Patrick Stevens | Posts

2023

Squashed stacked PRs workflow

Oct 18

Raymond Smullyan chess problem walkthrough

Oct 6

Nix fireside chat outline

Oct 5

Property-based testing introduction

Oct 1

The tiny proof that primes 1 mod 4 are sums of two squares

Sep 28

Notes for a Git fireside chat

Sep 6

Questions I had about transformers

Jul 12

2022

The water filtration industry has played us for absolute fools

May 15

2021

Don't supply `-f` to `rm` unless you know you need it

Oct 25

Argument in a high-trust environment

Oct 21

Crates (existentials in F#)

Oct 19

Metatesting your property-based tests

May 27

In praise of `--dry-run`

May 21

Continuation-passing style

Mar 22

Rewriting the Technical Interview, in Mathematica

Mar 17

Software engineer syllabus

Feb 3

Cyclic dependencies (a note from Hacker News)

Jan 30

An incomplete life evaluation checklist

Jan 21

Find the Bug, C# edition

Jan 18

2020

Dec 28

Dec 26

Christmas dinner notes

Nov 21

Anki as Learning Superpower

Oct 23

General relativity (a note from Hacker News)

Oct 18

Nulls and options (a note from Hacker News)

Oct 10

The uncountability of the reals (a note from Hacker News)

Aug 2

In favour of recursive functions, not imperative constructs, to make loops

Jul 22

Static config (a note from Hacker News)

Apr 5

Defunctionalisation

Mar 4

MIT Mystery Hunt photos

Jan 25

MIT Mystery Hunt 2020 answers

Jan 16

2019

Teaching how to cook (a note from Hacker News)

Dec 27

The stages of mathematics teaching (a note from Hacker News)

Sep 20

MIT Mystery Hunt 2019 answers

Jan 16

2018

Chatting with Don Syme about the F# compiler

Sep 10

Dependent types overview

Jul 21

JSON comments (a note from Hacker News)

Jun 2

What is lost when we move between number systems?

Apr 8

Infinitesimals as an idea that took a long time

Feb 3

2017

Abuse of notation in function application

Nov 5

The relationship between the IMO and research mathematics

Mar 14

Proof of Cauchy-Schwarz

Feb 14

2016

What does Mathematica mean by ComplexInfinity?

Dec 31

How far back does mathematical understanding go?

Aug 10

Aug 7

Aug 5

Jun 15

The use of jargon

Jun 13

Finitistic reducibility

May 25

Tennenbaum's theorem

Apr 27

Modular machines

Apr 21

Independence of the Axiom of Choice (for programmers)

Apr 13

Another Monty Hall explanation

Apr 8

Clojure and Exercism

Mar 28

Why do we get complex numbers in a certain expression?

Mar 3

Friedberg-Muchnik theorem

Feb 5

Representable functors

Jan 26

Multiplicative determinant

Jan 1

2015

Monadicity Theorems

Dec 31

General Adjoint Functor Theorem

Dec 24

My First Forcing

Nov 28

Eilenberg-Moore

Nov 12

Sep 25

Proof by contradiction

Aug 21

Sequence on Awodey's Category Theory

Aug 19

Motivational learning

Jan 29

2014

Latin translation tips

Dec 23

Dec 19

Film recommendation, Interstellar

Dec 9

Christmas carols

Dec 2

Sum-of-two-squares theorem

Sep 9

Python, script shadowing

Aug 26

Parables, chapter 1, verses 1-10

Aug 19

Jul 21

Jul 19

What maths does to the brain

Jul 15

Solvability of nonograms

Jul 13

Possible cons of Soylent

Jun 25

Proof that symmetric matrices are diagonalisable

May 26

Discovering a proof of Sylvester's Law of Inertia

May 3

Sequentially compact iff compact

Apr 26

Cayley-Hamilton theorem

Apr 17

Sample topology question

Apr 15

Useful conformal mappings

Apr 7

Discovering a proof of Heine-Borel

Apr 4

How to discover the Contraction Mapping Theorem

Mar 30

A roundup of some board games

Mar 20

Rage, rage against the poet’s hardest sell

Feb 16

Jan 28

Introduction to functional programming syntax of Mathematica

Jan 24

Denouement of Myst III: Exile

Jan 12

Jan 2

2013

Smartphone Charter

Dec 30

Three explanations of the Monty Hall Problem

Dec 22

The Training Game

Dec 14

The Jean-Paul Sartre Cookbook

Nov 23

Markov Chain card trick

Nov 12

My quest for a new phone

Nov 7

How to do Analysis questions

Oct 24

Oct 20

Training away mental bias

Oct 13

Meaning what you say

Oct 11

Oct 10

How to prove that you are a god

Sep 21

Stumbled across 14th September 2013

Sep 13

Slightly silly Sylow pseudo-sonnets

Aug 31

Topology made simple

Aug 26

Stumbled across 24th August 2013

Aug 24

How to punt in Cambridge

Aug 22

My experiences with flow

Aug 21

Thinking styles

Aug 18

Stumbled across 11th August 2013

Aug 11

Stumbled across 4th August 2013

Aug 4

New computer setup

Aug 4

On to-do lists as direction in life

Jul 30

Stumbled across 29th July 2013

Jul 29

Jul 25

Stumbled across 24th July 2013

Jul 24

The Orbit/Stabiliser Theorem

Jul 22

Jul 21

My objection to the One Logical Leap view

Jul 18

The Multiple Drafts view of consciousness

Jul 14

Prerequisites for hypothetical situations

Jul 14

Stumbled across 13th July 2013

Jul 13

A framework for discussing "pricelessness"

Jul 12

Imre Leader Appreciation Society

Jul 10

Stumbled across 9th July 2013

Jul 9

An obvious improvement to tennis

Jul 8

Jul 7

Cambridge vocab - a guide for the mystified

Jul 6

Cambridge undergrad maths tips

Jul 4

In which I augment the lexicon

Jul 3

Jun 26

Jun 26

CUCaTS Puzzlehunt

Jun 26