374 karma · joined July 11, 2018
To be transparent - I just started the calculus class. I finished the UT Austin Linear Algebra class two weeks ago, and am 7 lectures + readings + 2 problem sets in on the MIT Linear Algebra class and 3 lectures in on the Calculus class.
I will certainly check out the Terrence Parr / Jeremy Howard site, and am super familiar with Khan Academy.
I was a History and Sociology major in college - so I didn't take any math.
If you are like me, and working off an initial base of high school math, I would recommend the following (all free):
Linear Algebra Foundations to Frontiers (UT Austin) Course: https://www.edx.org/course/linear-algebra-foundations-to-fro... Comments: This was a great starting place for me. Good interactive HW exercises, very clear instruction and time-efficient.
Linear Algebra (MIT OpenCourseware) Course: https://ocw.mit.edu/courses/mathematics/18-06-linear-algebra... Comments: This course is apparently the holy grail course for Intro Linear Algebra. One of my colleagues, who did an MS in EE at MIT, said Gilbert Strang was the best teacher he had. I started off with this but had to rewind to the UT class because I didn't have some of the fundamentals (e.g. how to calc a dot product). I'm personally 15% through this, but enjoying it.
Linear Algebra Review PDF (Stanford CS229) Link: http://cs229.stanford.edu/section/cs229-linalg.pdf Comments: This is the set of Linear Algebra review materials they go over at the beginning of Stanford's machine learning class (CS229). This is my workback to know I'm tracking to the right set of knowledge, and thus far, the courses have done a great job of doing so.
Elon is likely frustrated by his limited degree of freedom in his ability to express himself given his role as a chairman and CEO of a $60B public company.
It takes a unique empathy to understand the nature of that frustration - you're super smart, super rich, well-intentioned, but you still can't do everything that you want to do because of the constraints posed by the laws of our society, which by necessity, adhere to a lower common denominator.
The solution here for Elon is relatively straightforward, though. Continue to prove out Tesla's business, and get to the point where you can take the company private.
In terms of the "market being a bust", the statement was a criticism of the current valuation of the cryptocurrency market - particularly, that it is based on a cauldron of unholy factors that I mentioned in the first post.
I'm arguing that cryptocurrencies don't have the same economic model as most startups - which is essentially the expected future value generated by their operations discounted to the presented.
There are startups within that definition that have a low probability of achieving such - but it's the same fundamental economic model that applies to Apple that applies to a seed-stage biotechnology startup.
This doesn't extend to cryptocurrencies - given that currencies don't generate operating cash flows.
This market is a bust, and there's no value-driven economic model to justify cryptos collectively being worth $50B-$100B.
With any startup, there is an expected future value of the company discounted back to the present. It then just becomes a risk-weighted probability question of whether that startup will achieve that expected future value in the expected timeframe.
Conversely, the valuations of the crypto market are driven mostly by momentum and prayers. It's ultimately a case study of what happens when you mix unsophisticated investors, no regulation, frictionless market entry, memes as an investment philosophy ("HODL") and the psychological highs of winning a lot of money. It's gambling, not investing.
In terms of Coinbase - sure, they're selling pickaxes during a gold rush, but gold rushes end and the pickaxe salesmen go out of business too.
To the extent that the investment philosophy leans more towards "HODL" as prices decrease, trading volumes will go down, and trading volumes predicate volatility.
Udacity Likes: I loved Udacity's production quality & instructors. I think they are generally awesome in the balance of teaching concept and practical knowledge. They also don't shy away from more complicated topics like autonomous vehicles, InfoSec, AI / ML, etc., which is a unique asset.
Udacity Dislikes: They are placing too large of a bet on the nanodegree concept. There isn't a clear ROI for students - and it's fairly clear that most companies don't really give a hoot about online certifications.
Their classes are too expensive. Both Udacity and Udemy have great Web Dev classes. Udemy's was $10 for 19 hours of content + responses to any questions I had within hours, and gave me everything I wanted + more. Unfortunately, I had to sift through the Bootcamp and Nanodegree madness on Udacity.
They are unaccredited. My company (maybe most companies?) only subsidizes classes that are accredited. I have a $10,000 annual credit and I use it all on university classes. I would definitely consider Udacity nanowhatevers if I could use my credit on them.
1. Learn math (I majored in history and sociology)
Classes ------------- Linear Algebra: Foundation to Frontiers (UT Austin) Linear Algebra, MIT OpenCourseware Single-Variable Calculus, MIT OpenCourseware Multi-Variable Calculus, MIT OpenCourseware Probability Theory, Stanford CS109
2. Learn machine learning Machine Learning, Stanford CS229 (taught by Andrew Ng) Classes @ deeplearning.ai (also taught by Andrew Ng)
3. Start my own project
It's a drug and mental health issue, unless you are speaking to a broader philosophical point on what "high risk" means.
Is there one of these for React?
My prediction would be that, if successful, this would empower designers and commoditize front end developers (or optimistically, let them focus on more complex logic)
Good luck to the team.