In some ways, photography is to visual artists what piano is to musicians. I can get you to play a somewhat accurate rendition of Mary Had a Little Lamb in about 2 minutes, and if it isn’t in tune, that’s the piano’s fault, not yours. Similarly, if you have a camera, you can create an image in about two seconds, and if the image quality sucks, it’s probably the camera’s fault, not yours.

You’ve started a new job, you’ve stumbled into a conversation that’s been happening for several decades, and you’re feeling way too lost to even begin to follow what anyone is talking about, let alone participate. You’re confused, so you go see John, who seems to be semi-acquainted with the people having the conversation. You briefly sketch out what (you think) you heard, and tell him that you didn’t really understand anything anyone said.

Here’s a look at some of the articles and books I’ve been reading lately, or at least, the ones that stuck out to me. Originally, I wanted to do this as a weekly series, inspired by Cory Doctorow’s link posts where he comments on various articles he’s read - but I don’t have that kind of time. Also, I’m really not that great at remembering the various articles I’ve stumbled through online, so you’re going to get these when you get them.

If you are like me, you did not particularly enjoy math in high school, so the idea of learning an entirely new type of math in university might be terrifying to you. I know this can be scary and overwhelming (it was for me!), so here are some things I learned when taking my first proof-based mathematics course. Hopefully you find this helpful.

One of the things I’ve been thinking a lot about lately is the fact that there are two main types of textbooks. There are reference textbooks, which are for people who are already versed in the subject area, typically academic researchers, professors, and the like. They tend to be large, contain massive amounts of information, and be unintelligible to everyone but their target audience. Then, there are expository textbooks, which are for people who actually want to learn things (aka me, a confused undergraduate student).