Tiny October Updates: Online Learning and More (Patreon)

Hello Good Humans! Here are some tiny updates.

1. VIM Live rescheduled to Thursday this week, same 5pm western as usual.

2. Learning Fun Time

It's been looking increasingly likely that at least some aspect of what I do in the future will involve AI and machine learning, whether directly or indirectly (I suppose that you could say the same for all of us... we're all pretty much surrounded by THE ALGORITHMS already). 

I feel like I have a pretty good intuitive understanding of deep learning etc cuz math, but I realized it'd probably be useful to know how to actually do the thing, if only to test my understanding. 

So I started taking an online class for machine learning in python, partly to learn the thing and also to get some first-hand experience with the whole online class thing, seeing as my future path probably at least somewhat involves online education. 

Then remembered I had no idea how to use all the libraries and methods and do programming environment and file management things, and so I started taking a data science python class that teaches how to use some of the common libraries for data stuff. 

This class soon made me remember that I haven't actually done any programming in python (mathematician problems: I generalized and assumed I know all programming languages, which turns out not to be true) so I started an intro python class. 

And then I remembered that my brain is no longer the finely honed machine it was when I was younger, that can instantly memorize all things and never forget them. These days even functions I use frequently will instantly leak out of my brain and I have to look them up every single time. 

So I finally took Michael Nielsen's advice to "make memory a choice, rather than a haphazard event to be left to chance" by trying out Anki, which is a spaced-repetition flashcard program where you just write a question and answer for the thing you want to remember (for example, the keyboard shortcut to run a python program cell in a Jupyter notebook).

If making flashcards all day doesn't sound inspiring to you, Michael's article may change your mind: http://augmentingcognition.com/ltm.html 

Anyway, a pile of flashcards later (oh I have SO MANY things to say about flashcards, and cards in general), I completed the intro python course. Then back to the intro data science python class, which I've now almost finished. And I figured I could use more background on other python math stuff, and it's pretty easy to end up taking a million courses at once at various speeds.

In retrospect, it's strange that online courses are still so focused on linear sets of courses the way physical classes need to be. When the material is self-paced and always available, why not pick the goal first, and when you get stuck on something, then branch out to the prerequisites, and so on? 

The standard focus on always moving forward, always progressing, always in order, keeps people from going back when they need to, taking the time to solidify foundations. Standard education makes every bit of information an obstacle to get past as quickly as possible. Shallow knowledge, contextless knowledge, just enough to pass a test, then forget it all and go to the next thing in the queue, until the weak foundation makes it impossible to move forward. 

When moving forward is the only societally accepted option, lack of progress leads to giving up.

No! There's a better way! A way to organize learning that lets us dip our fingers into the best pies, and then go back to eating our dinner, and then a salad if that helps.

Also, learning stuff is super fun and I am really enjoying it!

3. mini-rant of the week

(If you're interested, the intro python course was this one, which I particularly wanted to do to learn how use Jupyter notebooks. I have a whole thing about notebooks I'll talk about sometime. Anyway I liked this particular course (over some others I've tried) because the extensive notes and programming examples in notebook form make the videos unnecessary, so you can focus on interactively actually programming the examples, and skim through the parts you don't need. Some other courses did the opposite, having almost nothing written down and everything in a video of slides with stilted narration that says "note the example shown" so even the transcript is useless. I am all for the right educational video at the right time, but most online course videos exist for zero reason other than to be like "it's a video! online learning! we are so modern unlike those text-based learning things! videoooo! disruptive technology! we're the future, fund us!" and I am SO OVER it. TEXT IS NOT OBSOLETE. AAAAAH.)

4. book of the week

I am currently reading Jaron Lanier's Dawn of the New Everything: Encounters with Reality and Virtual Reality, which has a lot that resonates with me, and many interesting tidbits about the history of virtual reality. All of you VR/AR/XR folks might consider reading it.

Also here is a great quote: "Be tactically pessimistic and strategically optimistic."

5. what next?

I'll be gone the next couple days doing an important business, and then this weekend I'm taking another tiny trip to the bay. Next week I'll be spending a lot of time preparing for the Big November Trip Of Talking To Many Humans. Life is very exciting right now with many potential twists and turns!

Any suggestions on learning resources for my learns? Interesting things up in the world? Thinks to think?

Vi