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Scalar, Vector, and Matrix Derivatives Demystified
- 17 January 2023
If you’re working in the fields of machine learning, control theory, or any other STEM field that involves functions with multiple variables, you will almost certainly end up working with multi-variable derivatives at some point. Gradients and Jacobians can be fairly intuitive to work with once you wrap your head around them, but taking matrix-valued derivatives of matrices is a little more intimidating. What does that even look like? How do you implement that in code?
A Family Tradition
- 03 April 2022
My church holds a global conference twice a year. My wife and I have the tradition that on the weekend it takes place, we bake cinnamon rolls for our family (us and our two daughters). While we’re eating them, we each take turns telling the other members of our family what we appreciate about them. It can be anything from appreciating their individual talents to admiring character traits they have and more. This tradition actually was started by my Mom when I was much younger–my wife and I have continued it with our own kids.
Power of i
- 26 March 2022
A day ago I was nerd sniped by a YouTube video asking what the value of the following expression is:
Job Search Websites: Hacks for Career Planning
- 24 March 2022
I had a conversation with a BYU student today who is about to enter graduate school and ultimately wants to pursue a career in industry. During our conversation I mentioned a method for leveraging job search websites such as Indeed.com or Monster.com to decide between pursuing a Masters’ or PhD degree. He had never used either of those websites before, but was excited to try out the method I mentioned.
First Post Using Sphinx Book Theme
- 29 September 2021
I’m in process of switching my website from the mkdocs Material theme to the Sphinx Book theme (which underlies the Jupyter Book project).
Nov 7, 2020
- 07 November 2020
- Category: Programming
Bear with me as I work out how to express this idea clearly.
Oct 1, 2020
- 01 October 2020
- Category: Typing
I decided to take the plunge and purchase an Ergodox EZ keyboard. This wasn’t an immediate decision–one does not simply purchase fantastically expensive, strange-looking keyboards on a whim. I should note that I already have a high-quality, fairly expensive keyboard (Daskeyboard with all-blank keycaps) that I got for free (long story). However, as I’ve accepted the fact that programming will inevitably consume the overwhelming majority of my time working in industry, I’ve realized that I need more. Specifically, I need my keyboard to be
Sept 30, 2020
- 30 September 2020
- Category: Family
My 18-month-old daughter has been showing a remarkable aptitude for music and singing. Over the last 1 1/2 months she’s learned several songs to the point of being able to sing them herself. She’s still working on word pronunciation, but her rhythm and tonality are remarkably accurate.
August 19, 2020
- 19 August 2020
- Category: Life
My wife recently created two aphorisms for her life that I think are remarkably profound:
August 10, 2020
- 10 August 2020
- Category: Multiple
I can’t believe that I have been using Matlab for almost 8 years now and have only just discovered the axis square command. This would have been so nice to know years ago…
August 3, 2020
- 03 August 2020
- Category: Music
I have been extremely impressed by the quality of Spitfire Audio Labs’ line of free sampled instruments. I’ve been getting back into composing with them recently, and the quality is astoundingly good. My favorites at this point are probably the soft piano, choir, and music box (no, I am not composing a song with all three of them at once). If you’re looking for VSTs that simply sound good right out of the box, look no further.
Oct 6, 2020
- 29 July 2020
- Category: Random
I have discovered a new source of entertainment: videos of tall trucks trying (and failing) to drive unscathed through short overpasses. These accidents are apparently so common at one intersection in Durham, North Carolina that there is an entire YouTube channel and website devoted to it. Very educational (no really–respect the height limit). I find it inexplicably riveting.
July 29, 2020
- 29 July 2020
- Category: Programming
I’ve always been thrown off by the fact that the Matlab programming language doesn’t support pointers. This has thrown me off in the past when trying to optimize Matlab code–it’s a whole different paradigm from C/C++ code where passing by reference or by pointer can help boost speed and memory performance significantly.
July 28, 2020
- 28 July 2020
- Category: Programming
It turns out that Matlab has no built-in capability for outputting colored text (although there seems to be a file exchange library for that). However if you want to keep things really simple (and if you like the color red), you can print red text by using the fprintf command: