Top all-time · #12025
Alex Shtoff
Personal blog · alexshtf.github.ioaimath
Alex Shtoff's personal blog at alexshtf.github.io covers ai and math. Since 2024, 6 different Hacker News readers have linked it 6 times, most often “Are polynomial features the root of all evil? (2024)”. It is still writing: the last post was on 2026-07-01, and you can follow it by feed.
Too few sampled comments (2) to say how often HN recommends it.?
Why HN links it
HN readers link Alex Shtoff's posts on polynomial features and fitting, such as a degree-10,000 Legendre-basis polynomial that shows double descent instead of overfitting.
Summarised by Claude from a sample of 2 HN comments that link here. Each comment is marked recommending, critical or neutral (citing without judging); how this works.
Blog on optimization, machine learning, and software development.
Most-linked posts?
- Are polynomial features the root of all evil? (2024)2 people · 2 mentions · first linked 2024-01-23
What Hacker News says?
In another post ( https://alexshtf.github.io/2025/03/27/Free-Poly.html ) the author fits a degree-10000 (ten thousand!) polynomial using the Legendre basis. The polynomial _doesn't overfit_, demonstrating double descent. "What happened to our overfitting from ML 101 textbooks? There is no regularization. No control of the degree. But “magically” our high degree polynomial is not that bad!" So... are _all_ introducti…
Comment linking /2025/03/27/Free-Poly.html
on “Are polynomial features the root of all evil? (2024)”Submitted Are polynomial features the root of all evil? (2024) as a story · 188 points
HN discussionThis part about double decent is really good: https://alexshtf.github.io/2025/03/27/Free-Poly.html#fnref:2
Comment linking /2025/03/27/Free-Poly.html
on “Are polynomial features the root of all evil? (2024)”Submitted Paying attention to feature distribution alignment as a story · 10 points
HN discussionSubmitted Keeping the polynomial monster under control as a story · 2 points
HN discussionSubmitted Are polynomial features the root of all evil? A myth as a story · 1 points
HN discussion