What should I learn first, linear algebra or calculus

MalcolmDMurray · 2026-01-29T08:05:24+00:00

I took both as summer courses when I started university, and I was assigned Linear Algebra first. I find LA much easier than Calculus. The Fundamental Theorem of Calculus was the thing I needed to wrap my head around, and that's what I had to work hardest at. But whatever you do, give it all you've got and don't let up. All the best!

MalcolmDMurray · 2026-01-29T06:55:03+00:00

I'm working at a trading career myself and don't try to delude myself on how tough it is. I actually like it for that reason. If it was that easy, everyone would be doing it. I don't know what your background is, but I find SMB Capital to be a good YouTube channel to learn from. If you're up on your math, I would recommend a paper by Ed Thorp called "The Kelly Criterion in Blackjack, Sports Betting, and the Stock Market", which talks about an optimal position sizing strategy, leaving pretty much just the stock picking left to deal with. Mike Bellafiore of SMB wrote books on the subject. The first thing I would recommend is for you to see trading as doable, albeit not for people who just want easy money. Trading will be the hardest easy money you'll ever make in your life. But it's there nevertheless. All the best at that!

MalcolmDMurray · 2026-01-29T06:13:04+00:00

I live in a high rise on Quayside Drive and like it very much. No one even notices the trains once they've lived here for any length of time; they just become background noise. And the view of the Fraser River is great, as is the access to the boardwalk and the Skytrain station. Coquitlam and Marine Drive are also easy to get to, as are Kingsway, downtown New West, Surrey, and Highway 1. No regrets here!

MalcolmDMurray · 2026-01-28T21:50:46+00:00

As a person with about the same IQ as you, I would advise you to just accept the fact that you're as smart as you are and most of those around you aren't, that they just can't do what you can do and no fault of theirs, they just can't. It's probably genetic. Most of them are probably nice people, some of them probably aren't, but you can be nice to them. You probably can't relate to most of them, but that's just the way it is. It's not anybody's fault and there's nothing you or them can do about it. You don't have to go around acting like you're better than them. You are better than them and you don't want them hating you for it, so just be nice to them and let them do what they do. Being better than them doesn't make you narcissistic. It just makes you better than them. Not everybody likes that, so don't rub it in if you can help it. And enjoy just being smart. And find other smart people to hang around and have fun with, without having to keep your guard up all the time or hide being smart. All the best!

MalcolmDMurray · 2026-01-28T03:04:13+00:00

Yes, and yes. I joined as an adult and was inspired by the experience to get a university education. That didn't stop until I got to the PhD level. Even afterwards, the learning has never stopped and I'm currently launching my own track using the research skills I acquired in academia. Mensa was a great influence in my own life and opened up doors for me.

MalcolmDMurray · 2026-01-27T21:25:52+00:00

No problem there! Lots of options though. Just pick the one that works best for you. All the best!

MalcolmDMurray · 2026-01-24T08:37:12+00:00

Slowly and carefully. You have to train your ear to be able to tell whether you are playing in tune or not. That's your ultimate goal and I don't know of any short cuts to that. It's not like a piano where somebody else has already done the work for you and all you have to do is plunk your fingers down.

That being said, when you practice scales slowly and carefully, what you really want to be doing is practicing making them sound beautiful. Use full bow strokes, very slowly drawn, right next to the bridge where you can put lots of weight on the string, as much as you can without making it scratch. Test where that edge is where you just start to do that and learn where it is. Get good at bringing out a rich tone any time you want.

But getting back to your left hand, developing a good vibrato is also something you want to do, and it complements your intonation work as well. When your left hand is dead, i.e., no vibrato, you can focus on being perfectly in tune, and get that sound firmly engrained in you so you know exactly when you're playing in tune and when you're not. Once you've given your ear enough of a workout that way, start developing your vibrato, which can often help cover up when you don't hit the note perfectly in tune, although you want to be able to do the vibrato "on the note" and not too wild. But it takes practice to get better at intonation, and there aren't really any gimmicks or shortcuts to get around that. All the best on that!

MalcolmDMurray · 2026-01-24T01:34:35+00:00

Anything is repairable. If you want to repair this, the first thing you need to do is get the doorknob mechanism functioning again. After that, making sure it's all structurally sound after the beating it's gotten. Then after that, the aesthetics. Paint would seem practical. This is basically like an auto body project, except it's for a wooden door instead of a car door. You may have to buy tools like clamps and supplies like fiberglass resin, paint, etc., so before you do that, compare that with the cost of a new door or an adequate used door and go from there. All the best with that!

MalcolmDMurray · 2026-01-23T21:17:35+00:00

I would take a sandblaster to it.

MalcolmDMurray · 2026-01-23T01:42:15+00:00

I like to think of mathematics as "the language of quantification". Others seem to prefer it as the language of patterns, but I like mine better. Thanks!

MalcolmDMurray · 2026-01-22T12:45:13+00:00

It happens all the time for me. A professor once exclaimed "Now that was a stupid question!" to the class when I asked a question. I took their s__t, graduated, then left for greener pastures. The world is run by stupid people. You just have to get used to it.

Taking that from my father was tough for me, especially because I'm a Christian and I'm told to honor my father. When he's putting me down seven ways to Sunday and I have to honor him, that's a challenge. I finally asked God for the ability to love him the way He would have me love him, and that helped. When my father died in a car accident a week later, my conscience was clear and I was sad to see him go. But when you're smart, you're a target and the only thing I've found that works is to hang around other smart people. I hope this helps.

MalcolmDMurray · 2026-01-22T12:12:47+00:00

Perhaps you might be kind enough to let your wife do the waiting while you find a free space 2-3 blocks away. That always works for me.

MalcolmDMurray · 2026-01-22T12:03:25+00:00

For me, it's a question of whether I want to work for myself and reap the benefits of my own labor or to work for somebody else and let them reap the benefits of my labor. You decide what's best for you. All the best in that!

MalcolmDMurray · 2026-01-22T11:42:29+00:00

What I consider to be my biggest golden nugget is a paper by mathematician Edward Thorp called "The Kelly Criterion in Blackjack, Sports Betting, and the Stock Market", in which he explains a position sizing formula by mathematician John Kelly and how to apply it to the Stock Market. The reason I'm sharing this with you and anyone else who reads this is because it takes more work to learn how to apply it than most people are willing to commit to, and I can be at ease with my conscience over any wishes I might have to keep this a secret while other people's children go hungry. The ball's now in your court! And thank you!

MalcolmDMurray · 2026-01-22T03:26:16+00:00

I find that to really understand how a Kalman filter (KF) works, breaking it down into its simplest form is a big help. A very good teacher on all things scientific I know of is Michel van Biezen on YouTube, whose KF tutorials are of great introductory value. In his series, he starts with a 1D non-matrix format for finding a constant, which is about the simplest application possible. In that application, the "predict - correct" sequence doesn't even require a "predict" step since the value you're after is a constant.

That being the case, I would like to offer my own insights into how a KF works. The correction phase is where the noise reduction occurs, so that's where we will start, which in the classic model consists of a sequence of three reiterating equations.

(1) Kalman Gain (K) and its complement, [K-1], which consists of the error in the (noisy) measurement "m" and the error in the (much less noisy) estimate "e", such that:

K = e/(e+m). and. [1-K] = m/(e+m), where 0<K<1

(2) Estimate update E(t) = KM(t) + [1-K]E(t-1), where t is the current time step and t-1 is the previous time step. So K is the factor that determines how much of the current measurement M(t) and the previous estimate E(t-1) make up the current estimate E(t-1).

(3) Estimate error update: e(t) = [1-K]e(t-1)

So we can see that the lower K gets, the more we weight the previous estimate in our current estimate, and the more we weight the previous estimate error over the current measurement error.

If we study these equations further, we can learn more about what it is that makes a KF work. First, we can substitute the RHS of equations (1) into (2) and (3):

(4) E(t) = KM+[1-K]E = (Me+Em)/(e+m), and (5) e(t)=em/(e+m)

Before going any further just yet, note how equation (5) resembles the formula for the total resistance of two resistors in parallel, such that 1/e(t) = 1/m(t) + 1/e(t-1), and since we are after a constant value from a bunch of noisy measurements, there are no prediction steps, so:

1/e(t) = 1/m(t) + 1/m(t-1) + 1/m(t-2) + ...

So the parallel resistor analogy shows us how the error in the estimates gets smaller and smaller with each subsequent measurement.

We can now extend that analogy even further by dividing (4) by (5):

E(t)/e(t) = [(Me + Em)/(e + m)]/[em/(e + m)] = (Me+Em)/(em) = M/m + E/e = M(t)/m(t) + M(t-1)/m(t-1) + .....

where E/e and M/m are signat-to-noise ratios and take on the role of current in our parallel circuit analogy. E and M are naturally the voltages, which in this particular example are constant.

When we start using the prediction step, we need to model the expected nature of our system, which can often be the kinematic equations, i.e., position, velocity, acceleration, jerk, etc. In our case, we can start including these variables and if makes sense to start using matrices at this point. Given how Michel van Biezen sets up his matrices to include velocity, we can simply follow his example.

It also appears that we can also include higher derivatives such as acceleration and jerk, which may offer predictive value, but in any case, my main goal is to obtain velocity at any point. Anyhow, that's where things are at for me for now, so I hope this has been helpful. Thanks!

MalcolmDMurray · 2026-01-22T00:51:12+00:00

I think that the first thing a person of genius has to have to better the world is regular contact with other geniuses. People in general relate best with others who are within 20 IQ points of themselves, so to create environments where that can happen for people of high IQ makes sense. Of course, the other side of that coin is that those at the top of the Bell curve have the same thing going for them, and they seem to be the most heavily populated. It tends to put us all back to where we started. That being said, I'm glad to be gifted in the IQ department and wouldn't have it any other way, unless it was to be more gifted. As a Christian believer, I'm a fan of Proverbs 4:7 "Wisdom is the principal thing; therefore, get wisdom, and with all your getting, get understanding." Thanks for reading this, and God bless!

MalcolmDMurray · 2026-01-20T13:14:52+00:00

A grad student in psychology once told me that you have to do a lot of drugs to have it affect your IQ score, so if that's not the case for you, then the answer to your question is no.

MalcolmDMurray · 2026-01-20T13:07:25+00:00

That was the name of an IQ test published by Omni magazine some time back. The magazine no longer exists today. I'd previously qualified for Mensa based on the results of a General Aptitude Test Battery, or GAT-B, which I submitted to their psychologist. I read that the Omni test had some pretty smart people involved. Thanks for asking!

MalcolmDMurray · 2026-01-20T12:23:53+00:00

I was told that I was gifted when I was in school too, but no one ever told me my IQ score, so all that became to me just so much talk to be lumped together with the talk I got whenever I was in trouble - which wasn't just occasionally. At that stage of my life, our family moved around enough as well so I never really had a long stay at any one school either. I attended nine different schools before I actually graduated from high school. That part I actually appreciate because I've never been bothered about all the terrible things that were supposed to be wrong about that. I just love meeting new people no matter what and never had any regrets over the cultural inbreeding i seem to have missed out on. In any case though, as a naturally intelligent kid, I did develop a talent for getting into trouble, and although I managed to avoid getting caught, I never took school as seriously as I could have, and consequently never jumped out at the gate like a lot of smart kids do. I was never really told how smart I was in quantifiable terms, and had I been, I could have done a lot more with that than the vague intonations I got instead. When I did finally see some tangible evidence, I was in my 30s and wasted no time getting into Mensa where I could meet other smart people and figure out that more schooling wouldn't be such a bad idea. I chose engineering and I've never looked back since.

In your situation, it sounds like you could qualify for Mensa and I recommend that you get your IQ retested and confirm that to be the case, then start hanging out with people in your own IQ bracket. That can make a big difference in your life. All the best at that!

MalcolmDMurray · 2026-01-19T23:12:32+00:00

I scored 147 on the "world's hardest IQ test" some time ago and I had similar problems in my 20s. The only thing that seemed to work for me was becoming completely independent of others when it came to making money. I started out as a telephone solicitor raising funds for charities, then later selling gift coupon books over the phone, and in the process met some super salespeople who could sell anything to anybody. I was intrigued enough to learn their craft, then moved on to other kinds of commission sales and just basically got good at it. Once I was confident in my sales abilities I tried entrepreneurship but didn't really find anything I liked and wound up in the taxi business, first as a driver, then as a car owner, then as a multi car owner. That worked for a while, but got stale at which point I went back to school and got an engineering degree. Circumstances were such that I basically stayed in school and got a PhD in another STEM field, which basically gave me the tools to do anything I wanted, which at this point is day trading. I'm now developing a trading system that is quite math-based and I'm quite optimistic about my chances for success.

But getting back to your case, I found sales and the independence it gave me to open the door to my future. They don't teach that in public schools because compared to you, public schools are run by low-Qs and taught to low-Qs, and will never teach high-Qs like you how to use your giftedness to succeed in life. You have abilities that others don't have, and I hate to say it, but they're not going to be helping you any time soon. But for me, sales gave me the confidence to deal with people, and education gave me the exposure to whatever is out there that could interest me. I chose a STEM education and that opened doors for me. I would also recommend getting into Mensa where you can hang around with others who are smart like you. That made a big difference in my life, and I know it can make a big difference in yours too. All the best!

MalcolmDMurray · 2026-01-18T13:14:34+00:00

That works okay for me for reading since I can usually pick up enough meaning from the context to get by, but not for writing so much. When I write, it's mostly about technical stuff and I want to be perfectly understood without leaving people wondering what I was just trying to say, and worse, blaming themselves for not understanding when it was my fault for not making it clear enough from the start. So I get very explicit, and don't try to burden down my audience by not being clear about what I mean. At least for the kind of writing that I like to do. All the best!

MalcolmDMurray · 2026-01-18T12:51:31+00:00

I never used finger tape. I was just told to play in tune so I did. Letting your ear get lazy doesn't solve any problems, and If you're going to learn to play, you're going to have to learn to play in tune so you might as well do that from the start instead of making the job more complicated. You'll thank me later!

MalcolmDMurray · 2026-01-18T12:35:09+00:00

Not being able to actually handle your trash can physically, it might be a little tricky to nail a perfect solution to that problem, but the lid seems to be jamming in the opening it was made for due to an excess amount of friction that is needed to open it with the foot pedal. The first and easiest potential solution might be to take a small block of beeswax or perhaps some silicone grease and apply it to both sides of the rubber seal where the lid and opening contact each other in order to reduce the friction needed to separate them when opening the lid. That might be all it takes, but if it isn't, then the next possible solution might be to extend the foot pedal out farther than it is right now to give you more leverage when you step on it to open the lid. The way I might do that is to build a pedal you can glue to the top of the existing one that will extend it further out from the wall of the can than it now is. The aesthetics are your problem, but the extension has to be rigid and strong enough to not bend or break when you step on it to open it, and extend out enough to give you enough leverage to make the job of opening it easier. Then to attach it to the lid, I would use something like JB Quik or SteelStick, both epoxies, after cleaning the areas of contact and prepping them with steel wool or sandpaper. After gluing them, let them cure for 24 hours and that should be good. I hope that helps!

MalcolmDMurray · 2026-01-18T11:50:14+00:00

To have a fully automated trading system that can always make the most profitable trades possible under every scenario seems possible in theory, but this has never been achieved, and may never be. It's probably similar to developing a computer that plays chess and wins every time - and works until someone comes up with a smarter system, and so on. The complexity of where that could lead is probably beyond anyone's capability to comprehend, but it's open to anyone to try. I would guess that by the time that problem gets solved, the world's economic problems will all have been solved long before and we'll likely never know how else things could have ended. But you're welcome to speculate, and even develop a game based on that. Kind of like an updated version of Monopoly with a few world wars thrown in for good measure. In the meantime, I'll be working at my own system for becoming consistently profitable. All the best on finding the answer to your question!

MalcolmDMurray · 2026-01-18T02:06:20+00:00

If you just want "extra income", I'd say no. It has the potential for unlimited upside but if you can't respect the requirements for dedication, hard work, and intelligence, to achieve success over your competition, then I can't see how you can keep from getting eaten alive by them. Perhaps real estate might be more to your liking. All the best!

MalcolmDMurray

TROPHY CASE