primerlearning

Live stream Q&A in 13 minutes

Short notice! But the new video is stuck rendering, so in lieu of the premiere at 10 am Central, I'm going to do a Q&A on YouTube. The video will be up later today.

Justin

It's up! Supply, Demand, and the Value of Markets

Hey folks's.

Another video is out, this time on economics. Thanks again for your support.  

Survival of the Friendliest? Testing Altruism Against Natural Selection

The next video is finally out. 

I learned a lot from this one, about biology, code, and animation. I hope you enjoy!

Green beard

Hey folks,

I'm working on the next video, which will be on inclusive fitness. Part of it will discuss the green beard thought experiment, so of course, I had to give the blobs beards.

Are Genes Really Selfish?

Hey all,

New video!

I'd love to hear your thoughts or questions here or on YouTube.

Justin

Growth!

Hey folks,

Sharing some exciting news that Simulating Natural Selection has been pretty popular. Over the past three days, it has gotten over 30k views, and the channel's subscriber count has tripled from 1k to over 3k.

Needless to say, this is pretty motivating. Thanks to everyone for being early supporters.

Justin

New video: Simulating Natural Selection

Hey all,

It's been a minute, as they say, but I'm excited to release the latest video! This one sets up a simulated environment in which creatures and their traits undergo natural selection. 

There should also be a smaller delay leading up to the next few videos, since the tool for simulation and related animation (most of the work that went into this video) will be reused a few times.

Thanks for your support and for bearing with me!

Justin

I'm still here!

Hey folks,

It has been a while since the last video. I spent some time on some other projects outside of YouTube, but I'm excited to be back working on Primer now. 

To hold you over, here's an image of the work in progress...

Github and social media pages

Hey everyone,

A number of you have expressed interest in seeing the code I use to animate these videos. I finally made a readme for the github page, so it might be a reasonable task to try to get it running on your own machine: https://github.com/Helpsypoo/primer

Also, I made facebook and twitter accounts for Primer, in case you'd like to follow along on those platforms:

https://www.facebook.com/Primer-Learning-224745931538280

https://twitter.com/primerlearning

New video on carrying capacity and competition

Hey Patrons,

The fourth video is out. I'd love to hear any feedback you may have: https://docs.google.com/forms/d/1IMG1IQI9g8fRFJejyf0s7bg3IhWl5c9nazqoH9GwomU/edit

New thank-you video

Hey folks,  

I made a new video to say thanks to new patrons, and I figured I'd share with you all, since I'm at least as thankful to old patrons!

Mutations and the First Replicators | Evolution 3

Hey folks,

Here's the third video! I'd love to hear what you all think.

If you're liking what you see, please consider telling someone about this series and why you decided to support it, whether it be in person or on social media. Completely optional, of course, but any little bit helps the channel grow.

Thanks,

Justin

Another animation preview

Hey Insiders,

RNA makes an appearance in the coming video, and I figured I'd share an animation of a snippet of it forming.

Animation preview

Hey Insiders,

This one is just for fun. I made the blobs a little more animated, in multiple senses. ;)

Replicators Only | Evolution 2

Hey everyone,

The second video is out! It extends the model from the first video to handle situations that aren't at equilibrium. Namely, those where creatures have a high replication chance.

While making this video, a lot more groundwork was laid. This includes the systems for the graphs and the equation annotations, plus some under-the-hood stuff that will make it a lot easier for me to make videos going forward.

Now that this is out the door, I'll spend some time working on the tier-specific rewards.

Also, this is my first paid post. \_($)_($)_/

Vidcon

I just bought my ticket to vidcon. If anyone is going to be there, I'd love to meet you!

http://vidcon.com/

Next video topic

Hey folks,

Thanks for supporting! Things are picking up faster than I had dared to hope, thanks to you all.

A quick update. The next video will add mutation to the mix and possibly begin talking about selection. My goal is to reach a steady state of producing a video every two weeks, but I'm not certain my process is mature enough to commit to that timeline just yet.

More updates to come, and thanks again!

On rewards

First post! 

Since this is brand new, I want to get some feedback on the rewards. Are there any rewards that don't seem to belong? Are they any rewards you expected to see that aren't there? Any feedback is helpful.

And thanks so much for visiting this page. I'm excited to have launched and to make more videos.