[HN Gopher] Show HN: Learn time series with a story illustrated ... ___________________________________________________________________ Show HN: Learn time series with a story illustrated by Stable Diffusion We just published this tutorial about ARMA(p,q) models for modeling time series, and how to fit them using Python. But while it's a tutorial, it has a few twists. First, it's interactive: you'll learn by solving problems and making choices. Second, it's a story: you play a character in a plot that gives you real-life problems to solve. And third, it's illustrated: we spent many hours hacking with Stable Diffusion, GIMP, and matplotlib. This is chapter 3 in our interactive course, Everyday Data Science. [1] The first half of the chapter is free. You can get the whole course forever for $29. These chapters are a lot of effort to produce, so please let us know what you think :-) - Andrew Carr [2] and Jim Fisher [3] [1]: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32118530 [2]: https://twitter.com/andrew_n_carr [3]: https://jameshfisher.com/ Author : jamesfisher Score : 79 points Date : 2022-09-08 16:34 UTC (6 hours ago) (HTM) web link (tigyog.app) (TXT) w3m dump (tigyog.app) | redhal wrote: | I find it a little shady to wait for people to get to half the | course before requiring to buy it. | sliken wrote: | Indeed, especially at an eye popping $30 an hour or so for | content. | jamesfisher wrote: | Hi, it's actually $29 for the entire course, of which this | post is just one chapter. Was there some content that | suggested it was $29 for just this chapter? I need to fix | that if so! | sliken wrote: | Ah, that's a surprise. It went from 0 to 46% then it popped | a "buy me" dialog, I had assumed it was $29 the 47-100%. I | only took 10-20 minutes and seemed pretty pricey for | another 10-20 minutes. Maybe add a "$29 for this course/N | chapters" or "$29 for a course and show the syllabus". | jamesfisher wrote: | Thanks for the reply! I can see now that it's not super | clear. I might assume the same thing at first sight. I'll | see what I can do to clarify it. | zorgmonkey wrote: | It is effectively a free trial of the course, which seems fine | as long as it is disclosed upfront that the rest of the content | is paid. | | Edit: after actually using the site I see your point, the only | indicator is the small text "free preview" which I probably | wouldn't have noticed without first having read the Show HN | post. | jamesfisher wrote: | Hi! Do you think there's any way we can make it clearer what's | going on? I put "free preview" at the top, but perhaps it can | be easily missed. | merlincorey wrote: | I also didn't notice the "Free Preview" on the progress bar | until reading about it in this thread. | | As distasteful as it may be, an actual heading or otherwise | strongly formatted text note near the top should suffice for | most people. | StrictDabbler wrote: | It looks like you cut the preview from 46% of this chapter to | just 22% of the chapter... I went back to look for a quote | from about 41% of the way through to explain to another | commenter why the style is so effective and ran into the | paywall earlier than I had my first time through. Just FYI, | the content before 22% isn't strong enough to sell the | preview. It has to get to the questions where you're asking | for intuitive guesses on the real mathematical expressions to | make it clear how valuable this is. | | Honestly, you should just be giving away this whole chapter. | If you did then I could forward it to colleagues, let them | learn this one concept and suggest they get the rest of the | info. | | As it is I really can't do that. It'd be like giving a friend | a flyer that was shoved under my door. | fudged71 wrote: | Very cool. Are these interactive stories created with Twine? | StrictDabbler wrote: | I find myself irritated by how effective this method of | instruction is. | | I'm not sure which is more annoying: | | -going through years of education in pure mathematics without | this kind of tutorial | | -not having come up with this method myself, when it's _so close_ | to the dumbed-down edutainment software of the 90 's | | Every university course should start with at least a day of | instruction written in this style. | | [kicks dirt] | sliken wrote: | Heh, indeed, the similarly effective method if gamification. | Even relatively "dry" things like algebra can be gamified, | Dragonbox is a good example. From my limited experience (1 | kid), it works really well. | eutectic wrote: | Not to be rude, but I found it a bit infantilizing. I would | rather just have the information. | StrictDabbler wrote: | That's fair in a sense but it also looks like they moved the | preview paywall much earlier in the chapter, 22% instead of | 46%. | | Towards the middle of the chapter they start asking intuitive | questions about how coefficients in the power-series map to | the real-life concepts they've been discussing "childishly" | up until then. | | It's a major turning point and I wonder if you just didn't | get the opportunity to see that shift. It's infantilizing | right up until it isn't. | garren wrote: | A product that takes a similar approach is: "A Curious Moon" @ | BigMachine [0] | | It's not an intro to time series or data analysis, but it's a | great intro to Postgres, db administration, and etl that | follows a fun and compelling storyline. The presentation is | different, but the "edutainment" style is similar. | | [0] https://bigmachine.io/products/a-curious-moon/ | werzum wrote: | I love this type of education - do you know where I can find | more content like that? I really have trouble finding stuff | like this just by Googling; rather, I seem to stumble over it | from time to time. | sophie_l wrote: | Nice storytelling, and I love the images! | iandanforth wrote: | How did you get Stable Diffusion to write 'congo.com' on multiple | boxes correctly? I have to assume there was gimp editing and then | blending? | jamesfisher wrote: | Yeah, I used the perspective tool in GIMP for that. That was | the main bit of "editing in post". | | I was saying earlier, it would be cool if there was an ML tool | for adding/modifying text in images. Similar to how there are | additional tools for fixing faces, super resolution, and so on. | mikejulietbravo wrote: | This is really cool! We'd love to help you turn this into a | Lightning App if you'd be interested | mikejulietbravo wrote: | Lightning App = Hosted version of this with a full UI attached. ___________________________________________________________________ (page generated 2022-09-08 23:01 UTC)