Physics prof / Tinkerer

My blog about code, physics, and ideas

Factorizing Softly

generative
ssl
geometry
embeddings

Learning “soft-separable” directions in latent space as an alternative to explicit factorization.

Mar 1, 2026
Scott H. Hawley

Noticing a Pattern

classification
foundations
visualization
computer_vision

Classification as Pattern Recognition

Jan 26, 2026
Scott H. Hawley

Flow Where You Want

generative
flows
guidance
diffusion

Adding Inference Controls to Pretrained (Latent) Flow Models

Nov 27, 2025
Scott H. Hawley

Flow With What You Know

generative
flows
diffusion
physics
tutorial

Basic physics provides a “straight, fast” way to get up to speed with flow-based generative models

Nov 13, 2024
Scott H. Hawley

Understanding Transformers, Part 2: Wee Music Box

nlp
architectures
transformers
music
midi

Toy Transformer Tunes

Dec 18, 2023
Scott H. Hawley

To Understand Transformers, Focus on Attention

nlp
architectures
transformers
tutorial

If you can get this one thing, the rest will make sense.

Aug 21, 2023
Scott H. Hawley

Residual Vector Quantization

compression
ssl
audio
quantization

An exploration of the heart of neural audio codecs

Jun 12, 2023
Scott H. Hawley

BYOL - Contrastive Representation Learning without Contrastive Losses

ssl
embeddings
tutorial

Now that we understand contrastive losses and what they’re good for – let’s get rid of them!

Nov 17, 2022
Scott H. Hawley

Shell Volumes and Distances in High-Dimensional Spaces

ssl
math
geometry
embeddings

Given enough dimensions, does it really matter which distance norm you use?

Nov 15, 2022
Scott H. Hawley

Likelihood of Vector Orthogonality in High-Dimensional Spaces

ssl
math
geometry
embeddings

Depends on whether you’re using unit vectors or not.

Jan 24, 2022
Scott H. Hawley

Learning Some Geometric/Clifford Algebra

math
geometry
physics

Clifford algebra isn’t so scary

Oct 15, 2021
Scott H. Hawley

Handy Bash Functions for ML & Data Science

computer_usage
bash
python

Once I figure out a complicated command, I make a bash function for it

Sep 15, 2021

Typical (Neural-Network-Based) Classification vs. Zero-Shot, Part 3 - Live Demo of CL Toy

ssl
classification
zero_shot
embeddings

Triplet Loss kicks butt

Aug 1, 2021

Typical (NN-Based) Classification vs. Zero-Shot, Part 2 - An Example Using FastAI

ssl
classification
zero_shot
embeddings

With my new data-visualization Callback!

Jun 17, 2021
Scott H. Hawley

Typical (Neural-Network-Based) Classification vs. Zero-Shot, Part 1 - The Joy of 3D

ssl
classification
zero_shot
visualization
embeddings

Visualizations in 3 (and 4) dimensions

May 4, 2021
Scott H. Hawley

Scottergories: Making GPT-3 Generate 3 of a Kind

classification
language_models
gpt3
prompt_engineering

In which we test GPT-3’s ability to generate members of a category

Feb 15, 2021

Naughty by Numbers: Classifications at Christmas

classification
foundations
ethics
interactive

A snarky interactive lesson on classification and surveillance

Dec 11, 2020

Citations in Fastpages via BibTeX and jekyll-scholar

blogging
tools
academic_writing

Supporting scholarly blogging by drawing references from your database.

Jul 1, 2020

Mac => Linux Switch Notes

computer_usage
linux
macos

Mac and I aren’t breaking up, we’re just seeing other people.

Jan 13, 2020

Principal Component Analysis (PCA) from Scratch

math
foundations
dimensionality_reduction
visualization

There are many tutorials on PCA, but this one has interactive 3D graphs!

Dec 21, 2019

Getting Started in ML+Audio

foundations
audio
resources

For audio students interested in machine learning

Dec 6, 2019

My First NN Part 3. Multi-Layer Networks and Backpropagation

foundations
backpropagation
tutorial

Multi-Layer Networks and Backpropagation

Feb 8, 2019

My First Neural Network, Part 2. Bias and CE Loss

foundations
loss_functions
tutorial

Bias and cross-entropy loss

Feb 4, 2019

My First Neural Network, Part 1

foundations
tutorial

First in a series on understanding neural network models.

Jan 30, 2019

Parallelizing Python, Simplified

computer_usage
python
multiprocessing

Basic use of multiprocessing.

Dec 16, 2018

Resolving Mac OS X Aliases in Python

(or “How I Spent Monday Night”)
computer_usage
python
macos

Mac OSX aliases are not symbolic links. Trying to read one will probably crash your code.

Feb 21, 2018

Crash Course On GANs

generative
gans
audio
foundations

This post is not necessarily a crash course on GANs. It is at least a record of me giving myself a crash course on GANs. Adding to this as I go.

May 5, 2017

Learning Room Shapes (with Neural Networks)

physics
acoustics
foundations

Deep neural network learns (boxy) room shape given mode frequencies, or vice versa.

May 4, 2017

Following Gravity - ML Foundations Part I

foundations
optimization
physics
tutorial

First in a series on Machine Learning Foundations, which applies to much of science and statistics as well. .

Feb 23, 2017

Machine Learning Reference List

foundations
audio
resources
This has been my personal reading list, first compiled ca. February 2016 & updated very infrequently (e.g. Oct 2016, Feb 2017, Sept 2017). The field moves so quickly, much…
Feb 6, 2017

How to Port-Forward Jupyter Notebooks

computer_usage
jupyter
ssh
networking

…to enable efficient remote-working.

Feb 3, 2017
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