Meanwhile, on the Internet...

... when will I possibly find the time to study all this?

• Research Debt

  The insidious thing about research debt is that it’s normal. Everyone takes it for granted, and doesn’t realize that things could be different. For example, it’s normal to give very mediocre explanations of research, and people perceive that to be the ceiling of explanation quality. On the rare occasions that truly excellent explanations come along, people see them as one-off miracles rather than a sign that we could systematically be doing better.

• Operating System: From 0 to 1

  This book helps you gain the foundational knowledge required to write an operating system from scratch. Hence the title, 0 to 1.

  After completing this book, at the very least you will learn:

  • How to write an operating system from scratch by reading hardware datasheets. In the real world, it works like that. You won’t be able to consult Google for a quick answer.
  • A big picture of how each layer of a computer is related to the other, from hardware to software.
  • Write code independently. It’s pointless to copy and paste code. Real learning happens when you solve problems on your own. Some examples are given to kick start, but most problems are yours to conquer. However, the solutions are available online for you to examine after giving it a good try.
  • Linux as a development environment and how to use common tools for low-level programming.
  • x86 assembly in-depth.
  • How a program is structured so that an operating system can run.
  • How to debug a program running directly on hardware with gdb and QEMU.
  • Linking and loading on bare metal x86_64, with pure C. No standard library. No runtime overhead.

• The System Design Primer

  Learning how to design scalable systems will help you become a better engineer.

  System design is a broad topic. There is a vast amount of resources scattered throughout the web on system design principles.

  This repo is an organized collection of resources to help you learn how to build systems at scale.

• Calling Bullshit in the Age of Big Data

  Our learning objectives are straightforward. After taking the course, you should be able to:

  • Remain vigilant for bullshit contaminating your information diet.
  • Recognize said bullshit whenever and wherever you encounter it.
  • Figure out for yourself precisely why a particular bit of bullshit is bullshit.
  • Provide a statistician or fellow scientist with a technical explanation of why a claim is bullshit.
  • Provide your crystals-and-homeopathy aunt or casually racist uncle with an accessible and persuasive explanation of why a claim is bullshit.

  We will be astonished if these skills do not turn out to be among the most useful and most broadly applicable of those that you acquire during the course of your college education.

• The Myers diff algorithm: part 1

  In this series of articles, I’d like to walk you through the default diff algorithm used by Git. It was developed by Eugene W. Myers, and the original paper is available online. While the paper is quite short, it is quite mathematically dense and is focussed on proving that it works. The explanations here will be less rigorous, but will hopefully be more intuitive, giving a detailed walk-through of what the algorithm actually does and how it works.