@futurebird This is what is currently in my workshop.

Every year I have a little crisis mentally thinking they will never understand the point of writing proofs, or what they really are. Somehow I forget that the dawn still comes.

@kbm0 @futurebird the original Harrison marine chronometers that won the longitude prize were apparently extremely accurate; one lost only 5 seconds over an 80 day voyage. By contrast the Tissot Le Locle I'm wearing as I write this apparently is only accurate to +/- 5 seconds per day. So even the modern mechanical movements don't compare. However I'd expect even the cheapest quartz movement to be sub-second accuracy and superior

(Of course, if you send a cheap Casio F91W back in time, its accuracy may briefly impress but you then have the additional problem of being unable to change the battery)

The cat is sleeping, purring in time with the hissing of the radiator.

My 9th grade students have at last begun to understand what it means to write a proof.

"Do you mean I could just write it out in words? Just explain why it's true?"

Yes! That is exactly what I mean. Or you could draw a diagram. Or you could sing.

"Oh, Lord, Oh Lord, It's a Beautiful Day..."

There is a spot behind the 30 story apartment towers just outside my window where the acoustics are incredible. Someone is singing gospel on this cold early morning causing the pigeons to take flight wheel as one above the NYC skyline.

They fly over the pale yellow and pink clouds intermittently visible through the windows (which have been frosted over with condensation from the heater) And that fiery beast in the basement is also singing and banging.

It's going to be a beautiful day.

@futurebird Uh oh, you've touched off my horology nerd systems.

I've definitely thought about this, although I usually think about it with at least a $35 Chinese wrist watch movement. The modern "dollar watch" pocket watch movements like you are talking about are pretty darn crude.

Comparing a modern watch movement to, say, an 18th century movement, the modern ones are a marvel of precision miniaturization, but they hold nothing on the intricate beauty of the plates and bridges on the older ones. By the late 19th and early 20th century ones, they are remarkably similar to modern ones. Other than materials and machining improvements, the only really large design changes on a typical watch are the shock resistant jewel mounts and the automatic rotor systems.

I mean... if you had 8 billion dollars and you could spend 10 million on propaganda and politicians to get ANOTHER 8 billion dollars by saving in taxes and getting government contracts and whatnot why wouldn't you just do that?

Other than some vague pro-social sense that the government is meant to serve everyone or some kind of "work ethic"... nah. Buying lobbyists *is* real work.

I swear to god.

404 Media: People are making slop apps for abandon hardware, but since it's vibe coded we're going to have a world of slop devices that don't work very well and have malware on them.

Me: You mean like how things are right now already?

The glass slipper wouldn't ever fit on Elon's big feet. In fact? There is no glass slipper, no prince, no castle. Just sad men with hazy dreams.

A lone inventor, a genius driven by a world-changing idea. Working tirelessly to solve the problem in his garage.

And then it happens. The problem is solved, the intractable is defeated and the world must recognize the value of the work. (goose?)

And in the same way the prince will find cinderella and recognize that though she had to sweep cinders, she was always the most demure and true of the sisters.

Maybe we shouldn't even tell such tales to children.

A lone inventor, a genius driven by a world-changing idea. Working tirelessly to solve the problem in his garage.

And then it happens. The problem is solved, the intractable is defeated and the world must recognize the value of the work. (goose?)

And in the same way the prince will find cinderella and recognize that though she had to sweep cinders, she was always the most demure and true of the sisters.

Maybe we shouldn't even tell such tales to children.

Imagine sending a cheap analog pocketwatch (you can buy one for $5, and most of that cost is the shipping and labor) to the distant past when technical watches were rare.

What would an expert watchmaker make of the mechanism? The cheapness of the parts? The extreme precision, but also the corner cutting?

Maybe I missed it... but why didn't more of the big voices in the AI space call out Elon for just trying to just hop on the trend?

I guess too many of them thought that his money and fame brought power to their cause?

Probably a big mistake.

I guess it's not shocking when the hype master is the winner of the hype contest. But, there are still a lot of people who have not recognized that that is all that this is.

Elon was never a big AI guy. He just jumped on the bandwagon as he's done for so many other things and it's kind of funny that they only successful AI IPO to pop off in the end may well be Elon's company... X, or spaceCar or whatever it's called.

I'd feel bad for the people who have done the real work to make LLMs happen from the start if so many of them weren't trying to inflate the tech's importance in their own way.

edit: maybe in some ways I'm incorrect about this

🎉 TASMANIAN VELVET WORMS AND AN EXCERPT FROM MY BOOK! 🎉

This stunning creature is a velvet worm, which I recently saw in Tasmania. I attempted the difficult task of describing these wonderful animals in the epilogue of my book (see the last photo)... Would you describe them differently? If so, how?

Stay tuned for more macrophotography and book excerpts, and I'm also considering running a giveaway for a signed copy of the hardback!

#booksbooksbooks #bookish #bookworm #Nonfiction #Nature #NatureBook #TheWorldBeneathOurFeet #entomology

Literal living gremlin.
Muppet.
Creature of mischief.

How are cats even real?

@futurebird Try a drop of water on each one. Many little stamp pads are water based and dry out while still having lots of ink.

I have my students create their own number system. It must be a base other than 10. It can use a tally system or it can use place-value... but not both (I had one kid try and it was fascinating and very confusing)

I like to use stamps for their symbols because I think it's a good offline way to understand the immutability and value of characters. But also because deep down I just want to play with cute little stamps.