Machine learning seems to be everywhere these days, but a lot of the information about what it is and how it works can be somewhat opaque. On one end of the spectrum there’s the “just run this code” approach, which is great if you’re learning a new library for a familiar task, but can seem a bit like magic when it’s demonstrating something you’ve not done before. On the other end of the spectrum is the mathematical explanation. Mathematical notation is a useful tool if you know it, but if not it can hide some simple ideas behind unfamiliar language.