Oz

Teaching computer science, learning bio, and homeschooling. Check out and

[Oz @oznova_]

Wow is Claude Code doing the meme now?

[Oz @oznova_]

@ByrneHobart A trip to the Udvar-Hazy Center could be a very memorable birthday present

[Niko McCarty. @NikoMcCarty]

New book chapter: "How to Weigh a Cell."

This chapter explains how scientists have weighed cells throughout history, often using simple equipment and back-of-the-envelope calculations.

It has lots of interactives, so you can "repeat" the experiments directly in your browser.

[Oz @oznova_]

@LauraDeming You may enjoy this if you haven't seen it :) https://t.co/R4uD7lMv1m

[Bryan Cantrill @bcantrill]

A portentous reunion
https://t.co/bkRclV44tQ

[Oz @oznova_]

@pinunhamon Not easy but possible

[Oz @oznova_]

Yup. You can learn these things too, but frankly they may be as hard to teach to a human as to build into an RL environment

[Oz @oznova_]

This feels so adversarial. Better option IMHO is to allow agents but do one of:

- Have higher standards, see e.g. the CMU databases comp
- Make grade contingent on a 5 min verbal defense
- Allow custom agent that ships logs back for grading

[Owen @owenology]

Just found out that Berkeley course staff are writing hooks inside course repos so if a student opens an assignment in Claude Code or Cursor the agent will automatically ping the staff 😵‍💫 well played

[Oz @oznova_]

@vboykis Honestly the thing I keep going back to is that the best engineers do some of their best work in a hammock (or a Google doc). If I focus on the big picture more than daily "productivity" I tend to let myself use agents to build insight rather than just features

[Oz @oznova_]

@jbmilgrom Yeah that makes sense too. I think it may come down to how much you can plan a priori. If you have a have a good map of the territory you probably want longer autonomous execution, whereas I often find I need to refine the map as I explore

[Oz @oznova_]

@vboykis Curious if you've tried anything else, like writing or rewriting portions yourself, or asking for two options for you to choose between?

[Oz @oznova_]

@odysseus0z Yes but not because of more visual explanations... It's because I can ask it to challenge me to implement the paper, giving me enough scaffolding/hints etc to keep me in the zone of proximal development

[Oz @oznova_]

@dreamwieber I've met *a lot* of people who first learned by typing games from magazines. It's like Hunter S. Thompson typing out Hemmingway

[Oz @oznova_]

@epichrisis I don't remember much from that age but I can still picture my first QBASIC animation like it was yesterday

[Oz @oznova_]

Pretty crazy that I first learned to code by reading GORILLA.BAS (many years before Google, StackOverflow etc) whereas now when I want to learn something new I can ask an AI to build me custom progressive challenges

[Oz @oznova_]

@tszzl Do you not think that AI research is mostly about having good, novel ideas? The legible technical skills amenable to RLVR seem to be a minor part of the job, no?

[Oz @oznova_]

@DavidPlakon This is going to be very confusing for me

[Oz @oznova_]

@turbochardo Students are active! I'm taking a bit of a pause from new videos while I figure out if I want the next series to involve more agent-based coding. There's a lot of good existing content though!

[Oz @oznova_]

Yes! In addition:

- Schools have barely changed in response to computers and the internet, so will do a poor job with AI
- Focus is entirely on highly legible versions of "subjects" (math, english etc) when there is more value in what is in the gaps
- There is basically no attempt to develop what is important (self understanding, virtue, appreciation of how the world is built etc)
- The grade based school system keeps siblings unnaturally separated from one another (let alone their parents)
- In many school districts, it's hard to pull kids out for long stretches for travel etc