in the title. Some posts have needed the 100-200 hours of thinking/visualization, labeled with things like "Interactive Guide to the Fourier Transform&quo
6. 36.▲
   by kalid 10y ago

   Programmers, writers, and other artists do their best work when they are a notch above pure depression, wracking their brain for desperate means of survival, not when they're in a joyous flow state. Right? :)
7. 37.▲
   by kalid 10y ago

   I was skeptical at first but now really like it. * Can quickly ("analog-y") adjust brightness and volume. Similar to a volume dial in a car vs. up/down volume buttons. In 2 seconds you can dial it in. * YouTube videos (in Saf
8. 38.▲
   by kalid 10y ago

   I keep it simple: a feelgood.txt file with dated entries whenever some event, project, feedback, etc. makes me feel alive. Over time, you notice patterns about what really energizes you. For me, this is the high-order bit, more important th
9. 39.▲
   by kalid 10y ago

   Thanks Michael! railstutorial.org has long been an inspiration for me, showing what an educational site could become.
10. 40.▲
    by kalid 10y ago

    Hi Charlie! Great to see you, and thanks for the support over the years :). That discussion was an eye opener for me (in a good way), it showed me of how easily things get muddled in online discussions as context goes missing. It always rem
11. 41.▲
    by kalid 10y ago

    Thanks, glad you liked it! We have about the same wordcount after 10 years :). Far fewer support emails on my end, maybe about 4-5k comment replies. Agree on updating articles over time. Text is infinitely tweakable and there's so many
12. 42.▲
    by kalid 10y ago

    Just saw this now :). I write it all myself, but sometimes get pointed at resources by others. https://aha.betterexplained.com - forum to discuss ideas. It's in the background currently but I'd like to make it into mor
13. 43.▲
    by kalid 10y ago

    Thanks for the detailed and honest feedback! The newsletter is fully optional, basically to get alerted to new articles & other site news. The homepage should be fully scrollable with a big list of articles, you can also check out: htt
14. 44.▲
    by kalid 10y ago

    I love hearing that, thank you. I started the site to help other frustrated students -- I clearly remember cramming in a small dorm room and not having things click. Happy it helped.
15. 45.▲
    by kalid 10y ago

    Really glad it resonated. It's hard to overstate gentleness with yourself, I remember the instant last year when I forgave myself for mistakes / regrets that had long bothered me. I was walking outside at night, and literally felt
16. 46.▲
    by kalid 10y ago

    Thanks. I was really disappointed to see what happened to HowStuffWorks. I loved reading it in high school, and it likely planted the idea in my head that a single person could start a learning site. On paper it reached "success"
17. 47.▲
    by kalid 10y ago

    (Kalid from BetterExplained here, thanks for posting this!) The impact of evergreen content was my biggest eye-opener. The more time, the better, but don't beat yourself up about "lost time". Just start today. Before we know
18. 48.▲
    by kalid 10y ago

    That's awesome to hear, thanks (I started the site to help other students). Yeah, my only linear algebra content is: General Overview: https://betterexplained.com/articles/linear-algebra-guide/ Matrix Multipl
19. 49.▲
    by kalid 10y ago

    I found the paper very well written. It's a testament to Andrew Ng's ML class that you're able to follow a state of the art paper (terms, equations, conventions) after his lessons. The notion of a "visual Turing test&quo
20. 50.▲
    by kalid 10y ago

    Kalid from BetterExplained here, glad you're enjoying it! I often go to the history of a concept for both historical appreciation and, practically, to understand it better. We often study Calculus without looking at what Archimedes was
21. 51.▲
    by kalid 10y ago

    Exactly. One model I like is e^x represents 100% interest, perfectly compounded for x units of time. a^b is really just e^[ln(a) * b]. Then you can think about "ln(a) * b" being the interest earned scaled by time.
22. 52.▲
    by kalid 10y ago

    That's true, let's just go with the principal value for now :). (I hadn't studied complex analysis when I wrote that post, learning it now. The various possibilities for the multi-valued solution follow a pattern however.)
23. 53.▲
    by kalid 10y ago

    Much of this resonated with me. One of the biggest lessons of my Ivy-league education was, paradoxically, that it wasn't sufficient (or even necessary). At least not for the goals I wanted. If you want access to the elite Wall St. or c
24. 54.▲
    by kalid 10y ago

    Friendly calculator if you want to play with the various assumptions: https://instacalc.com/50110
25. 55.▲
    by kalid 10y ago

    I think he meant finding the square whose area is equal to that of a given triangle. With our "modern" understanding of algebra and geometry, we know to do Area = 1/2 * base * height Area = s^2 therefore s = sqrt(1/2 * b
26. 56.▲
    by kalid 10y ago

    Thanks for the feedback. The colors are more syntax highlighting (vs indicating anything important), I'd like to research best practices here. I wonder if there's any client-side settings I can detect to indicate a different style
27. 57.▲
    by kalid 10y ago

    It's awesome to hear when it's been a long-standing tool in the utility belt. The original version had charts/graphs (simple pie charts, etc.) which I need to bring back, were you considering more Wolfram-Alpha style 3d plots
28. 58.▲
    by kalid 10y ago

    Thanks for the feedback, I should test with that. I'm curious whether/if CDNs like google-hosted libraries are normally blocked.
29. 59.▲
    by kalid 10y ago

    Glad you liked it!
30. 60.▲
    by kalid 10y ago

    Hah, yes, I'm that bad mamma jamma.