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How do you read advanced math texts?
How do you read advanced math texts? “Slowly.”
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Edward Tufte keynote: “The Future of Data Analysis”
Edward Tufte keynote: “The Future of Data Analysis” The presentation starts at 2:30. The news article is here Bulletpoint take-aways from the end of the presentation: Numbers on the screen are representations of the real world. Look at the real world, not just representations. Walk around what you want to learn about. In doing creative […]
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February Reading
Currently finishing A Thousand Years of Nonlinear History by Manuel DeLanda. Fascinating re-thinking of history using nonlinear metaphors, but sometimes I wonder if he pushes the metaphors too far; I don’t have enough background knowledge to say either way. I’ve got They Thought They Were Free (via pushcx) from the library which I’ll start this […]
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Maps of the world
Six maps that will make you rethink the world. Not only are the maps beautiful, but the interview is pretty interesting too.
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Christopher Olah’s blog
Christopher Olah’s blog The math behind computational learning is hard, but Christopher Olah makes understanding it really easy. Every article of his is worth reading.
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Mycroft
Forty-four percent of the way through the complete Sherlock Holmes works on Kindle and Mycroft is finally introduced: “My dear Watson,” said he, “I cannot agree with those who rank modesty among the virtues. To the logician all things should be seen exactly as they are, and to underestimate one’s self is as much a […]
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Leonardo
From the chapter on Leonardo da Vinci in Visari’s Lives: Da Vinci would buy and the immediately release birds… He was so pleasing in conversation, that he attracted to himself the hearts of men. And although he possessed, one might say, nothing, and worked little, he always kept servants and horses, in which latter he […]
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Learning from History
What can history teach us? From Chapter 1 of Hegel’s Introduction to the Philosophy of History: Rulers, statesmen, and nations are told that they ought to learn from the experience of history. Yet what experience and history teach us is this, that nations and governments have never learned anything from history, nor acted in accordance […]
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The case for computer algebra
The case for using computer algebra Many academics and researchers get annoyed when students use computer algebra programs such as Mathematica to evaluate simple integrals that they maintain should be done by hand. The question I ask is “At what point do you expect your students to switch over to using a computer?”. Most mathematical […]
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Learning from doing
We learn nothing from those who say: ‘Do as I do.’ Our only teachers are those who tell us to ‘do with me’, and are able to emit signs to be developed in heterogeneity rather than to propose gestures for us to reproduce. In other words, there is no ideo-motivity, only sensory-motivity. Gilles Deleuze, Difference […]