Top all-time · #9687
Nick M
Personal blog · photonlines.substack.commathdata
Nick M writes Photon-Lines Substack, a personal blog at photonlines.substack.com about math and data. Since 2023, 7 different Hacker News readers have linked it 55 times, most often “Visual-Focused Algorithms Cheat Sheet”. It is still writing: the last post was on 2026-10-01, and you can follow it by feed.
Complex things explained simply. We explore topics using a visual and intuitive methodology.
Most-linked posts?
- Visual-Focused Algorithms Cheat Sheet3 people · 3 mentions · first linked 2025-03-19
- Visual data structures cheat sheet2 people · 2 mentions · first linked 2024-08-14
- A Visual Intro to Complex Numbers2 people · 2 mentions · first linked 2026-10-01
What Hacker News says?
Sorry -- I keep seeing this being used but I'm not entirely sure how it differs from most of human thinking. Most human 'reasoning' is probabilistic as well and we rely on 'associative' networks to ingest information. In a similar manner - LLMs use association as well -- and not only that, but they are capable of figuring out patterns based on examples (just like humans are) -- read this paper for context: https://a…
Comment linking /p/intuitive-and-visual-guide-to-transformers
on “Claude Sonnet 4 now supports 1M tokens of context”Submitted An intuitive guide to Maxwell's equations (2020) as a story · 553 points
HN discussionIf you guys like visual-explanations that are a bit more intuitive -- I put actually made guides on both data-structures and algorithms not too long ago which you can find here: Visual-Focused Algorithms Cheat Sheet — https://photonlines.substack.com/p/visual-focused-algorithms... Visual Data Structures Cheat Sheet — https://photonlines.substack.com/p/visual-data-structures-ch...
Comment linking /p/visual-data-structures-cheat-sheet
on “Quicksort explained IKEA-style”Submitted A Visual Intro to Complex Numbers as a story · 132 points
HN discussionI actually did a full write-up on this here fyi: https://photonlines.substack.com/p/intuitive-and-visual-guid... . You can skip most of this and scroll down to the end-section called 'The Mental Model for Understanding LLMs' where I try to map how transformers are able to mimic human thinking. I think that comparing them to auto-associative / auto-regressive networks is actually a really good analogy FYI and I do be…
Comment linking /p/intuitive-and-visual-guide-to-transformers
on “Simple tasks showing reasoning breakdown in state-of-the-art LLMs”Submitted Visual data structures cheat sheet as a story · 84 points
HN discussionCorrect. If you're curious about the 'essence' of what black holes are I actually just did a write-up on them which you can find here: https://photonlines.substack.com/p/an-intuitive-guide-to-bla...
Comment linking /p/an-intuitive-guide-to-black-holes
on “LIGO detects most massive black hole merger to date”Submitted Visual-Focused Algorithms Cheat Sheet as a story · 3 points
HN discussionI agree with the principles discussed here, but am not agreement with the rules based approach. Great looking design isn't about UI 'rules' - it's about making the users of your application love what you're presenting and the application users being able to easily use the features which you're providing without having to think. You can find out more about the principles I follow here: https://photonlines.substack.co…
Comment linking /p/an-intuitive-guide-to-interface-design
on “Rules for creating good-looking user interfaces”Submitted A Walk-Through of String Search Algorithms as a story · 3 points
HN discussionIf you want my 'intuitive' explanation of how transformers work - you can find it here (if you're a visual learner -- I think you'll like this one) albeit it is a bit long: https://photonlines.substack.com/p/intuitive-and-visual-guid...
Comment linking /p/intuitive-and-visual-guide-to-transformers
on “Understanding Transformers Using a Minimal Example”Submitted Grokking AVL and RAVL Trees as a story · 3 points
HN discussionFantastic resource - just an FYI I just posted a 'visual' review of most of the key algorithms used in comp sci and the real world which is available here: https://photonlines.substack.com/p/visual-focused-algorithms...
Comment linking /p/visual-focused-algorithms-cheat-sheet
on “Visualising data structures and algorithms through animation”Submitted Grokking Hash Array Mapped Tries (HAMTs) as a story · 3 points
HN discussionI made a little write-up on getting an visual intuition behind calculus / the derivative here, although I'm not sure that it's really that well done and I should have maybe provided a few more examples: https://photonlines.substack.com/p/visualizing-the-derivativ...
Comment linking /p/visualizing-the-derivative
on “Visual calculus”Submitted A Visual Intro to Complex Numbers as a story · 2 points
HN discussionYeah - most of the online descriptions aren't even remotely accurate nor close to explaining how LLMs like ChatGPT actually work. They are not simple 'next-word predictors' and most of the online tutorials / info don't go into fine-tuning nor the intricate details of chain of thought reasoning (which I personally believe plays a huge role in ChatGPT's amazing performance). If you want my own detailed description you…
Comment linking /p/intuitive-and-visual-guide-to-transformers
on “How LLMs Work, Explained Without Math”Submitted Visual-Focused Algorithms Cheat Sheet as a story · 2 points
HN discussionLocation: Toronto, ON, Canada Remote: Yes Willing to Relocate: Yes Technologies: I’m generally language / technology agnostic and love learning new things. I have a huge interest in anything relating to machine learning and automation! I'm also currently self-studying particle physics / applied math. Github: https://github.com/photonlines Blog: https://photonlines.substack.com/ LinkedIn: https://ca.linkedin.com/in/n…
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on “Ask HN: Who wants to be hired? (February 2024)”Submitted Algorithms for Optimization (Explained Simply) as a story · 2 points
HN discussionLocation: Toronto, ON, Canada Remote: Yes Willing to Relocate: Yes Technologies: Python / C# / .NET. / Java / JavaScript / SQL / Generally Language Agnostic. Github: https://github.com/photonlines Blog: https://photonlines.substack.com/ LinkedIn: https://ca.linkedin.com/in/nickmiljkovic
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on “Ask HN: Who wants to be hired? (June 2024)”Submitted The Idiocy of Measuring Developer Productivity as a story · 2 points
HN discussionGreat post and write-up - I also made an in-depth explorations and did my best to use visuals - for anyone interested you can find it here: https://photonlines.substack.com/p/intuitive-and-visual-guid...
Comment linking /p/intuitive-and-visual-guide-to-transformers
on “The Illustrated Transformer (2018)”Submitted My Thoughts on Measuring Developer Productivity as a story · 2 points
HN discussionSorry I know this is a relatively late comment, but I recently did a summary on Sam Altman's recommended reading list and I had a great time reading 'How I Raised Myself From Failure to Success In Selling (by Frank Bettger).' I actually provided a full book summary near this end of the post: https://photonlines.substack.com/p/sam-altmans-startup-advic...
Comment linking /p/sam-altmans-startup-advice-part-2
on “I'm an engineer that needs to sell my services. Any good books on sales?”Submitted Visual Introduction to Hash-Array Mapped Tries (HAMTs) as a story · 2 points
HN discussionI don't have a personal site at the moment, but I do have a blog: https://photonlines.substack.com/ Some of my projects: https://github.com/photonlines
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on “Ask HN: Could you share your personal website here?”Submitted A Visual Introduction to Neural Networks as a story · 2 points
HN discussionI just did a bit of a write-up on HAMTs and you can find it here: https://photonlines.substack.com/p/grokking-hash-array-mappe... I actually included your repo as well in the mentions at the end of the article so hopefully it helps :)
Comment linking /p/grokking-hash-array-mapped-tries
on “Show HN: A hash array-mapped trie implementation in C”Submitted Visual and Intuitive Overview of the Monte Carlo Method as a story · 2 points
HN discussion