Ask HN: What do you regret in life?

Re:Ask HN: What do you regret in life? by Taek on Monday October 31, 2016 @08:44AM (#12836187)

I regret not diving deeper into probability. I find myself wishing I had a stronger handle on advanced probability almost once a month.

I've been trying to catch up somehow but seems like the time is always running away from me.

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Re:Ask HN: What do you regret in life? by PaulRobinson on Monday October 31, 2016 @08:52AM (#12836250)

Probability is hard because it looks simple, but is deeply unintuitive for quite a while.

I write code in my spare time that makes bets in APIs. It's sort of "sports algotrading". As such I care about probability a lot. I found it quite hard to get a grip, and even now I have to hit the books regularly.

It's rewarding, but take it slow and build up. Sometimes you have to treat advanced maths a bit like you would a fitness regime: what does the C25K of the area you're trying to learn look like? Once that's done, what's the 10K version? The half-marathon? The marathon? And so on.

Everybody starts by getting off the couch though - even if you're working through basic probability classes on khan, you're one step ahead of the you that carried on messing about on HN or Reddit or whatever.

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