So my question is, where can I find more of this stuff? MOOCs are tough to manage with university, but if I wanted to learn more about these mathematical concepts presented in an interesting way, where should I start looking?
I'm a tad bit indecisive about how good I am with CS theory but I know if I took the leap and mastered some basics I would enjoy it. Any recommendations will help.
Also good is the Viterbi Workshop (EDIT: unfortunately the URL below leads to a broken version of the applet.) http://www.alantro.com/viterbi/workshop.htm It used to have animated Java illustrations of the Viterbi algorithm, mentioned in other comments on this post. There are other working applets out there, e.g. http://www.wirelesscommunication.nl/reference/chaptr05/recei...
The general field is called "algorithm animation" but it seems be out of fashion. The old SRC Modula-3 distribution used to contain a cool package for creating animations of algorithms. Here is a video made by the authors: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zIgu9q0vVc0