Nick @internic@qoto.org

Seriously, if you have a PhD candidate or are a PhD candidate working in black hole or neutron star X-ray binaries, invite me to be part of the committee? I'd like to feel once like I know stuff 😅

I remember when this story of two high school students discovering one or more new proofs of the Pythagorean theorem came out some years ago, but (frustratingly) without any substantive details on what these proofs were and why they were new. Now there is a published paper: https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/00029890.2024.2370240

The question of defining precisely when two proofs are "the same" (or whether a proof is "new" compared to existing proofs) is actually a very subtle and interesting one (see some discussion at https://gowers.wordpress.com/2007/10/04/when-are-two-proofs-essentially-the-same/ or https://mathoverflow.net/questions/3776/when-are-two-proofs-of-the-same-theorem-really-different-proofs). Here the authors take a largely syntactic approach: they are considering a proof to be "trigonometric" if it avoids the use of circles (or coordinates), but uses angles in an essential way. With these restrictions, they do find at least five proofs that do not obviously resemble any of the standard known proofs, for instance one that involves summing a geometric series.

In ptinciple there may be "semantic" ways to distinguish these proofs from other proofs, in that there may be exotic variants of Euclidean geometry in which one of the proofs in this paper is valid but other proofs are not, or vice versa. But even without having such a semantic way to make this distinction, this was a fun read and a reminder that even the most ancient and well-established foundational results in mathematics can sometimes be revisited from a fresh perspective.

This is a good resource for undecided or unmotivated voters, or people talking with same: comprehensive analyses of what the 2024 election means for science, health care, technology, education, nuclear weapons and more (issues, not horse race nonsense) https://www.scientificamerican.com/report/how-the-2024-presidential-election-will-shape-science-health-and-the-environment/

Also, in case anyone is counting, Starlink is now 63% of all active satellites.

2 out of ever 3 satellites up there now are owned by that awful billionaire. He effectively controls Low Earth Orbit. That should terrify everyone.

A reminder that more American child pedestrians (age 0-17) are killed by cars on Halloween than on any other day of the year. #CarsRuinCities

https://www.vox.com/future-perfect/2022/10/31/23427256/halloween-children-car-deaths-pedestrian-safety

Saw a discussion on Bluesky about how web devs end up having no body of work as sites disappear, companies fold, and agencies shutter

This first happened to me in the 2000s. Almost every project, large and small, I've worked on since has disappeared. Even most of the ebooks I made for a publishers have been replaced. I've been doing this for almost thirty years and my body of work exists only as screenshots and vague memories

TIL: There is LaTeX coffee stains package and I think you should know this: https://www.overleaf.com/latex/examples/latex-coffee-stains/qsjjwwsrmwnc

Just canceled #Amazon & #amazonprime accounts after #JeffBezos canceled #wapo editors' presidential endorsement.

Removing the #amazonfiretv device next.

Are there recommendations for alternatives?

Devoted & patient #linux & #freesoftware user, but not a trained #software developer or #coder.

May choose #roku & curious about #opensource options.

#stopfascism #failingwashingtonpost #floss #foss #diy #gnu #raspberrypi #creativecommons #system76 #calyxos #community #democracy

If you, or someone you know, is into telescopes - this article has a nice breakdown of which ones to purchase.
https://www.space.com/should-you-buy-a-telescope-on-black-friday-cyber-monday

Please take some time to read everything written in the link/personal share by @bastianallgeier - it is really worth your time. It is about his Grandpa being part of #Hitler #Nazi forces & how it made him an #AntiFascist. Read it. Then, please share it everywhere you can 🙌
https://mastodon.social/@bastianallgeier/113362870576727321

An #excerpt, to give you an idea of what is in article:

"I'm writing this down because my grandpa turned me into an anti-fascist with all my heart for the rest of my life. I'm not wearing black on an antifa demo to beat up some Nazis. I mean the deep conviction that fascism must never – and I mean never – return to power. I've witnessed his distorted reality. He was a fantastic example for how well humans can manipulate their own memories and the stories they tell – to protect themselves – to hide some brutal truths forever. You cannot argue with someone who's living in a different universe. It took a long time for me to understand that."

https://bastianallgeier.com/notes/grandpa

We need to learn more from lived experiences. We need to stop repeating the worst of historical evils. We can & should do much better!

If you've ever wondered if it's possible to run a broadcast television network on commodity hardware using open source software when you have no idea what you're doing, the answer is absolutely yes.

We're doing it right now! Or, at least, we will be tomorrow when they plug us in to the head-end.

We're running ffplayout on the server side, building our schedules by hand (new open source scheduler and media asset manager coming Soon ™️) and outputting to SRT and RTMP.

The RTMP stream is consumed by peertube, and then spit back out to our roku channel.

The SRT stream is consumed by a piece of hardware at the cable company (that we paid for, an Impulse 300D Network Decoder)which takes the SRT stream and just shoves it in to their head end.

The Impulse Decoder is the only piece of equipment in all of this that isn't a cheap rented VPS, and whatever it's running is the only time any of these videos touch something that isn't free software.

I just cast my #vote and I was told my registration had been suspended because of undeliverable mail.

1. My address hasn’t changed in close to a decade
2. I certainly did not receive a notice that I would be suspended
3. There is no reason why a voter registration card sent to my address would be returned as undeliverable
4. I still have a current voter registration card

I was able to vote after signing a confirmation of address.

So yeah, check your registration. That’s some fishy shit.

Was reading the Wikipedia entry of Galois on his birthday. Perhaps a little reminder of what life was like when the village priest had significant political power over you, and perhaps also a reminder that we should not go back:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/%C3%89variste_Galois

"On 28 July 1829, Galois's father died by suicide after a bitter political dispute with the village priest. A couple of days later, Galois made his second and last attempt to enter the Polytechnique and failed yet again. It is undisputed that Galois was more than qualified; accounts differ on why he failed. More plausible accounts state that Galois made too many logical leaps and baffled the incompetent examiner, which enraged Galois. The recent death of his father may have also influenced his behavior."

Sam Altman side by side with Aaron Swartz.

I can't stop thinking about it. One was prosecuted by the US for downloading copyrighted data from 1 source for noble purposes, and committed suicide to avoid prison. The other is widely celebrated for doing this on a much larger scale*.

Edited: *(and not for noble purposes)