jsiehler @jsiehler@mathstodon.xyz

Every fiber of my being was expecting the fourth line to be "Panama."

I've been doing some learning about the no-three-in-line problem (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/No-three-in-line_problem) in order to discuss it in an intro-level class – which I think is harder than discussing it in an advanced class. Fascinating stuff in any case.

How much value is there in using the \(\partial\) symbol in opposition to \(d\) to distinguish between "partial derivative" and, I don't know, "not-partial derivative?" I've never seen much point in it; in some cases it even seems ambiguous which one to choose.

This had to exist; I'm only surprised I haven't run across it before.
https://fineartamerica.com/shop/puzzles/mandelbrot+set

Very nice (if slightly soporifc) video intro to combinatorial game theory via Hackenbush.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZYj4NkeGPdM

I was just briefly, bitterly embarrassed about not being able to remember what "paracompact" means and then I remembered that's normal. (Not normal like "disjoint closed subsets can be separated", just normal like "a normal human being.")

Minor, but every day, irritations in life:
(1) The order in which function composition is written
(2) "Pre" comes after "Post" alphabetically.

For my future classroom use, I made a collection of Set card images in new colors.

The site FeltMagnet has lots of art/craft/drawing tutorials like How to Draw a Bucket, How to Draw an Anchor, How to Draw a Cute Cartoon Zombie, How to Draw Peppa Pig, How to Draw Four Dimensional Figures...

https://feltmagnet.com/drawing/How-to-Draw-Four-Dimensional-Figures

"Well, students, we have now covered all the different notations that can be used to represent partial derivatives. Unfortunately, that leaves us no time in the semester to calculate or apply any of them. Maybe in a later class!"

In particular, I'm interested in tracking down a source for "the maximum number of SETs possible in a hand of \(n\) cards."

Fascinating as I do find the card game Set, its generic name definitely does not help with finding relevant articles and stuff via search engines.

I like this video from Scott Kim about designing puzzles but I want more. Anybody know any pages or videos about designing puzzles worth recommending?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EHxR9kBVVV4

Trying to thing of a top-down scrolling shoot-em-up game that I was playing on an IBM of some sort in the early 90s. The main feature I remember was really gorgeous alien landscapes, and the title was something that explicitly named itself as a shooter - something like "Shoot Everything that Moves" ... AH HA! IT JUST CAME TO ME. It ws "If It Moves, Shoot It." That concludes this broadcast. Thank you for listening; good day.

Looking back over some old calc/precalc materials, I was pleased with the quality of this matching question. Nothing super special, but it works the concept of average rate of change well, I think.

A very slick presentation of a piece I'm very fond of.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sHJzdEGq26I

Could I just ignore the rest of multivariable calculus and go on talking about curvature, torsion, and differential geometry for the rest of the semester? That would be fine, right?