2025-01-27

Today I Learned

• Automate the Boring Stuff
  • Backtracking and Tree Traversal Algorithms
    • queues, weighted graphs
      • traversal strategies
      • recursive process
      • shortest path to a node
    • tour guide
      • https://code.pyret.org/editor#share=1RvlKmzfqD2UfzJ32mCvH__b7Kslx9C3w&v=be0f222
      • Dijkstra’s Algorithm
• Here is the story. Today, I tried to pick up some probability theory reading a textbook, but I was frustrated by my learning process: rereading the chapter and taking notes.
• begging engineers who are very good at debugging to understand that the same exact meta-skill can be used on people. You can crack people, you can predict them with extreme accuracy. You are smart, you are very smart. You can do this @DefenderOfBasic
  • I can predict how I am going to behave as a math beginner. Which mistakes do I frequently make? How can I fix them? Why is this person behaving like they are drunk?
    • In The Inner Game of Tennis, the author shows a technique called non-judgmental observation to improve your play.
    • in The Design of Everyday Things there is a chapter called “Human Error? No, Bad Design”. Why am I behaving so irrationally? No, I can redesign the math so that the mistake won’t happen again!
      • How does a professional mathematician interact with the math compared to a complete beginner?
        • Gilbert Strang demonstrates his thought process very well in his Linear Algebra lectures at MIT. Neel Nanda does this as well.

      • Instead, when an error happens, we should determine why, then redesign the product or the procedures being followed so that it will never occur again or, if it does, so that it will have minimal impact.

      • One big problem is that the natural tendency to blame someone for an error is even shared by those who made the error, who often agree that it was their fault. People do tend to blame themselves when they do something that, after the fact, seems inexcusable. “I knew better,” is a common comment by those who have erred. But when someone says, “It was my fault, I knew better,” this is not a valid analysis of the problem. That doesn’t help prevent its recurrence. When many people all have the same problem, shouldn’t another cause be found? If the system lets you make the error, it is badly designed. And if the system induces you to make the error, then it is really badly designed.

    • Basically, you are Prompt Engineering or having a conversation with yourself. Can you predict how you are going to respond? Are you going to respond with confusion? You are both the reader and the writer! Expose yourself to different kinds of math. How do you react? Are you delighted by it or indifferent to it?
    • We can reduce the number of mistakes we make! We can write better onboarding guides! We can write github issues to improve upon them!!

    • Insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.

    • What do they see that make them act like this? Which belief influences their decision-making process?

    • As so often in mathematics, the importance of the problem lies in where it leads the mind, rather than in the problem itself.