E19: When Failure Is Not An Option The CS Primer Show podcast

50:28

Brian "Beej Jorgensen" Hall joins Oz and Charlie to dive into the joy and art of learning computer science. It's all here - achieving flow, "How to Solve It" by Polya, self-publishing guides/books on the web, Beej's take on AI and coding, and, of course, the origin of the "Beej Jorgensen" moniker. Shownotes: Beej's website: https://beej.us/ Beej's guide to learning computer science: https://beej.us/guide/bglcs/ Hacker News post on Charlie's short story about a giant diamond asteroid…

The CS Primer Show

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E24: When is binge learning better than consistency? 51:30

7 weeks ago51:30

51:30

Oz and Charlie vibe-chat their way through respective Mathacademy experiences + reviews, leading to a discussion of "binge learning" vs more-structured, consistent learning / time-tracking. Also, Oz shares that he's currently reading a math textbook with this incredible sentence in its introduction: "I consider the mathematical treatment of these problems to be among the chief glories of Western civilization, and I hope you agree." Shownotes: mathacademy.com csprimer.com…

The CS Primer Show

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E23: MathAcademy and the efficient pursuit of mastery 48:27

17 weeks ago48:27

48:27

There's something about MathAcademy that just works for learning math (for both kids and adults - ask Reddit!), and we're chatting with Justin Skycak - Chief Quant & Director of Analytics at MathAcademy - to try to figure it out. Shownotes: justinmath.com -- Justin's personal website mathacademy.com 3blue1brown Cell biology by the numbers ExecuteProgram Star Trek 2009 The Math Academy Way -- Math Academy's working draft book, authored by Justin, which answers the following questions: What techniques exist to maximize student learning and talent development, particularly in the context of math? Why are these techniques so impactful, and if they are indeed so impactful, then why are they so often absent from traditional classrooms? How does Math Academy leverage these techniques? Math Academy Origin Story, 2014-20 -- from Sandy & Jason's perspective, with a focus on how the original in-school program and early software came to be Math Academy Origin Story, 2019-23 -- from Justin's perspective, with a focus on teaching in that school program and getting the algorithms in place to turn it into a fully automated system News Articles about Math Academy's original in-school program Oz on X Charlie on X Oz's website Charlie's website…

The CS Primer Show

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E22: Building HR software for dying on Mars? 1:01:35

27 weeks ago1:01:35

1:01:35

Ammar Mian is a software engineer and the co-founder of startup health tech company Malla - and another former student of Oz's and Bradfield School of Computer Science! Many software engineers daydream about starting their own company one day, so we've got Ammar on the show this week to give us the goods. Is it still fun? Can you still get into flow? Are you still coding? Does Oz want to die on Mars? All this and more! Shownotes: Malla The Wiggles The Six Levels of Interaction with a System Zone of proximal development Red-bellied black snake Reentry [book] - more recent history of SpaceX Red Mars [book] - Kim Stanley Robinson…

The CS Primer Show

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E21: Make the easy things harder (with Madison Kanna) 57:14

27 weeks ago57:14

57:14

Madison Kanna is a lifelong learner and self-taught programmer who learns in public, and Madison joins Oz and Charlie to share tactics for getting things done (with their learning goals) - and the importance of having fun along the way when learning computer science. Shownotes Madison Kanna's site The Cost of Forsaking C Flow - Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi Ryan Holiday - Don't Talk about Writing a Novel…

The CS Primer Show

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E20: Jason Benn's path to ML engineering 54:33

32 weeks ago54:33

54:33

Jason Benn is an ML engineer and truly the epitome of a lifelong learner (Cal Newport even wrote about Jason in one of his books on learning!). Oz and Charlie catch up with Jason on his current self-directed ML sabbatical - which he's corralled into a co-working cohort called mleclub.com (similar to Recurse Center but with an ML / AI focus). We discuss the tactical, strategic, and emotional side to effective self-directed learning, and close out with a new segment tentatively called "Would you read the top article on Hacker News right now?". Shownotes Minerva University [book] So Good They Can't Ignore You - Cal Newport [book] Why Greatness Cannot Be Planned - Kenneth O. O. Stanley, Joel Lehman Jason Benn's website MLE Clu b…

The CS Primer Show

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E19: When failure is not an option 43:26

40 weeks ago43:26

43:26

Does your summer roadtrip across America include Saturn V Rockets, self-driving cars, dinosaur bones, and maybe Kittyhawk? Well, then you might be Oz and family! Charlie and Oz catch up on Oz's grand tour of America's inspiring hubs of ambition and technology, with plenty of detouring into the wonderful book genre of video game memoirs. Shownotes [book] Failure Is Not An Option - Gene Kranz [book] Skunkworks - Ben Rich [book] The Wright Brothers - David McCullough [book] Masters of Doom - David Kushner [documentary] Indie Game the Movie [book] Sid Meier's Memoir!: A Life in Computer Games [book] The Making of Prince of Persia - Jordan Mechner [book] Tomorrow, Tomorrow, Tomorrow - Gabrielle Zevin [song] "This song wrote itself" - Charlie's song about self-driving cars, performed in a self-driving car Hack Club's "Blot" pen plotter Hack Club…

The CS Primer Show

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E18: Do you love programming as much as Thorsten Ball does? 50:34

1 year ago50:34

50:34

Programming is the best! We're chatting with Thorsten Ball (self-published author of Writing an Interpreter in Go and Writing a Compiler in Go) about all of our mutual favorite topics: learning new stuff, great textbooks, writing, and why bugs are actually great (a gift, even!). Shownotes Writing an Interpreter in Go (Thorsten's book): Writing a Compiler in Go (Thorsten's book) The Dragon Book (compilers) Thorsten's newsletter : Thorsten's website Zed.dev Sourcegraph…

The CS Primer Show

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E17: 1000 Hours Away From Being Exceptional 59:00

1 year ago59:00

59:00

Zach Latta is the founder of Hack Club (hackclub.com). Zach's a high school dropout who's now helped 30k high school students around the world start their own coding clubs. He also helped build the much-beloved "yo" texting app in 2014. This is a fun conversation about coding in school, being a kid, the importance of friendship in learning, and realizing that you can make awesome stuff with awesome people in this world. Shownotes: Hack Club László Polgár Yo App : Neopets Putting the You in CPU Pizza Hut BOOK-IT Program…

The CS Primer Show

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E16: What if textbooks were actually fun? 51:43

1 year ago51:43

51:43

Oz and Charlie brainstorm their "Stripe Press for kids" publishing idea! Shownotes: Klutz Press Charlie's blog post about Klutz Press Hacker News discussion about Charlie's Klutz Press blog Little Schemer : https://mitpress.mit.edu/978026256099... Abstract Algebra: A Student Friendly Approach : https://www.amazon.com/Abstract-Algeb... Computer Systems: A Programmer's Perspective : https://www.amazon.com/Computer-Syste... Intel Celeron The Diamond Age Quantum County Execute Program Mitsumasa Anno Oz's Requests for Collaboration…

The CS Primer Show

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E15: Finding your live wire for motivation 1:31:40

1 year ago1:31:40

1:31:40

Brandon Hendrickson (creator of scienceisweird.com) says no one's ever asked him about the sabertooth tiger skull in his Zoom background - until now! Brandon's a teacher steeped in the ideas of Kieran Egan - a prolific educational theorist who believes the world is FASCINATING and that IMAGINATION is key to how we humans learn. We explore how Egan's approach could work for autodidact software engineers, offer untold book suggestions, and, of course, propose some ways that ChatGPT might be able to help us along the way. Shownotes: Science is WEIRD Brandon's 2023 Astral Codex Ten book review contest winning review of Kieran Egan's THE EDUCATED MIND Kieran Egan (wikipedia) A New History of Greek Mathematics - Reviel Netz Die Hard water jug challenge XKCD someone is wrong on the internet…

The CS Primer Show

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E14: Brit Cruise and the computer magic show 1:13:47

2 years ago1:13:47

1:13:47

Brit Cruise creates educational videos, learning experiments, and other amazing things that "connect young people with their futures as young as possible." He's worked with Khan Academy, Codecademy, Pixar, Disney, Unity, and more to conjure up magical educational experiences for kids. Shownotes: Brit Cruise's website Storyxperiential X in a Box Art of the Problem Pixar in a Box Khan Academy James Burke "Connections"…

The CS Primer Show

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E13: Why some people learn much faster than others 1:05:05

2 years ago1:05:05

1:05:05

Charlie wants to talk about the latest Paul Graham essay "How to Do Great Work" and Oz wants to talk about jiu-jitsu (again). Show notes: How to Do Great Work - Paul Graham You and Your Research - Richard Hamming " Jozef Chen On Rapid Learning From Jiu-Jitsu Instructionals & Technique Tinkering" Jozef Chen recent competition victory Mikey Musumeci on Joe Rogan "There's no speed limit" - Derek Sivers Teach Your Child to Read in 100 Easy Lessons Oz's article about how his 3 year old learned to read Laura Deming on The Good Time Show #computerscience #learning #education #jiujitsu #startup #technology…

The CS Primer Show

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E12: Two self-taught engineers building large scale data systems 55:00

2 years ago55:00

55:00

We're joined by the co-founders of Warpstream Labs, Richie Artoul and Ryan Worl, to talk about how exploring your curiosity as a software engineer can lead to all sorts of interesting avenues and opportunities, like going from a coding bootcamp grad to building Warpstream - a Kafka-compatible data streaming platform. You may remember Richie from our previous podcast Escaping Web! Richie is one of Oz's students at Bradfield, and he's always up to something interesting and computer science-y. Shownotes: Warpstream Labs Kafka is Dead, Long Live Kafka (Warpstream blog) Richie's "Escaping Web" episode Introducing Husky (Datadog blog) Turing Tumble (game where you build logic gates with marbles)…

The CS Primer Show

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E11: Helping kids fall in love with computers 1:03:03

2 years ago1:03:03