eliben

How deep did your high school go on complex numbers?

I recall we covered them very lightly (mostly to explore what happens to roots of negative numbers), but we certainly came nowhere near the group theory stuff or linear algebra aspects mentioned in this post.

You are technically correct :) But that's not the point of the footnote, and you're right that I should update it. The point here is that Python and Go don't have the equivalent of "first", and have the programmer rely on the runtime error in lst[0]. Rust can affort to have a "first" method because of Option.

I also remember libraries having a very small limit back in the day, so I was surprised to find out that in the Bay Area libraries typically allow up to 100 books per card!

Yes. Counterintuitive, but it make sense when you take all the factors into account (such that completely shutting down and then later restarting turbines may cost a generator more than paying someone to take power off their hands).

During certain hours of the day in California, electricity is essentially free due to solar overproduction, which sometimes causes negative wholesale prices.

Thanks for the nudge - I've added links to other posts in the series in each one (there are only 3 - you found them all!)

Joshua Tree NP <3

California is a great example; highest electricity prices in the US (not counting Hawaii, which makes sense) despite significant hydro and fantastic solar capacity. In the last few years California runs 100% renewable on many days (and growing) every year.

Economics 101: prices are not set by what goods cost to create + markup. Prices are set by how much people are willing to pay.

Thank you for the feedback. The idea was to first define what we want the basis functions to be (a pretty abstract definition) and then develop how to actually get that from _normal_, continuous functions.

Fixed, thank you! (it's actually r(x)=p(x)-q(x))

(proof-reading through HN is a mildly embarrassing process, sorry about that! I do go over these posts and proof-read them several times myself before publishing)

Thanks for noticing, I'll fix it shortly