Hey everyone and welcome to Developer Tea. My name is Jonathan Cutrell and in today's episode I'm interviewing Kalid Azad. Kalid is one of the smartest people I think I've ever met. He has a brilliant mind and he can uncover the way things are structured. Particularly Kalid teaches math through his website, Better Explained. He's also written a book or two and we'll talk a little bit more about what Kalid does in the interview. Today's episode is sponsored by Hired. If you are looking for a job as a designer or developer, I recommend you check out Hired. Hired has a special offer for Developer Tealisteners. Of course we will outline exactly what that is as well as more about what Hired does for you later on in today's episode. But first I want to jump straight into the interview with Kalid Azad. Kalid, welcome to the show. Great, thanks for having me Jonathan. I'm excited to have you because I've actually learned a lot from you without ever meeting you. So I'm excited to talk to you specifically about learning today. We were just talking before the show about the frequency of posting episodes and you're saying you're getting into podcasting with a couple of your friends and you started to tell me a story and I wanted to capture it on the episode. Tell me about the story of the potter. Sure. I was impressed. You mentioned that this is your 200th and 12th episode I think in about a year. I've been blogging for about 10 years and I think I have about 120 articles. It's about one a month on average. There's a story that reminds me of, I think it's actually from Stephen Pressfield's The War of Art. It's kind of a book around creativity and so on. He talks about a pottery instructor who basically has a class and he's two different sections. One of the sections at the end of the semester, they'll be graded on the number of pots they've made. So just the total weight of all the pots that they've made in their class, they'll be graded. So if you've made 100 pounds, you'll get an A, if you made 50 pounds, you get a B and so on. Then a different section, he basically graded them saying, okay, you want to make the best pot possible. So you'll have a final exam which will be bringing in your best masterpiece and I'll grade that individually. So you have these two sets of students. One is just cranking them out. The other one is sort of trying to perfect that individual pot. At the end of the semester, the funny thing is the best pots came from the students that tried to make the most. It's just one of those things where the repetition, there's a lot of things that you can't figure out ahead of time. You just have to do it and then you get experience and you iterate. So that's actually a challenge for me is that I sometimes if I myself, you know, struggling to get something down perfectly when just a few attempts would probably figure out the right way to do it. Yeah. That actually reminds me of a story that I heard on another podcast. It was Adam Savage was talking about crafting and he was teaching his kids about how to craft and basically he said, always prepare for the first one to be a throw away. And I've never forgotten that the first thing that you do most likely, you're going to scrap it, especially with something with physical materials like, for example, pottery. But that can be applied to so many things. You know, never assume that the first piece of code or the first attempt at solving a math problem that you're going to get it right that first time because most likely, you're not going to get it right. Exactly. And it's, you know, it gets into some of the meta things. It's not just, and I'm sure you've seen this too for any kind of, you know, coding, I think is a creative endeavor as well. There's, you know, there's not one right way to do something. And so you have all these external influences like, you know, perfectionism or fear of failure or maybe, oh, I could do this better. And I mean, and this is actually a very typical developer anecdote as well, which is that, you know, six months, your code's going to like crap anyway. Like you're going to find something wrong. So, you know, even even what I think is perfection in, I guess, you know, February 2016 in October 2016, it won't be for any direction. So, you know, it's, it's almost impossible anyway, but at the same time, knowing that, you know, I still feel that urge to kind of try to make it, you know, write the first time and I have to fight that. Sure. And, you know, I think that old, I don't know if it's an added or not, but code for the person that you're going to be in six months from now, right? There's all these different sayings of what your code should be. Is it good for you today or is it good for someone else in a year from now? There's another one that talks about coding for code for a psychotic programmer that's going to be maintaining your code in a year from now. That's right. Yeah, exactly. Someone gets angry very easily. And who has your address, I think, is another part of exactly exactly. Well, and the funny thing too is that, you know, we feel this kind of trepidation for code and for writing, which in like internet, you know, you can change it, you can update it, but I can't even imagine being an actual sculptor, you know, like if you're making like the statue of David, you, I mean, that's the case where you really have to try to get it right. So I think I kind of forget that we're living in this world where, you know, you can, you have version control, you can just always go back. There's no permanent change really. And so I can almost imagine the pottery people being more scared, but we know we're lucky lucky to have more flexibility there. Yeah. The best programmers I know they are the most, I don't want to say reckless, but really that's the word that it feels like is correct because they'll spin up a pro an entire new project just to test out one thing, right? So like Jeffrey way comes to mind when he builds something with Laravel or when he would build something in rails back when he was teaching rails and everything else, he would spin up an entire project, an entire test project just to show this one feature. And that feels wrong because it's like, well, now you have all those files, but with just one delete, they're all gone, right? Like there's no reason for that to, to even matter. And so I actually did an episode about that talking about the, the expendability of, of digital space. We have so much space that we can play around with and where we feel like we can't make a change without it, you know, making some kind of permanent impact, but it just doesn't have an impact. Go ahead and move on your ideas as quickly as possible with some upfront design. I guess there's some, there's a balance there, right? There is. And one thing I started to realize too is, you know, there is a balance, but for myself, I'm so far on the side of trying to do it right the first time that it's kind of, you know, in an ideal world, you know, if you're off your course, so let's say you're flying to, you know, or you're driving to a, a new location and you're going the wrong way, you know, like the computer sort of optimized version is, okay, let's, let's like course correct slowly. So at the end of like our trip will just arrive at the right location. So you're sort of like trying to match this glide path. But for me, I'm so far off, it's okay if I like take a hard right and just start, you know, I start veering towards recklessness, so to speak. And let's say I end up on the reclass side, okay, then I can dial it back, but I feel what happens is, you know, I'm, let's say I'm being, yeah, I'm trying to be perfectionist about it. And then I'm like, okay, well, I need to be a little bit less perfectionist. So I'll be like 90% perfectionist. And that's, and maybe like in a month, that'll somehow glide into the right thing. But it's kind of like, no, I'm way off course, you know, I have to do like a hard, oh, I had to allow myself to do a hard correction and not try to like do this completely optimized, like smooth glide into the, into the right middle path. It's like sort of, it's like bouncing off the guardrail, I guess, you know, left and right. So yeah, again, it's, there's a lot of psychological elements. I mean, this is something in any create, yeah, any creative endeavor, you have to fight yourself. Like the enemy isn't really the work or the, you know, your critics or whoever it might be. It's often the obsisors yourself. Mm-hmm. Yeah. And by the way, I've heard quite a few people mention Pressfield's book. So I guess it's time for me to bite the bull and actually read the whole thing. But the, the, what is the war of art? Is that right? Um, the war of art. Yep. And he's got a few follow-ups. Um, what I'm reading now is called Do the Work, which I got basically, basically based on the title. But it's, it talks, uh, the general idea is that, um, he has this concept of, um, what he calls like resistance, like capital out resistance. And it's sort of the guilt procrastination, fear, doubt, shame, you know, all like the negative emotions. I've heard it described as kind of the demons. The demons. Yeah. And, you know, you sort of, you have that, uh, part of you, which is questioning. And it's okay. I mean, it's, it's good to be critical. And in fact, I think the only, well, not the only reason, but a large part of the reason that we get into things that we enjoy is because we can't notice a difference. So if you have, you know, no sense of flavor, you don't really care to be a chef or not, but a chef, you know, maybe they can taste differences. So when they eat somewhere, they can really see, oh, too much salt or wasn't, you know, flavored properly. And then that same distinction that comes into their own work. So now they're, you know, critiquing their own things. And it's good. It's like that. Um, actually, there's that I reglass quote about like your taste exceeding your craft. I don't know if you've, um, interesting. Oh, yeah. It's really, yeah. He talks about storytelling and how, you know, the reason he got into storytelling is because he could appreciate a good story. But when you're, when you're working on something, you have this problem where your taste exceeds your craft. So you know what it, what something good taste like, but you can't make it yourself. So then, so then your frustrated, like, oh, it doesn't taste right, but I can't make the right thing. And then eventually, you know, you just keep it or adding and eventually your craft catches up to your taste. But I think that's, it's like this kind of paradox where because you're good at noticing or because you care to notice the difference, you know, it gives you that interest in the subject, but it also means that you might become self critical or you might, um, you know, not be as loose or something as you want to be. Sure. Yeah. That's actually a much more eloquent way of putting a quote that I heard when I was younger from a friend of mine. He said, you know, I don't know how to make cheese, but I certainly know when it's gone bad. Exactly. Exactly. And the neat thing though is that that is kind of, um, you know, that's actually what got me into learning and kind of explaining is that, you know, I, I, I think, like, like, most of us, you know, we like computers. I like math and things like that. But then it got to the point where, you know, at some point in math, most people hit a wall where it's like, okay, well, I understood up to here and now I don't get it. Pass up point. And, you know, traditionally in school, people, you know, we kind of cram and we get through it and we forget everything. And at some point, I was just saying, no, like, it doesn't, like, that's not good enough. Like, it's not like, I wasn't some, it wasn't like a big realization, but it's more like, hey, wait a minute. Like, it's not, like, if I went to a doctor and I got some medicine and it wasn't working, I would say, hey, it's not working. I wouldn't like pretend, like, you know, my, my problem was healed, right? Like keep on taking the medicine more often. Exactly. Yeah. Take it more often. Oh, you know, you're not trying to say, no, this medicine, I think the medicine's bad. We're not working for you. And, you know, and, but there's a little bit of an effort as close. Actually, that's a good analogy because there's a couple of SIBO, right? Maybe you think it's working or people pretend and everybody else around you, it's working and it's not working for you, but you, you think it's working. So I basically had something similar where there's, you know, a math class that, I mean, in hindsight, I think I can admit, now the professor wasn't really that good at teaching or at least wasn't that interested in kind of conveying a real understanding. And I felt like something was missing and I had this notion that, hey, this isn't right. Like, if I'm learning something, I really want to get it. Like, it should click. It should be, you know, natural to me. It shouldn't be this memorized thing. It should really resonate with me. And so I started looking for a way to see that subject. So this is like a, it was a calculus class, my first freshman year of college. And basically I kept studying, studying and eventually some analogies came out, which made it click for me. And so I was like, wait a minute. Like, this is what it should feel like. Like, this is what, like, really learning should be. And so over time, it has started trying to collect those little insights about things that they could. And not everything, I couldn't find them for everything. Sometimes I just have to memorize and go on. But in the back of my head, I was thinking, well, okay, I had to, you know, this one, I had to sort of bite the bullet and go through. But it doesn't mean that it's impossible. It's just maybe I need more time at some point to go back to it. So, you know, in fact, now actually I'm going back to like my college classes, essentially, and kind of mining them for intuitions. And I'm finding, you know, tons of things I missed the first time. And it's because I'm really trying to get to a level where I feel comfortable. You know, somebody asked you what a circle is. You know it intuitively. You know, you can say, oh, it's, you know, it's a round shape. It's like a draw. It's like super symmetrical. You wouldn't probably say, oh, hold on a circle. Um, wait, wait, there wasn't, there's an equation that defines it. Um, okay, it's expert. It's quite like, I mean, yes, there is an equation. But if that's the first thing that you go to, it means it didn't really sink in. Right. Yeah. And you don't know how it applies in the world around you. Exactly. And you can't recognize it. And you don't have a comfort. It's sort of this very like, it's kind of like somebody, I guess, looking up the documentation for how to do a for loop. It's like, okay, even if, like, even if you did look it up and got it in, there's something wrong. If it's not natural, like you shouldn't have to, you know, you shouldn't have to struggle to remember what it's like. I mean, yeah, maybe you know, you can leave out a semi-colon or something, but just the idea that, okay, yeah, there's, you know, in iteration and you're going through it, something very simple like that. Like it should really stick in. And I feel like a lot of learning, we don't really allow ourselves to get to that level. We sort of move on or we don't even think that it's possible. And my belief is that pretty much anything can be understood to that deep level if we look hard enough. I love this because, you know, I'm sitting here thinking about all the different times that I've learned something. And the types of, so you said the for each loop, for example, or a for loop rather, depending on what language you're using. The for loop, you know, the visual example of that is if I have a pile of things and I take each one and maybe I do something to it and I put it into another pile or maybe I put it back into the same pile. You know, that is a visualization that can say, okay, this is what you're doing with things in memory when you do a for loop. And I was kind of trying to remember the last time that somebody taught me that way. And really, it was when I was a very small child, right? Yes, yes. And you learn through, you know, for example, on Sesame Street, you have a picture of three ducks. And that's the number three. And you learn the number three by seeing those three ducks. And now you remember it, right? There's some kind of visual way of seeing, okay, this is what that thing is. Exactly. And what's funny is that we teach children what I consider the proper way. As adults, there are more technical and kind of symbolic ways to teach things. But we think that somehow replaces instead of compliments the visual. So we sort of say, oh, well, because, and again, I'm a big fan of analogies. So it's funny. Public literacy, people being able to read and write is a few hundred years old. If you go back 500 years, maybe the king might have been literate because he was tutored, but probably not. He probably inscribed and so on. But yet knowledge has been passed down, right? People build the pyramids. People did all sorts of things for thousands of years and knowledge has passed down. And yet we didn't have writing. And so how is that done? And if you look back, you know, fables, stories, analogies, metaphors, pictograms, visuals, people were able to find ways that our human brain could understand and convey information. And then eventually, you know, we've had language and so on. And so I kind of see it as a spectrum where if you're just introducing something the first time, get an analogy, get a diagram, get an example, have somebody really experience it. And then once they kind of get the gist of what you're doing, then you can sharpen it up. You can introduce kind of like a written description and then maybe even a technical description. And so like music is a good example. You know, people we've been music for thousands years, but you know, written music notation, I don't know, is probably a few hundred years old. And the idea is that, okay, you know, you can hum things. You can dole read me. You can just say it. And then eventually, you can kind of codify it into like the scales. And then you might have music theory. And then you have these, you know, half notes and quarter notes and you sort of refine it. And the problem is, you know, if you're going to teach music to somebody and you want them to care about it, like don't start them with half notes and scales and don't put them in front of a piano and make them play, you know, scales and things like that. Say, hey, here's a song. Let's just kind of clap to it. Okay, let's get the rhythm. Let's, you know, tap it out. Just here's one part. Here's one chord. Just play that whenever you want. And then here's the second chord and the third. Oh, by the way, do you see how they're connected? Like this is a major. Sounds happy. This is a minor. It sounds sad. Oh, what's the difference? Oh, there's like a half step. You basically can introduce the terminology into the, into the kind of example that you already have. And so for me, that's kind of what math I think needs to be. If you want it to be memorable is that you sort of give somebody a scenario, you give them an analogy. And then they kind of come up with their own understanding. And then you explain how their understanding can be converted into the kind of formal one. So like these concepts that they know about, well, here's the actual formal name. Like this is a G. This is a C or something. So anyway, that's sort of my long-winded description. Today's episode is sponsored by hired. Hired is no stranger to Developer Tea. 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Like, why do I care? And if you can teach from the approach of first why you should care about something, well, you have to be able to connect with the that kind of fundamental understanding system. Not the not the academic system or the vocabulary system. If that's the correct word, there's a little bit of irony there. But with that system that says, oh, okay, I actually care. So I wanted to learn guitar when I was younger because I saw that and it looked cool. And I wanted to be cool. And so that's how I started learning guitar. Somebody didn't walk out to me and say, you know, here's here's a guitar and here's all the pieces and parts of it. Now, do you want to continue with your mental pursuit of this thing? No, it was me saying people with guitars that had people around them that really enjoyed listening to the music. Exactly. And that's the thing that's a little bit disingenuous, I think, for some of the teaching that we do is that I think of math or any education, but I focus on math or I tend to just because it's so or not misunderstood, but probably disliked that for me, it's like a challenge and I want to help people with it. Yeah. There's like this big kind of underlying issue that we don't confront, which is that most students are basically forced or pretty much every student's forced to do math. So there's not really an incentive really for the teacher or anyone to make it that approachable. Like it can be approachable. It can be not approachable. It doesn't matter. There's a test. You got to pass it. Do you want to go to school? Okay. You know, it's basically we're holding we have this gate and we're making people, you know, climb over it or go through these obstacles and yeah, we can make it a little bit more pleasant or not. But at the end of the day, we kind of know that there's a stick. There's a giant stick and that's what we're doing it. And I realize, okay, we can't we can't live in that world. If we want to be genuinely helping people, I try to take it more from the approach of, okay, I'm a comedian, but say people come to me because they want to be entertained. Like they're not forced to listen to me. It's not like, you know, North Korea or something where you're like putting a stadium, you have to listen to me. Right. I'm able to I'm just sharing thoughts. And if you like it, you'll come back. If you don't like it, okay, that's good feedback for me because, you know, it wasn't resonating with you. So I feel like a lot of education initiatives. They remind me a little bit of actually speaking of music. It reminds me of like parents who want, you know, they say, oh, you know, it would be great if little Jonny played piano. So we're going to have little Jonny practice piano every day. Now the parent isn't doing the piano. The parent isn't like, oh, I'm going to practice too. No, it's like, oh, it'll be great for little Jonny, the, you know, to play the piano or little Jonny to eat his vegetables. But the parent isn't doing the same thing. And so for me, it's like, oh, I see like a lot of education initiatives where it's like, oh, yeah, this is great for the kids. You know, we'll make the kids do these things. And my thing is, okay, like you, the adult are like the adults who are in charge of that initiative. Are they themselves for fun going through the math? Are they just like, oh, you know, on a weekend, hey, I want to learn about XYZ. Oh, no, I don't do that. So my, my thing is like, if I, myself, wouldn't be interested. If I myself wouldn't just casually pick up an article and just skim through it or if it's not written a way that I would want to just for fun read, that I'm not being honest with myself. So sort of, I need to like eat my own dog food, I guess. It's like, I can't, like, there's sort of this implicit, like, it's kind of like the, the bigger issues that most people are forced to do math. And so pretty much anything you put in front of them, they have to do. And it's really what, like, it's kind of a pushverse pull. Like, what can I get the people to pull? And people are for fun finding. And so, like, for my articles and things, sometimes they'll show up on Reddit and people will talk about them or somebody might say, hey, I just found this cool thing. And for me, that's, that's perfect because I want somebody who isn't forced to do math, who just was curious. And they just wanted to poke around. And they're just kind of, you know, they're not necessarily trying to pass a class. Like, that happens. But even passing a class, I feel like, you know, if somebody has a past class, they need to know the quadratic equation. They Google it, they'll click the first link and they'll read it because they have it, they have a test. But if somebody's just casually browsing and, you know, they just want to know, oh, how do we think about this kind of concept in a more intuitive way? To me, that's a more, it's a less pressured environment. And it's a chance to really see if the material is clicking. And more valuable, I think. Yeah, exactly. And I mean, the best thing is when somebody reads it, they say, whoa, I want more. Like, I just read that, you know, there's some, I think it's a newspaper strategy. But basically, the point of the headline is to get you to read the first sentence in an essay. And the point of the first sentence is to get you to the second sentence in the part of the second sentence. And so basically, you know, like, you just have to keep people moving. You have to get them interested. And so actually a good example of something like calculus. Like, if you look at a traditional calculus curriculum, you know, it's 12 weeks, the concepts are introduced, you know, over dozens and dozens of lectures. The like, integrals are probably one of the most important concepts in calculus. And those are taught at the very end of the 12 weeks. So probably week 11, usually in a calculus class. So you've been basically plotting along like, you know, 10 hours a week for 11 weeks. And then in week 11, you get the integrals. And most people suffer through that because they have to take the class. But in my, like, I have a little calculus intro. And they've just, it starts off with an integral. And it's basically, it's a little bit hard to describe in a podcast. But there's a cool thing you can do where you, if you want to know the area of a circle, it's kind of a circles like a blob. And it's really hard to measure, right? It's not like a square where you can just kind of line it up and measure it. It's circles like this kind of really curving shape. But what you can do is you can sort of slice up the circle into a bunch of rings. So you can imagine sort of cutting the circle into like rings, like a center ring and a kind of a middle ring and an outside ring. And you cut it into a bunch of rings. And you can actually unroll those rings. So it's kind of a weird thing. Oh, interesting. Yeah, it's kind of like on, it's sort of like nested on your rings almost. So you have like a circle nested on your rings. Then you sort of, you kind of snip them and unroll them. So you've turned the rings into lines. And, and that shape actually makes a triangle. It's really neat. So it's like, you basically, like, you have a circle. And actually, maybe this can go in the show notes. I have a little diagram, but you have a circle and you cut it into rings. And then you unroll the rings. And then it makes a triangle and a triangle is these are the measures like one half base times height. So it's like a nice little thing. And you can actually get pie our squared, which is the area of a circle, but you can actually find it by turning the circle into a triangle. And it's like, whoa, that's, it's really neat. And actually, and Archimedes did that like 2000 years ago. And that was kind of like the beginning of calculus. And yet, like most classes, we teach that in like week a week later. Yeah, later. And the thing is, because the class knows they don't care. Like they can, they can show that later, but you're stuck for the whole 11 weeks. And for me, I'm like, wait, wait, wait, we can't, like this isn't like a, you know, kind of a formal thing that I can just take people through. I want somebody to be interested in day one. So now it's like, well, you know, I tried to circle into a triangle. How about a sphere or how about it? So like, can I, can I move other shapes around? It is really kind of neat. And so you can have a lot of creativity. And you can sort of, you know, you do trial and error. And so to me, that's way more kind of engaging. And it's again, it's kind of that comedian, like, you know, I've got to catch somebody as they're walking by, you know, in a minute, I don't have like a semester to try to make it interesting. Yeah, you got to do kind of the joke set up. And then the punch line is the rest of this semester. Exactly. Exactly. And you know, it's funny. So like I try to look at other art forms. So this is what's interesting between art and I guess science or technology is that art is optional in a good way. So we, you know, we always say like, oh, you know, we focus on the sciences are important. But you know, arts, well, do we need them? Do we not need them? But here's the thing, people do arts. Like people will draw for fun. People will paint. People will create. They will sculpt. They were right. So to an alien that looks like work, right? If an alien came to Earth, it's like, oh, this person is sitting down and putting marks on paper for hours. For hours and hours, they're putting it in a throwing way the paper and they're doing it again. It looks like such, like such tedium, but the person who's drawing is having a great time. They're like, oh, I'm getting closer to what I want. And they're practicing. The funny thing is that art has that human kind of compulsion element. Like you can actually get somebody to care and to do something that would otherwise look like work. And so to me, it's like, okay, even for teaching of science or teaching math, why not use the techniques that art is already, like art is already really kind of sexy and engaging. So like, you know, if the problem with science is that it's not sticky enough for people, well, art has already solved that problem. Like people will pay money for art. People will do like very few people will sort of willingly, you know, not willingly, but it's harder to get people to pay money for like a science museum. If they're not interested, but people will, hey, like, you know, like a piece of art, they want to get it. There's a feeling, there's an emotion there. And so I kind of see it as a compliment. It's sort of like a very good technique to get people interested in something. And so I want to apply that to science instead of having it be this kind of opposition, which is sometimes this position does. And I think, you know, I really think that's partially a problem with our language and maybe also a problem with the institutional education, the way it's structured, because we create walls between art and math, or between art and science. And we say, okay, you know, art is this area where you can be totally expressive and, you know, you practice and the outcome is beautiful or the outcome is engaging on an emotional level. But math is used for accounting, right? And that's it. Like it's only used as utility. I think that's a problem that has been introduced by a cage that we've created with language. We don't think about math in the same light as art, because it's sequestered off into its own, you know, kind of cold corner, whereas art is in this mysterious warm corner, where we can do it in our off time as recreation. And any good mathematician knows that math is also or math, if I'm going to be proper here, are also recreational at times. Exactly. And I think there's sort of probably two aspects, which is, yeah, it's something, you know, art or math or art or science. But then there's also, is it formal or informal? And I think what happens is people assume that science has to be formal and they assume that art is informal. But I mean, you can you can kill someone's interest in art by going to crazy like color theory or like insane art history where, you know, you have to memorize the dates of all the paintings and things. Like it is possible to formalize art or music theory where it's, you know, all these different scales and keys and conversions and, you know, you can put rigor into anything, but it just seems that maybe culturally we assume that science is only rigor in art is more free when, you know, the rigor can be anywhere. And I find in general, rigor to be stifling if it's not, or a better way to put it is, rigor is kind of like a skeleton, which is, it gives you form and structure. But in the beginning, it can be really kind of constricting. So I'd rather be kind of like an amoeba, you know, skeleton kind of floating around just just trying to get a few other things and then hey, okay, you know, you're sort of flopping all over the place. Maybe if we put a little bit of structure, you know, it'll help kind of firm things up and maybe communicate. And I think unfortunately, yeah, science and math and things get put in this bucket where they are assumed to be only rigorous. And I mean, a lot of things start as explorations, right? Like counting or I mean, then my people a bit too literal, but patterns and geometry. It's just people drawing and, you know, drawing lines in the sand saying, oh, these triangles are kind of similar. Oh, that's kind of neat. Or like this shape is sort of like that other one or maybe, you know, there's connections here. And then you eventually put in the rules to them. And I feel like people kind of overfocussed in the rules. Actually, it's funny. So again, I keep moving back to analogies. That's actually kind of a meta skill, I suppose, is that I have found for myself what makes me interested in the subject. And so I realize, hey, like if I want to learn something and I, you know, I don't, I'm not interested in everything, but the things that I am interested in. If I want to maintain my interest, I try to find an analogy and then explore the analogy really deeply. And that gives me a lot of motivation. It's like, oh, you know, maybe it's like this other thing and I try to connect it. And for me, that's sort of my, it's kind of like knowing what makes you interested in something. And I sort of use that to learn more math. So for me, if there's a math subject I care about, I'll try to find a few analogies that I'll explore them. And that gives me the kind of the kick to go learn about the rules and see how the applied analogies. But a good example too is soccer. Like for fun, I was looking at the actual official FIFA rules. It's like a hundred-page manual. Like, yeah, it's like to play a soccer game, you know, on paper there's a hundred pages of rules about, you know, how the rough behaves and the throw-ins and the kicks and the timeouts and everything. But, you know, of course, you just throw a ball to some kids in the play and they'll figure it out. And so, you know, we don't have to make it that rigorous, but I think somehow, again, we've just, maybe we've just kind of started a typed math and science to be requiring this kind of rigor when it doesn't have to. Thank you so much for listening to the first part of my interview with Kalid Azad. Once again, I was so enlightened by Kalid and the work that he does is incredible. It's helping people learn concepts that they never really understood initially. And it's teaching people how to learn. So, just a perfect guest for this show. Thank you so much for listening to Developer Tea. If you're enjoying Developer Tea, make sure you subscribe. That is actually going to help you not miss out on the second part of the interview with Kalid as well. Thanks again to today's sponsor, Hired. If you are looking for a job as a designer or a developer, and you want a $2,000 bonus when you accept your job, you should check out Hired. Hired.com slash Developer Tea. Once again, this is 100% free for you. And there's no good reason not to try it out if you are on the job hunt. So go and check it out hired.com slash Developer Tea. Of course, that link will be in the show notes at spec.fm. The show notes will include all of the links from today's episode. And you can find other episodes of Developer Teaat spec.fm. Not to mention, there are other shows on spec.fm that you should go and check out. You will be incredibly interested in this stuff if you enjoy Developer Tea. So go and check out the other shows on spec.fm. Thank you so much for listening to Developer Tea. And until next time, enjoy your tea.