unpopular opinion: software developers were too comfortable for too long. they didn't unionize when everybody told them to. they didn't use the time they had when they were on top to implement meaningful safeguards for their jobs. and now llms are hitting their industry like a sledgehammer and they don’t know how to fight because they never did.

i don’t say that to blame them, it’s still their bosses who are the problem. but take it as a wake up call and unionize. better late than never.

h/t to @dimpase

https://siliconreckoner.substack.com/p/mathematics-is-not-rational-really?triedRedirect=true

My book "The Appearance of Things: How the Principle of Relativity Shapes Our Visual World", is now available for presale: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0HCVLM6T9

The Venn diagram intersection of mathematician and software is growing ever more dangerous.

RE: https://lipn.info/@mevenlennonbertrand/116997917683191056

Wahahaha

Semi-annual blathering about AI:

I still don't use any AI code in my work, but I have to review more and more of it these days. One of the things bothering me about that these days is just how lacking in personality that code is.

RenderMan is a code base which is now over forty years old. It is a collection of idiosyncratic styles written by equally idiosyncratic people.

(1/10)

RE: https://mastodon.social/@BenRiceM/116980424345560765

Don't fuck with Israeli weapons manufacturers (Elbit Systems), they will have you royally fucked up.

I finally got around to making an English version of my users guide on "How to read math?"

Find it here:
https://web.mathi.uni-heidelberg.de/media/How_To_Read_Math_88bf1d2d47.pdf

#math #readingmath #mathematics #matheducation #science

#Mathstodon, can can we figure out the #physics behind this?

At Alnwick Gardens, the water feature #wateglass shows some mysterious behaviour. The water falls from a circular basin, forming a vertical sheet that oscillates towards the bottom. This flutter is surprisingly aggressive and persistent. It disappears when the water flow is disturbed at the top, but when the disturbance is removed the oscillations quickly grow again.

The plaque attributes the phenomenon to pressure differences between the sides of the sheet of water. While I think it's plausible that the oscillation is indeed an aerodynamic effect, this is not a satisfactory answer without an explanation of why the pressure difference occurs.

It may be relevant that the sheet is curved, because the flutter seems much weaker near the edges of the installation. Could the surface tension be pulling the sheet inward, somehow getting into a positive feedback loop with aerodynamic forces? Your guess is as good as mine...

"Clausen, for his part — as he told Yakerson in a separate interview around the same time — avoids publishing papers, because he believes that the scientific publishing industry is fundamentally flawed."

I like this guy!

Nice pop article for us numpties on Scholze/Clausen's "condensed mathematics".

https://www.quantamagazine.org/two-researchers-are-rebuilding-mathematics-from-the-ground-up-20260520/

If you post a Zenodo link it’s an instant mute. Why are crackpots congregating there now?

HISTORY OF PHYSICS

Duel in the Sun

For decades, a dominant historical story asserted that David Hilbert publicly presented the correct field equations of general relativity on November 20, 1915, just five days before Albert Einstein.

This led to the belief that Hilbert had found a pure path to the theory, using his superior mathematical skills to elegantly bypass Einstein’s eight years of arduous, trial-and-error struggle in just half a year.

This priority myth was dismantled by the discovery and analysis of the original printer proofs of Hilbert’s first paper (dated November 20, 1915). These proofs revealed that they did not include the explicit field equations of general relativity.

1/

RE: https://mathstodon.xyz/@YellowReadis/116876622416187054

"The threshold is real. The arithmetic is real. And the arithmetic has exactly one input you control. Every era’s turnaround began the same way: some unmeasurable number of people, each acting alone, declined to sell — and then made the single most subversive move available to a member of a collapsing civilization.

They found the people who could not be bought."

We might see how corrupt FIFA really is now! 🤣

I'm really feeling the schadenfreude today.

Worth a watch if you're into this sort of thing:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rNXNHYvS7zU

An advanced reading copy of my upcoming book "The Appearance of Things" is now available!

Let me know if you'd like a link to the PDF version.

Einstein’s E = mc² is only half of the full equation

Pretty much everyone knows Einstein's most famous equation: E = mc².

But that's only half of the full equation for energy in the Universe.

What comes out of that is so much richer.
https://bigthink.com/starts-with-a-bang/einsteins-e-mc-squared-half-equation/

https://www.researchgate.net/publication/346213465_Objective_Observer-Relative_Flow_Visualization_in_Curved_Spaces_for_Unsteady_2D_Geophysical_Flows

Also, here's my weekly fuck you to Apple: Fuck you, Apple.