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Comment by palerdot | Hacker News Reader

If you are into watching programming videos, I would recommend Siraj Raval Youtube channel - https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCWN3xxRkmTPmbKwht9FuE5A

It is quirky, funny and above all very short and crisp and gives you a quick overview of things. Most of his videos are related to AI/ML.

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I'm with the others on this. Never mind the cringe - he's all show, so much so I think he's bluffing (doesn't know ML). He amps up on "character" so much you're excited for the knowledge drop - when it comes, it's so fast and technical there's nothing to gain from it. The adage "if you can't explain something simply you don't understand it" applies. I was hoping he understood ML enough to boil things down; instead he spews equations and jargon so fast (1) you don't catch it, (2) I think he's just reading from a source. He doesn't go for essence, he goes for speed - and that's not helpful.

Again, the cringe isn't the problem directly; but that it's a cover for his bluff. The result is a not-newbie-friendly resource.

I just checked out the "About" section of his Youtube channel.

> I've been called Bill Nye of Computer Science Kanye of Code Beyonce of Neural Networks Osain Bolt of Learning Chuck Norris of Python Jesus Christ of Machine Learning but it's the other way. They are the Siraj Raval of X

I mean, seriously?

I was watching a twitch livestream where he was coding an RL thing. His code was just wrong (I paused it and looked through it), but it compiled anyways and started outputting stats, so he declared "I'm such a baller! It's learning!" and then quickly concluded the program. It's one thing to find his style annoying, but he is neither a strong thinker nor coder.

I've personally found him to be more of a "showman" and a youtube "star" rather than someone technically adept with data sciences. He is good at what he does - which is building cool things using cool tools/api.

But I wouldn't recommend him as a good resource to learn core ML from or figure out how stuff work internally.

That rapping video with three women dancing in the background is cringe worthy. No comment on whether the AI lessons are any good.

I think Siraj is a tool user, not a tool maker.

He just pipes input through bunch of libraries that are available off the shelf. Does that produce a useful output? Sure. Could he write any of them himself, or explain how any of them work beyond a superficial overview? I doubt it.

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