Peter Rowlett @peterrowlett@mathstodon.xyz

Because I seem to be making a hobby of tinkering with TikZ this summer, I released an update to the nimsticks LaTeX package for multi-pile Nim - now with customisation options for size & colour, and you can use your own drawings rather than my sticks.

I made a new LaTeX package for drawing dice, customdice.

The basic commands include \dice{5} for a standard dice face, and \textdice{A} for a face with letter A. You can customise the colours and size, and what’s written on the faces can be (in principle) any LaTeX code or TikZ code.

More information and how to get it in this blog post: https://aperiodical.com/2022/08/customdice-a-new-latex-package-for-drawing-dice/

Official customdice page on CTAN: https://www.ctan.org/pkg/customdice

I wrote a puzzle in New Scientist!

I suddenly realised earlier that I can fill a Hex board with a random assortment of counters using the LaTeX package hexboard. I'm not sure this is useful, mind you! In fact, less sure the more I think about it...

Three journal special issues I'm aware of on university mathematics, statistics and OR teaching, learning, assessment, support, etc. during COVID:
- Restarting the new normal https://academic.oup.com/teamat/issue/40/4
- Takeaways from teaching through a global pandemic https://www.tandfonline.com/toc/tmes20/53/3
- Responding to the COVID-19 pandemic https://journals.gre.ac.uk/index.php/msor/issue/view/93

I'm an editor for one, editorial board for another and ex-editorial board for the third. Are there any others?

I'm used to right-clicking on a MathJax-rendered equation and getting a menu like this, but this doesn't work here. Is that deliberate? Is it something to worry about? @christianp?

We also made an environment to run through a game, with or without numbered pieces showing the order of play. Here the envionment is hexgame or hexgamelabels and moves are \hexmove{row}{column} (the player colour alternates).

Do you know the game Hex? Do you use \(\LaTeX\)? Chris Sangwin & I wrote a package for drawing Hex boards and games called hexboard. It makes lovely diagrams like this.

Definition of mathematics given by the Guardian uni league table. What do we think? https://www.theguardian.com/education/ng-interactive/2017/may/16/university-guide-2018-league-table-for-mathematics
https://mathstodon.xyz/media/S_WD_3jASDnkl0QQoCg

‪Quote is from the latest BBC More or Less episode on Radio 4 (though a similar claim was made on the World Service edition of the programme). But isn't self-similarity about similarity at different scales, i.e. parts resembling the whole? Am I wrong?‬

https://mathstodon.xyz/media/nZuvH5XSxXnhxH2gNFE