Math Blog

There was a post about that exact topic on math-blog recently http://math-blog.com/2016/02/01/was-richard-feynman-a-great-teacher/ Summary: he wasn't a great undergraduate teacher.

I believe the article followed Hardy's quote, and I followed the article lead. I realized after posting that it might be seen as male oriented but I believe the same is true for female mathematicians. There are quite a few female mathematicians who made important contributions. My wife wrote a top 10 of sort on my blog a few years ago: http://math-blog.com/2008/09/28/10-remarkable-female-mathematicians/

After I read this article (which I see is submitted by the founder of this interesting blog, now a blog with many guest articles), I went to the reading list page on the blog site. There are many VERY GOOD books about mathematics listed there, http://math-blog.com/mathematics-books/ but the subtopic with the most disappointing recommendations was actually the subtopic on statistics. Two of my favorite online articles on statistics education http://statland.org/MAAFIXED.PDF and http://escholarship.org/uc/item/6hb3k0nz both point to better books on statistics and the key issues in the discipline.

These two books will get you started, I was very much in the same boat as you and endeavored to improve my mathematical skills in a self directed manner. "Practical Mathematics", C. I. Palmer (great for practice and learning your stuff in a framework that isn't boring) "Mathematics for the Nonmathematician", Morris Kline (great for staying inspired, it teaches a lot of history with good exercises) This website also has some great recommendations for books: http://math-blog.com/2007/07/17/ten-must-read-books-about-mathematics/ Good luck! I've enjoyed math much more since I've tackled it on my own time and under my own desire.

Maybe not "daily", but very frequently: here is a small selection of some of the small sites on my newsblur newsfeed list: [0] http://www.jamesaltucher.com : Much self-pity, but also sometimes quite funny. http://www.astrobio.net/latestnews_rss/news.xml : Is there life on other planets? http://kaygun.tumblr.com/ http://www.friday.com/bbum : Coding, hardware projects, generally interesting. http://bestyoucanbe.blogspot.com/ : Insights into the education system in regard to the raising of his neurologically non-typical son. http://blog.lmorchard.com http://ex-muslim.org.uk : Oppression of atheists in the Muslim world. http://clojurefun.wordpress.com : Clojure! http://scientopia.org/blogs/goodmath : Bad science, denialism. http://blog.willbenton.com : Music, logic, programming, etc. http://www.groklaw.net : Maybe not "small"; detailed analysis of important legal cases. http://hicksdesign.co.uk/journal : Web design. http://www.holovaty.com/ : "I'm co-creator and co-Benevolent Dictator For Life of the open-source Django Web framework" http://prometheus.med.utah.edu/~bwjones : Combines talented photography, photoessays, and study of the retina. http://lee-phillips.org : I regularly check my site to see if it's still working. http://chronicle.com/blogs/linguafranca : Language issues; can be amusing or stupid. http://freethoughtblogs.com/maryamnamazie : Freedom for women in the Muslim world. http://math-blog.com : Infrequently updated, but often…

I'd like to link to the top HN story now: http://math-blog.com/2014/03/10/stem-shortage-claims-and-facebooks-19-… The WhatsApp guys are experienced engineers who were rejected from FB and Twitter. Prepare yourself for ageism. Your path is to create a $19B company.

Extra resources: http://www.ocf.berkeley.edu/~abhishek/chicmath.htm http://math-blog.com/mathematics-books/

If you do an HN search for "shortage" you'll see many links, to things like: http://math-blog.com/2014/03/10/stem-shortage-claims-and-facebooks-19-… - which points out that it's not "difficult for employers and potential employees", giving an example of how Facebook decided to not employ the people who became the founders of WhatsApp, then paid $19 billion for their company a few years later. http://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2013/04/the-myth-of-americ… - titled "The Myth of America's Tech-Talent Shortage: And what it should mean for immigration reform." If you want the economic details, you might look at at http://www.epi.org/files/2013/bp359-guestworkers-high-skill-labor-mark… , which (among many things) points out that two people get a STEM degree for each STEM job available. The general conclusion is that there is no shortage, and that complaints by various large businesses about a lack of trained people is a strategy to pay lower wages and spend less on training. This has been known for over a decade. Eg, http://www.cis.org/sites/cis.org/files/articles/2005/back1305.html concludes """Overwhelmingly, the H-1B program is used to import workers at the very bottom of the wage scale. The wide gap between wages for U.S. workers and H-1B workers helps explain why industry demand for H-1B workers is so high and why the annual visa quotas are being exhausted. Many in industry have called…