Top all-time · #4888
Austin Rochford
Personal blog · austinrochford.com/posts · on HN as MidsizeBlowfishmathdataprogramming
Austin Rochford's personal blog at austinrochford.com covers math, data and programming. Since 2013, 16 different Hacker News readers have linked it 33 times, most often “Solving Battleship with Approximate Bayesian Computation and Thompson Sampling”. It is still writing: the last post was on 2026-09-06, and you can follow it by feed.
Too few sampled comments (5) to say how often HN recommends it.?
Why HN links it
HN readers link Austin Rochford's posts on math and probability, such as a Fibonacci closed form via generating functions, the measure of the rationals, and probabilistic programming with PyMC.
Summarised by Claude from a sample of 5 HN comments that link here. Each comment is marked recommending, critical or neutral (citing without judging); how this works.
{Math, Data, Software}
Most-linked posts?
- /posts/2013-11-01-generating-functions-and-fibonacci-numbers.html3 people · 3 mentions · first linked 2016-04-25
- Solving Battleship with Approximate Bayesian Computation and Thompson Sampling3 people · 3 mentions · first linked 2021-09-03
- Bayesian Survival Analysis in Python with Pymc32 people · 2 mentions · first linked 2015-10-07
What Hacker News says?
It does- I remember enough from Linear Algebra that vector spaces aren't completely foreign, which helps a lot. I think the generating-function method[1] is a case of pulling out a powertool (generating functions) to prove a simple thing to demonstrate the power of the tool, whereas your explanation takes the direct route and connects more of the threads about why it's true. [1] found an instance here: http://austin…
Comment linking /posts/2013-11-01-generating-functions-and-fibonacci-numbers.html
on “An integer formula for Fibonacci numbers”Submitted The Median-of-Medians Algorithm as a story · 115 points
HN discussionGoogle "fibonacci generating functions", for a more careful derivation. The first hit is: http://austinrochford.com/posts/2013-11-01-generating-functi...
Comment linking /posts/2013-11-01-generating-functions-and-fibonacci-numbers.html
on “An integer formula for Fibonacci numbers”Submitted My Most Interesting Interview Problem as a story · 36 points
HN discussionIf you want to look further on this fascinating topic [1]: https://austinrochford.com/posts/intro-prob-prog-pymc.html [2]: https://vincentk1991.github.io/Bayesian-regression-tutorial/ I can't recommend enough [3]: https://academic.oup.com/book/54722 the best book on the subject with a Coursera series of top quality
Comment linking /posts/intro-prob-prog-pymc.html
on “Monte-Carlo Simulations”Submitted Generating Functions and Fibonacci Numbers as a story · 24 points
HN discussionThe rationals have measure zero, so almost all reals are irrational. The Cantor set is an example of an uncountable set which also has measure zero. http://austinrochford.com/posts/2013-12-31-almost-no-rationa...
Comment linking /posts/2013-12-31-almost-no-rationals.html
on “Inventor Claims to Have Solved Floating Point Error Problem”Submitted The Importance of Sequential Testing as a story · 19 points
HN discussionExactly. And fibonacci numbers also have a closed form which can be (in theory) evaluated in O(1): http://austinrochford.com/posts/2013-11-01-generating-functi...
Comment linking /posts/2013-11-01-generating-functions-and-fibonacci-numbers.html
on “Tail Recursion Tactics: Fibonacci”Submitted Polynomial Regression and the Importance of Cross-Validation as a story · 6 points
HN discussionSubmitted Solving Battleship with Approximate Bayesian Computation and Thompson Sampling as a story · 4 points
HN discussionSubmitted Playing Battleship with Bayesian Search Theory as a story · 3 points
HN discussionSubmitted Bayesian Survival Analysis in Python with Pymc3 as a story · 3 points
HN discussionSubmitted Duplicating Spheres and the Banach-Tarski Paradox as a story · 3 points
HN discussionSubmitted Euler's Formula in sympy as a story · 3 points
HN discussionSubmitted Modeling Tide Heights and Kayaker's Heuristics as a story · 2 points
HN discussionSubmitted The Median of Medians Algorithm as a story · 2 points
HN discussionSubmitted The Median-of-Medians Algorithm as a story · 2 points
HN discussionSubmitted Bayesian Survival Analysis in Python with Pymc3 as a story · 2 points
HN discussionSubmitted Verifying Typeclass Laws in Haskell with QuickCheck as a story · 2 points
HN discussionSubmitted The Mathematics of Building a Heap in Linear Time as a story · 2 points
HN discussionSubmitted There Are Almost No Rational Numbers as a story · 2 points
HN discussionSubmitted Generalized Composition in Haskell as a story · 2 points
HN discussionSubmitted Prior Distributions for Bayesian Regression Using PyMC as a story · 2 points
HN discussionSubmitted Playing Battleship with Bayesian Search Theory and Thompson Sampling as a story · 1 points
HN discussionSubmitted A Fair Price for Darth Vader's Meditation Chamber? A Lego Price Analysis as a story · 1 points
HN discussionSubmitted Banach Tarski Paradox from Free Groups (2014) as a story · 1 points
HN discussionSubmitted NBA Foul Calls and Bayesian Item Response Theory as a story · 1 points
HN discussionSubmitted Reservoir Sampling for Streaming Data as a story · 1 points
HN discussionSubmitted Matrix Diagonalization and the Fibonacci Numbers as a story · 1 points
HN discussion
