westoncb

68 ms·

631.
by westoncb 8y ago
I like this book too, but I'd say for a typical reader it's more like something you'd want after getting to the point where you're caught up and ready for university mathematics. It's a fairly demanding book. I&#x
632.
by westoncb 8y ago
Unless what I'm laying out looks just like a grid, I pretty much always prefer Flexbox. For the majority of cases where I need to do some layout with CSS these days, an image of how to do it via flexbox effortlessly pops into my head.
633.
by westoncb 8y ago
Heh, sounds like I made some decent choices then ;) I just saw your comment now, but in the interim picked up Calculus Made Easy and a short 'manual' on differential equations that John Baez recommended somewhere. I also recently
634.
by westoncb 8y ago
> If the topic of the book isn't something you know well, how well do you think you can judge the coherence of the argument? Hopefully by the time you have read the book, you have picked up a set of ideas from the field under the di
635.
by westoncb 8y ago
That's definitely a better, more realistic process than what I described. > Agreed, but an author's authority can still be undermined or reinforced by expert opinion. That's a good point. Actually, that's probably how
636.
by westoncb 8y ago
You're right. This is essentially meaningless: "Now that GPUs can reliably generate 60 FPS ...." That depends entirely on what you're rendering. You could reliably hit over 60 FPS for decades—for some content. And now yo
637.
by westoncb 8y ago
Thanks b_b, that does increase my interest and I'll probably look a bit closer now :)
638.
by westoncb 8y ago
Sure, all things being equal, it's better to have the references than not. That said, as a practical matter, if the author cites 100 papers, and each paper takes half an hour to judge the reliability of it (assuming you have good comma
639.
by westoncb 8y ago
> Throughout the book, the author cites a scientific study and article on nearly every page, so you know that these are real hard facts. This is almost discouraging to me. If spending too much time on HN has taught me anything, it's
640.
by westoncb 8y ago
Anyone else read "The Undoing Project" (a Michael Lewis book on Daniel Kahneman, which was on the list)? I thought it sounded super interesting, but I'm getting mixed impressions from Amazon reviews.
641.
by westoncb 8y ago
Okay, I see your point. But indirection only enters the picture once you introduce the possibility of multiple graphics cards which are being communicated with the same API—and I agree, that is an example of indirection. However, it&#x2
642.
by westoncb 8y ago
Hmm, but I didn't say it was an indirection layer nor an abstraction layer...
643.
by westoncb 8y ago
> All of these can be described as being explicitly about collections of data of specific types. This isn’t differentiating, you’re still describing all APIs. Maybe my usage of 'explicit' was unclear. Here is an example of a pr
644.
by westoncb 8y ago
Except for: > One should completely distrust and be hostile towars a "feeling" ... Being mindful of feelings and distrusting/hostile are two very different things, and I cannot recommend the latter (nor have I seen any Bud
645.
Why is linear motion relative but rotation absolute?(quora.com)
3 points by westoncb 8y ago|0 comments
646.
by westoncb 8y ago
Oops! My bad! I just realized that you're talking about a different book. I thought you were referring to the book's namesake, Polya's "How to Solve it." I have not had any contact with how "How to Prove it&quo
647.
by westoncb 8y ago
> The thing is, all APIs essentially move data around Technically true, but misleading to bring up. OpenGL is different because the primitives in it are explicitly about collections of data of specific types. Whereas an API that was &#x2
648.
by westoncb 8y ago
After working with OpenGL for many years and then moving to higher-level systems more recently (e.g. three.js), I found a useful way of viewing the 'essence' of the API: moving data around. It's not so much a '3D graphic
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Ask HN: What's the best way of learning calculus, if you already know pure math
2 points by westoncb 8y ago|4 comments
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by westoncb 8y ago
> ... are theoretical building blocks whose primary utility is for mathematical analysis. When you say 'mathematical analysis' here, is that just a broader category that encompasses e.g. real and complex analysis? Or something
651.
by westoncb 8y ago
I wonder if there is just a big split between what folks are looking for in mathematics. I cannot understand how "How to Prove It" is so frequently praised. I tried reading after finishing my CS degree, while I was searching for b
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by westoncb 8y ago
I was the same way. I think the way we typically teach math (in the U.S. at least) to young people is particularly hard for those who insist on understanding rather than memorizing things. I was the same as how you describe yourself, and I
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by westoncb 8y ago
> Figuring them is easy from experience but the math behind that is way harder; anything beyond simple equations is like alien language to me ... It took me a long (and often frustrating) time to figure out that the perception of difficu
654.
by westoncb 8y ago
That kind of annoyed me when I delved into a it a while ago, too. I have decent mathematical sophistication (I do a lot of linear algebra and computational geometry for work, read graphics papers and math history), though I'm largely s
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by westoncb 8y ago
What I wonder is if this would be very useful to someone trying to start a software business that they don't want to turn into a 'startup' in the sense it's generally used here (not trying to become a billion dollar comp
656.
A History of the Windows Command-Line(blogs.msdn.microsoft.com)
8 points by westoncb 8y ago|0 comments
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by westoncb 8y ago
> A person's ability to survive in a territory populated by Aztecs or Mormons is going to be significantly determined by their ability to conform to group beliefs re: normative behavior I agree, but I see that as a separate issue fr
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by westoncb 8y ago
> What say ye all? Do you think that "True" has any place in the social sciences vs. the observational "I observe this to be useful in this context" or the almost psycho-analytical "I notice that when people beli
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by westoncb 8y ago
> So you're not explicitly computing `I - K`, but instead letting the constraint solver pick values that satisfy the equation Ah—makes sense. I wonder if attempts at going in the other direction have been made, and initially constra
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by westoncb 8y ago
> The invariant for `K+D` is the identity function. So if we had a `D` with holes, we could use a prover to verify the identity invariant and “solve for D” simultaneously. This was pretty mind-blowing for me. (I haven't really looke

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