Colin the Mathmo @ColinTheMathmo@mathstodon.xyz

Because the Fediverse uses chronological timelines, and because it has a worldwide audience, it is totally fine to boost your own post later so it can reach people in different time zones.

There's no algorithm deciding what people see in their main Fediverse timeline, so they just see whatever happens to be there when they are online.

#FediTips #Fediverse

@harald Yes — but 2022 is not too late for everything. It is too late for some, but we may still be able to prevent civilization collapse.

Yesterday I walked 10kms with my 8yo child. This is a short thread on what we did and why car dependent cities are a catastrophe for raising children:

To clarify: My proof is most likely new and worth talking about, regardless of how well-known the statement itself is. But I would really like to know how well-known the statement itself is.

It's far too simple to be new. But I have no idea where to start looking for it.

Can the hive mind help?

I have a nice, short proof for a theorem about conics. Unfortunately, I don't know how well the theorem itself is known. I'm sure it can be found in some book written in the last 200 years, but... 🤷
Does anyone know the following statement?

Given two non-degenerate conics in the projective plane. There are four lines which are tangent to both conics. They touch the given conics in four points each. Then there exists another conic, which runs through these eight points.

Hello! My name is Colin and I am a mathematician.

Today is Edie Windsor's birthday. I am considerably less iconic and effective, but I aim to be a force for good. If you're working on something pushing towards equality and justice and could use my help, please ask.

Today i learned that the atoi functions which are responsible for converting strings to integer, float, longs, longs longs, etc., return 0 on error. They don't set the errno. They RETURN 0.

#UI #UX #productivity #projectmanagement

Just found another hot "project management" program for software "engineers".

Guess what are the most important features to brag about? Right, it has tasks. And subtasks!

How did we end up in an industry where implementing 20% of most basic functionality is something to brag about on the marketing copy?

(To clarify: arbitrary deep task hierarchy is the most basic feature. Graphs is being smart. This? This is not even doing the basic thing.)

The demon looked around. There was a summoning sigil drawn in the ruddy sand, but nobody... It shifted its perception to the spiritual plane. Ah. A dust devil.
"Why hast thou-"
"A battery."
"A battery?" The demon looked around. "What need for a battery on Mars?"
"For our friend."
#MicroFiction #TootFic #SmallStories

based on the people i know who work in tech, when it comes to their home computers, 33 percent of the time it's a "cobbler's children have no shoes" situation, 33 percent a "cobbler's children have brand-new sneakers" situation, and rest, the lesser-known,"the cobbler's children wear mismatched shoes with rubber the cobbler started vulcanizing in their garage until they got bored" situation.

@alys I believe Einstein said something to the effect, "time is what prevents everything from happening all at once".

The fuck it does, Albert…

i am once again asking events to stop unfolding until we've grappled with the events that have already unfolded.

@rosamundi For many years I had a winter coat with an internal pocket that would take a paperback. It almost always did, too!