Hacker News: leopd

New comment by leopd in "Cleve Moler has died"

leopd — Fri, 22 May 2026 11:32:06 +0000

I also barely knew Cleve directly, but his impact and insight was legendary. I got to work at The Mathworks early in my career, and the respect Cleve had was clearly deserved. Technically brilliant, but also with a keen foresight for where the industry was going and how to best serve it. RIP

New comment by leopd in "The Illustrated Transformer"

leopd — Mon, 22 Dec 2025 19:38:13 +0000

I think this video does a pretty good job explaining it, starting about 10:30 minutes in: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S27pHKBEp30

New comment by leopd in "Harvey Mudd Miniature Machine"

leopd — Wed, 10 Sep 2025 21:55:04 +0000

That was the class where I really learned how to prove things in math. Very challenging, and rewarding class.

New comment by leopd in "Paul A. M. Dirac, Interview by Friedrich Hund (1982) [video]"

leopd — Sun, 23 Mar 2025 03:45:42 +0000

Same

New comment by leopd in "Ask HN: Can someone ELI5 transformers and the “Attention is all we need” paper?"

leopd — Wed, 17 May 2023 23:38:43 +0000

I don't think you really want a 5yo's version, because that's "computers can be smart". But for an SDE1-level explanation I made this video which has gotten tons of compliments and keeps people watching year after year:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S27pHKBEp30

It's in the context of NLP, which is where transformers started of course.

New comment by leopd in "The Golden Age of Quantum Physics"

leopd — Sat, 04 Sep 2021 17:08:42 +0000

"Thirty Years that Shook Physics", by George Gamow, fits the bill pretty well.