#started this in my graph theory class

[eenuaj]

pretty man pretty man pretty man

[neet-aspirant]

26–07–2024, Friday, D – 282 Days

moment of honesty — my physics is very weak. it has always been. and presently, class 12 physics just doesn't sit right with me. i seemingly understand all concepts, derivations and theories, and can solve direct formula based numericals but when it comes to conceptual or application based questions, my mind goes blank. and so, to cope with this, until my first set of exams back in june, my brain thought the best idea would be to completely ignore the subject till one week before exams. and yep, obviously that yielded the results i deserved. i scored disastrously in physics unit exam (the one that was held a few weeks back). i just barely passed (thank you god for not failing me) and trust me, this is a first. so now, after my parents and teachers telling me the same thing over and over again, i have realised that it is high time for me to do over in this subject and improve my graph. i don't even know how because i'm actually really scared of the subject but i just need to. i have like roughly a month until mid terms, and if this time i slack off, I'll pay by failing and i cannot let that happen. so i need to do this any how and i will do it.

molecular basis of inheritance [30 mins]

finished taking notes of d and f blocks [1 hour]

read the notes mentioned above [45 mins]

psychology questions [1 hour 15 mins]

started watching video lecture of magnetism [30 mins]

started solving ncert questions of magnetic effects of current [30 mins]

integration [2 hours]

took psychology notes [30 mins]

eng lit [1 hour]

neet physics mcqs [30 mins]

analysis & corrections of the mcqs that i got wrong [30 mins]

psychology practical work [1 hour]

Total Time – 10 hours

[thenightfolknetwork]

I study maths at uni, and you would be surprised at how often all the arcane-looking symbols mathematicians manipulate cross into being actually arcane (in a thaumaturgically potent sense). It’s an absolute pain if you, like me, are from a genus with… shall we say intense thaumaturgic sensitivities. 

Things have been coming to a head with the graph theory class I’m taking this term. I absolutely love graph theory, in fact I want to do my thesis research in it someday, but my allergies have been getting so bad that I’ve been considering abandoning the field entirely. 

See, graphs, the formal mathematical sense, are objects  consisting of verticies connected by edges. These can be visualised by drawing a bunch of dots (representing the verticies) connected by lines (representing the edges). Many common shapes and symbols are visualisations of graphs! Take, for instance, the complete graph on five vertices (K5 for short). To visualise K5 you can draw your five dots equally spaced in a circle, draw a straight line between each pair of these dots, and… arrive at a little known symbol called a pentagram. 

Which is exactly what I did when working on a homework problem a couple of weeks ago. I was so focused on the maths I didn’t even realise what I had drawn until my hand started smouldering. I managed to put out the blaze, but not before my work was burnt to a crisp. I was working on the assignment the night before it was due- I know, I know- so I didn’t have time to rewrite it. Needless to say, my professor was not particularly interested in marking the pile of ash I turned in, and I was curtly informed that “I’m allergic to my homework” is not a valid excuse for failing to turn in legible coursework. 

I’m at an impasse. K5 is an extremely mathematically important graph- it’s the smallest complete graph that’s not planar. That is, you can rigorously prove it’s impossible to draw K5 without your edge lines intersecting, even if you are allowed to curve the lines however you want as long as you don’t lift your pencil. This results in K5 having some rather interesting pathological behaviour that makes it an important counterexample in many graph theory proofs …but I digress. Point is, that (quite literally) infernal K5 graph is ubiquitous in graph theory, and it’s far from the only thaumaturgically reactive symbol in the field. I’ve had some other near misses - once I even started to spark during lecture, though no fire broke out that time thankfully. The professor is getting increasingly impatient with me and has given me an ultimatum: get my thaumaturgic allergies under control or drop out of the course. I don’t know what to do. Please help. 

[OOC: thanks for bearing with the long mathematical infodump- I love your podcast, the premise leaves so much room for creativity and I have many thoughts about how the canon might tie into my favorite subject. It is true that mathematics historically could get weirdly occult-adjacent. In particular the pentagram, in addition to having interesting mathematical properties, was also the symbol of the delightfully bizarre secretive math cult founded by the Greek scholar Pythagoras- as in the Pythagorean theorem guy. I think in the MA universe there was definitely something liminal going on with the man. Also, for a proof that K5 is not planar- along with other graphs with certain properties- here’s a really cool open source resource! I do love graph theory a lot- this result in particular is really fun to play around with https://discrete.openmathbooks.org/more/mdm/sec_planar.html)]

First things first, reader – thank you so much for bringing me a question that reminds me how much I still have to learn about the world. I admit, mathematics has never been my strong suit, but I've always thought it was a fascinating field of study. Your letter makes me want to learn more!

Fortunately, your particular predicament is rather easier to solve than untangling the mathematical mysteries of the universe. You can deal with your thaumaturgic allergy on two fronts – both by treating the allergy itself, and by securing some additional support from your university.

For the allergy itself, it may seem obvious but have you tried taking an antihistamine before you start your homework? Thaumaturgic allergies function the same as any other allergic reaction, even if the physical response from your body is rather… different.

If over-the-counter antihistamines aren't effective, make an appointment with your GP. Depending on the severity of the allergy, they'll be able to explore treatment options with you or refer you to a specialist. This may include other medication or perhaps desensitisation therapy, where you will be exposed to gradually increasing levels of magic to build up your thaumaturgic tolerance.

As an aside, I must urge you never to attempt such desensitisation on your own. Quite apart from the health risk this poses to yourself, there is also the combustible nature of your allergy to take into account. Besides which, paying a magical practitioner to do random spells in your vicinity in the hopes of prompting a reaction strikes me as an especially dangerous way to waste one's money.

While you're pursuing the medical side of your issue, I encourage you to seek out proper support from your university. I'm pleased to say that your lecturer is thoroughly in the wrong here – being allergic to your homework absolutely counts as grounds for reasonable adjustments, including an extension on your missed deadline.

Your university should have a system in place for supporting students with disabilities and other additional needs. Get in touch with them at the earliest opportunity to talk through the options available for you. At the very least, they should be able to provide you with some thaumaturgically non-reactive writing materials with which to do your work.

Finally, a word of reassurance. Allergies can be extremely frustrating, and even frightening, especially when they aren't taken seriously by the people around you. But there are plenty of treatments available and I see no reason why this should get in the way of your chosen career. And if you do happen to make any breakthroughs in the wonderful world of mathematics, I'd love to hear – even if I might not quite be able to follow!

[For more creaturely advice, check out Monstrous Agonies on your podcast platform of choice, or visit monstrousproductions.org for more info]

[0perfectimperfections0]

New! Commissions

Hey Dolls!

I'm trying something new, and a part of me doesn't really expect it to go anywhere, but we'll see what happens. If you look at my pinned post and scroll to the bottom of it, you'll find that I've added something new.

I'm testing out the waters of commissions for art. Rendered art is not yet on there simply because I'm still practicing and studying colour theory in order to get better at rendering my drawings.

My specialties are sketching (obviously) and face-value painting. For those of you that don't know what Face-Value painting is, it's usually done with shades between black and white. I took a class for it in community college and loved it. Here's an example of a Face-Value painting I've done:

Face-Value paintings are the highest priced option simply because it takes so long to do (at least by hand. Finding the right in-between values should be easier on digital) but I have to graph and number each value on the drawing in order to make it.

Face-Value paintings are also the only ones in which I would need to base the painting off of an actual image, so asking me to do one for an envisioned artwork won't really be possible.

Anywho, I think everything else on the commission list is self-explanatory.

Again, this is experimental and my policy is that you would see the finished product prior to payment because I care more about you being satisfied with what you get than a few measly dollars. The only real reason the payment is implemented is because I'm working towards doing this professionally, and - just like with writing - it never hurts to start with fandoms and hyperfixations.

If you want something that's not UglyDolls, then that works too! Just DM me and I can go over what themes I specialize in (not people, except if it's Face-Value) I suck at drawing people. But if there's another fandom you would like me to draw for, then feel free to ask. I also have original drawings that I've been working on for a few months, my more detailed ones, if ya'll are interested in seeing it. I think I posted them on a separate account @dragonflyer2003

I'll post more of my original works as well as my commissioned works on there as a sort of "portfolio"

Prices are low, by the way, I think. I didn't really research how much people usually charge for commissions. I based it mostly off of how long it usually takes me to produce a drawing of each style and how much I feel comfortable charging (because, let's be real, this is a fandom and why would you pay a tank's worth of gas on a drawing of Lou) So the lowest is $5 USD and the highest is $15 USD.

Again, this is just a test run. Don't feel obligated to DM me or anything, I'm solely testing the waters using this fandom before I plunge into making original artwork and commissioning it.

For any further questions, just DM me!

[cherisheye]

☆ mon, april 22nd, 2024

☆ what i did today ☆

☆ met up with my lab partners and finished two lab reports due this week (i had to make a graph - and the data was not in my favour gjdgjstjjf but i made it) ☆ started studying for the linear algebra midterm - beginning with matrices and their operations, inverse matrices, determinants etc. ☆ worked on my calculus worksheet - finished a few exercises about function domain ☆ made a topic list for the general chemistry lab midterm on wednesday, i'll study for it tomorrow

classes today: calculus i - we did some example exercises that had to do with lateral limits and continuity; general chemistry i - continued with the topic of the VSPER model for the geometry of molecules, then entered the topic of covalent bond theory

[mentalknot]

What I thought my trajectory as a math major would look like during the fall of my freshman year:

Semester 1

Take linear algebra + multivariable calculus… maybe intro combinatorics if I’m feeling “wild,” but taking it easy to learn the ropes

Semester 2

Take number theory, maybe some CS classes to work on the double-major side plot… pretty chill semester again, to adjust to college ofc

Semester 3

Take abstract algebra and a few more CS classes, maybe an extra little elective? Time to be adventurous!

Semester 4

Take real analysis + finally start finishing my distribution requirements… lol

Semester 5+

Topology and purely unknown vibes, maybe research at some point? Who knows!

Reality, three semesters later lmao

Semester 1

Took linear algebra and combinatorics + a last-minute remote internship + intro CS, and discovered research seminars for the first time

Semester 2

Took abstract algebra, number theory, and multivariable calc + data structures + started my first math research project, …and had an eight-day medical emergency side plot (oops)

Summer

Finished first math research paper, attended six conferences + more seminars than I can count, worked part-time at a pizza place, and my friend, imposter syndrome, said hello

Semester 3

Taking advanced linear algebra and real analysis, working two interdisciplinary research jobs because I was ready to “take a break from retail,” experienced my first “philosophical bender” after severe anxiety that spawned a “potentially novel” family of graphs, attempted to prove some goofy old conjectures and convinced myself that I was going crazy in the process… and enjoyed combinatorics seminars with my friends!

I’m never letting my autistic brain have free will to decide my schedule again… 😭

[that-aspiring-academic]

Alice’s Academic Weekend -

(This is a long one, folks)

So, I have been made aware that while I was so focused on my STEM classes (specifically math) I managed to miss several assignments in my other classes (English, French, PE10, PE9). I also have a unit test on Microbiology tomorrow that I still need to write my notes for, a short horror story due on Friday, and undoubtedly several more assignments that all need to be done before next Monday (the first reporting period deadline).

Given all this I’ve decided to put everything together into order of priority to get my shit together this weekend (and the days leading up to it) -

Wednesday (today) -

Finish writing the bulk of my biology notes ( 7 pages )

Start my note review (bio)

Do PE10 assignments 1A-1B

Finish my Desmos assignment

Start my horror story

Thursday -

Write my cues and summaries for biology (before school)

Get the bulk of my horror story done/rough draft (English, A-block)

Write the rest of my notes review (lunch)

Finish my French idioms assignment

Do sub-chapters 1-3 of my graphing work (after school)

Figure out my plan for RCM L4-5 and finalize my song list

Friday -

Submit any further PE10 work

Finish graphing chapter 3, start chapter 4

Start Biology notes for unit 3 (3 pages w/ cues)

Begin review of Math10 workbook, chapter 1 & midterm review

Finish Horror story, have it peer-reviewed if possible

Saturday -

Household chores

Piano practice, get down The Summersault King w/ LH.

Review RCM L4 theory requirements

Continue independent Desmos project

Contact school support for further details about drug testing volunteer week

Any overdue work (aside from Harrison Bergeron)

Sunday -

Rest day

Maybe math if I have not completed all assigned work in the prior days

I’ve decided to decentralize math, only doing required coursework when it’s due and a bit of review each night outside of test weeks/midterms month.

It is not feasible for me to do as much math work as I’ve been doing at the rate which I’m doing it (entire workbook units in 2-3 days rather than the 3-4 weeks they’re assigned for) as I don’t want to risk burnout and it clearly hasn’t been working, as well as the fact it has been negatively impacting my other classes.

I’m hoping to get close to my last score on my Microbiology test tomorrow (93-95%), though I doubt I’ll score quite as high given that I studied less for this one and rushed myself more. Realistically I’m thinking I’ll get in between 72%-85%, not ideal but not terrible. We are also afforded 2 retests per semester and I have yet to use either of them, so I always have that option.

It’s a lot of volume work-wise for this weekend, but I’m hoping it won’t be too difficult content-wise.

That’s all, wish me luck, folks!!

[coming-up-with-usernames-is-hard]

PhD Blog Week 4

Reading

Kac and Raina bombay lectures, read half of chapter 4, it seems to make more sense than Date's book but that might just be because the notation is closer to what my supervisor uses and I've already seen the explanation once now

Courses

Lie theory: Proved Engel's theorem and looked at Lie's theorem, introduced the Killing form

CFT: SO MUCH QFT. Supposedly QFT is not a prerequisite for this course but if I hadn't already spent a whole year studying QFT I'm not sure how I would have followed anything in this lecture. We're taking an axiomatic approach which is essentially "correlators exist and have these nice properties", and then we introduced path integrals and showed they had the same nice properties, so I guess they can be the same thing. Of course path integrals are badly defined and don't make any sense, but it's fine, you just believe that path integrals and functional derivatives work like normal derivatives and it all works out fine. No actual CFT this time, the conformal symmetry should come in the next lecture

Differential Topology: Painfully detailed calculation of the tangent space to S¹, defined a vector field. Really wish we were using derivations as the basis of our definitions, alas I have to deal with equivalence classes of elements of a disjoint union. It's a weird definition of the tangent space because it presupposes that it's a vector space of dimension equal to that of the manifold. Plus, it's so notation heavy. We're explicitly working with equivalence classes of pairs of a label of a chart and a vector in ℝⁿ and everything is just nested brackets. When I've seen this material previously the goal has always been to drop as much notation as possible and forget any equivalence classes that may be taking place and just work with a representative

Talks

Example showcases started this week, we each have to give a 30min talk about an "example" relevant to what we're researching. We saw four this week, all of which were good. The first was on moduli spaces of flowlines, I followed what was happening but I didn't quite get the point of what we were doing. The second was on surgery theory, I think I got the idea but I've got absolutely no clue on any of the details. The third was on dual Artin groups, which are related to Artin groups (although the "dual" is misleading, there's no duality) and Artin groups are related to Coxeter groups, which I know a little about because Coxeter diagrams are related to Dynkin diagrams and Dynkin diagrams are related to Lie algebras which are nice. The fourth was on CAT(0)-spaces and CAT(0)-groups. I went into this with no idea what a CAT(0)-space is and now I feel I have a good idea, and there was a nice way to think of the free group as moving different parts of its own Cayley graph into focus which reminded me of zippers in type theory, where a zipper is the derivative of the type, which feels like some black magic where you start differentiating objects formed from (co)products in a category as if they were normal polynomials.

My example showcase is next week, so I've started planning that. Currently planning to focus on how we can take inspiration from physics to discover things in maths, but that might all change once I write the talk and work out if it fits in 30min

Supervisor Meeting

Met with my supervisors, most of the meeting was spent looking at different ways to represent the Clifford algebra of fermions. One way was as an infinite tensor product of copies of ℂ² on which Pauli matrices act, the other was as the exterior algebra of an infinite dimensional space where the basis consists of single-fermion states and the wedge product gives us all of the required anticommuting properties. Still have some sign ambiguity between different soruces that I've yet to track down. Also did an example of the boson algebra acting on the Maya diagrams which clarified some misconceptions I had from the previous meeting

Reading Groups

Complex Geometry: We finished off the proof of the Bruhat decomposition and I followed most of it, it's just when it comes to putting it all together that I get lost. I decided I wouldn't be able to give the talk next week, I just don't know enough algebraic geometry and don't have the time to learn it

Infinity Categories: Looked at infinity groupoids (I understood these ok) and how they're the same as Kan complexes (don't understand these). So far it's a lot of drawing simplices and then filling them in. Similar to complex geometry, each step follows but putting it all together I get lost in the details

Categories: Normal 1-categories seem easy in comparison, after missing the first week which clashed with infinity categories the second week we looked at duality and functors

Teaching

TA'd two first year tutorials this week. The problem sheet this week was much harder than the first two, mostly because the questions weren't written very clearly.

I was assigned marking from two courses this week. Marked about 40 assessments, which took about 6 hours. I could go faster if I wrote less feedback but I think the feedback is useful while I have the time to give it. That said it would be nice not to have to write "underline vectors" ever again

[boycritter]

Tell us about your favourite Maths Thing(s) :D

uhhh like everything in math is super cool !!! i’m really interested in fractals i just know almost nothing about them :3 i was super into the sierpinski triangle in sixth grade

i loveeeeee number theory i love prime numbers i think they’re so cool

also !!! i started my ap calc class like a week ago and it’s so much fun !!!!!!! we’re starting with the very basics (limits) and it’s really cool. so far there’s not nearly as much graphing as i expected which is awesome im not a fan of graphing :(

i think set theory is cool also

i really just like to explore all the math stuff it’s all so cool!!! and even though there are fields i definitely wouldn’t want to study as a career (topology scares me) i would lvoe to learn about all of it !!

[cas-project-mm]

CAS September

Activity

Running, Weightlifting and Hiking

2.Service

Giving a lecture to highschool and primary students on Graph Theory at Warsaw University of Technology.

Activity

After a sporty summer I dived into September with the same momentum. Starting the month with a few days of hiking, I was both physically and mentally exhausted. Hiking really allowed me to clear my mind and enjoy the nature before my final DP2 year. I really enjoyed this time with friends and physical activity.

Additionally, I run as always. This time I run with a friend, which really allowed us to improve our yap & run combo. This really open a new value of running for me, where I did not solely run to destrees but also to connect with other runners!

2. Service

This month I was lucky enough to host a lecture with some of my friends on Graph Theory at Warsaw University of Technology. This was a completely new experience for as I experience the power of sharing knowledge with others. Seeing my younger peers in the class listen and absorb knoweldge was one of a kind experience. I was able to have conversation about maths with the lecture viewers, which showed me the value of teacher-student realtionship. I really feel like I made an impact on some younger students, which was the exact point of this lecture - to spark interest.

[s-h47]

CTS B week 2: Connecting Theory and Practice

For week 2 we are to link theory and practice with our personal identity. I realized the importance of connecting personal identity with personal attributes to define myself to others who might not know me. Types of identities that people usually associate with others are personal identities such as individual attributes (funny, smart, etc), and social identity (such as gender, race, etc).

This can also be translated to your personal graphic design work by adding your flair to your design so that it would be unique and stand out from the rest.

(My personal graph of individual and social identity which was done in class)

I started with a social identity like my nationality and language since it's the easiest to define from the start. Following that are the languages that are usually associated with nationality and after that the rest. Personal identity is important for others to recognize your brand instantly by associating it with a certain consistent theme that is going on around you. For example, when people see a tick they would think of Nike as a brand. When people see a landmark in a country like the Sydney Opera House or Marina Bay Sands they would without doubt think Australia and Singapore respectively.

(These are some of the world's most recognizable brands that people easily can tell)

(some of the world's most recognizable landmarks which countries use for tourism branding)

(my design identity is mostly UI/UX as I think it's an important branding skill to have in a digital age)

I felt that as time passes and one gains more experiences and sees new things in their life, their perspective of individual branding changes over time. We create new definitions and identities through self-identified improvement and the things happening around us.

(235 words)

Reference:

https://nepsprint.com/blogs/news/the-most-famous-logos-in-brand-history assessed on 15/09/2024

https://vincentloy.wordpress.com/2013/07/18/worlds-most-famous-landmarks/ assessed on 15/09/2024

[ourbuiltenviroment]

HOW I BECAME AN INTERIOR ARCHITECT

Personal Essay By Paige Williams 

As early as I can remember I have always had a fascination with architecture. The first experience that I can recall would be because of my sister's friend who came to our house regularly and she would teach me how to make floor plans. Since she was older than me and a couple grades above, she had access to “the special floor plan paper” which was really just graphing paper she took home from her 7th grade math class. But me, a 4th grader, not having access to “floor plan paper” would stock up on any spares she would give me. I made sure to use every ¼” box that grid line paper created so I would have maximum space for my dream house. That is what I first started creating, my dream house, and I made many variations of that for a long time. Some of them included, a bounce house room, a secret attic, an indoor pool, a trampoline room, and anything else you would imagine a 10 year old to put in their dream home. 

All of this inspiration came from the show “Extreme Makeover: Home Edition”, where they feature families going through hardships and give their house an extreme makeover. Catering to their interests and making the home as unique as possible. Interestingly enough, my favorite part of the show wasn’t the scenes of demolition and breaking down walls, or talking about timelines and deadlines, but it was when the families finally got to step inside their new homes. And how they would talk about their individual interests and then see that come to live in their own space. I knew from an early age that was something I wanted to make possible, to find a challenge and solve it with architecture and design. 

My interest only grew during highschool where I took an “interior design class” for one of my extra art credits. I thought it would be the perfect introduction for me since by that time I knew what I wanted to major in at college. This was the first class where I got a look at how design impacts a space, color theory, and more. It is also the first class I had my try in computer modeling. While this class only focused on interiors, color choices and the mix and match of materials, which is still a key part of designing, I knew I wanted to go further. For my senior project in highschool, my goal was to create my first model of a tiny home, to research all things from the impacts it has on the environment, the community it has created, and how it could be a great solution for our future. My interior design teacher was my mentor and we had meetings going over floor plan after floor plan, settling on a style and putting it in action, when COVID shut down the school. The seniors were unable to complete their senior projects that year and times started to change. The delayed progression of projects somewhat foreshadowed the past 4 years of design as a whole, slowing lead times, discontinued materials, and more. A lot of which I had to deal with as a college student, for school projects and even internships. However, this did not stop me from wanting a career in design and architecture.

Although freshman year was rough and over 30% of my grade in the interior architecture program at Endicott dropped out, I do not blame them. The mix of dealing with COVID, the insane workload for architecture students, the personal expenses for this program, and most of all for me,the program was not what I was expecting. Like I had mentioned before, I was always drawing my “dream house”, or versions of different ones for my friends, and even getting my foot into tiny home builds., However, just after the first semester freshman year my mindset and goals had switched tremendously. From wanting to be a residential designer with their own company to not knowing which type of design suits me best. It could be healthcare, hospitality, educational design and many more. My horizon broadened and I wasn’t sure which direction I wanted to take. As a stressed out architecture student, my mind was racing, but that's when I remembered I was still a freshman and I had so many more studios to get through and classes to learn from, of course my goals are going to change. 

Quite honestly, I’m glad they did, because it has led me to think more creatively and lead with an open mind. I’m still not sure where I am going to end up, but that is one of the best parts about beijing an architect, the freedom to work on an array of projects, meeting new people, learning new cultures, and remembering the end goal is to connect with others and build for them, not around them.

[landofwindandskyscrapers]

10/52 You won't believe this one neat trick!

Or: a peek into my brain as of this writing

So I’m taking a break from my unofficial reviewing of books to document influences on my worldview and personal philosophy.

(I still find it surprising that I ended up with so many blog posts being book reviews. Shows how important reading is to me, I guess)

(Also yay, me using my blog as an actual diary thing 😂)

(I should also make a blog post about me using emojis so much)

The common thread in the concepts I’ll outline is that they’re like pointing out an optical illusion - once you see them, your view on society reorganizes itself because it makes so much damn sense - and you start seeing it everywhere.

A part of me is concerned about this - because searching for A SINGLE UBER TRUTH THAT EXPLAINS EVERYTHING is a base human failing; it’s why conspiracy theories exists, because it’s comforting to the human mind to imagine a wrong, single and simple reason for how things are the way they are instead of facing the fact that the world is actually complicated.

Still, these ideas seem to serve me well.

First concept chronologically:

The housing market isn’t being taxed enough. Not enough houses are being built. Rents should not be profitable.

To use a quote from the links provided (that also have other links in them to explore in depth):

Georgism is a school of political economy that is really upset about, among other things, the Rent Being Too Damn High. It seeks to liberate labor and capital alike from those who gatekeep access to scarce "non-produced assets," such as land and natural resources, while still affirming the virtues of hard work and free enterprise.

The central idea is that rents - money that is being paid to a private person not for buying a product or service, but just to generally exist - are the root of all evil.

And that rents manifest in the real world as, well, rent coming from owning land or houses the landlord minimally maintains.

Landlords don’t add value to society, but siphon it from the middle and working class to hoard it for themselves - gradually impoverishing everyone while perversely becoming more and more powerful as a result.

To get an idea of what I mean, please realize that a king is the ultimate landowner - with scores of serfs under his unelected control who have to give all the fruits of their labor simply to exist.

And once this was pointed out to me…I kept seeing it everywhere.

See how the housing market works; you either rent, or to buy you get a mortgage which is effectively a rent paid to the bank.

Buying a house if you already own a house is relatively easy, but buying one if you’re poor or middle class is an ordeal.

And this is tied to how stupidly difficult building new houses has been getting for the past fifty years; supply is constrained and prices perpetually go up.

Housing, shelter, is a basic need for everyone.

But government provided housing feels like it’s been going the way of the dodo.

Every country I know of is struggling with houses being more and more unaffordable for its population - and there’s little sign of the situation improving.

The way I know of fighting this is to make taxes on land and improve the housing supply.

Second concept:

We’re not having enough children.

This is a bit depressing.

Having children is a huge cost to the people who have them.

It’s tiring, difficult, sometimes dangerous work that isn’t rewarded by society.

(absence of parenthood is sometimes punished - but it’s not by punishment alone you get people to do things)

It’s a rational decision to not have them.

This sets up societies for horrible doom and failure for the future.

Coupled with the fact most societies (Italy especially) are xenophobic and don’t let in enough immigrants….this is a recipe for failure.

I’ll leave this with a simple population pyramid graph:

Solution: pro-natalist policies with actual teeth. Taxing companies whose employees have fewer children than the national average. Equal parenthood paid time off for men and women. 

(As an aside, I don’t understand why taxing things that hurt the collective is so frowned upon in politics. It should be a win-win, letting state coffers be replenished while helping society)

Third concept: 

Monopoly power is a root of all evil

This comes from Cory Doctorow’s seminal essays on (sigh) enshittification.

Relevant quote:

This is enshittification: surpluses are first directed to users; then, once they're locked in, surpluses go to suppliers; then once they're locked in, the surplus is handed to shareholders and the platform becomes a useless pile of shit.

The idea is that monopoly power is - well - power. And power corrupts.

And that’s how you get HP printers that cost a subscription to operate and spy on you.

(I’m ashamed at having bought one of those awful things a while ago. In my defense, I needed a printer STAT and this was the cheapest, cheapest option)

The solution to this is actually enforcing anti-monopoly laws.

—

I don’t believe in despair. 

Despair is not useful. It doesn’t inform what you should do, it leaves you standing there and is honestly actually self-indulgent at times.

This is why when outlining these concepts I’ve always added a line to possible solutions.

It’s my own “and so what? And then?”

Doesn’t mean it isn’t hard of course.

But I find it much more satisfying to live my life with grim optimism.

[katarh-mest]

I have a "mild" case of dyscalculia. One of the many things that got missed when I was referred out to a child psych at 11 for flunking 7th grade geography despite being "so smart" because back in the early '90s nobody knew what it was and also girls didn't get ADHD. (Sigh.) Things are a little better now that it's a recognized problem.

Some things that have helped me over the years:

Using graph paper for EVERYTHING related to math. Keeping the stupid numbers lined up correctly is part of the problem, and regular lined paper doesn't cut it for this. The second vertical row of lines helps a ton.

Associating colors or sounds with numbers. Honestly this was easier back when "touch tone" phones were still how all phones were dialed, because I learned to memorize phone numbers based on those tones. I kind of have to "sing" phone numbers to remember them to this day.

As for the colors, I don't use them as much as the tones any more, but: zero is black, one is red, two is dark blue, three is yellow, four is light purple, five is orange, six is brown, seven is gold, eight is darker purple than four, nine is pink, ten is white. One hundred is green. (I think because it's 100 pennies? a dollar bill?)

Also notice that I generally spell out the numbers instead of using Arabic numbers? I don't have dyslexia, and I was always way more comfortable with them as words than as digits. Brains are weird.

Check your work! check your work! check your work! This is more of an ADHD problem than a dyscalculia specific problem, but the stupid "simple math mistakes" are what always killed me in the higher level math classes. Nothing more horrible than having a 6+7 = 11 in the middle of a 20 line long equation giving you the wrong answer. This is the primary reason that someone with a disability is given extra time during a test. Because they know you might have done an oopsie and now need to go back and fix a bunch of stuff.

You're allowed to use digital clocks at home. Reading analog clock faces is still not something that's very instinctive. I have to break it down into parts, and god help me if there's no labels on the hours. I got better at it from sheer brute force practice. (Things like mixing up Left/Right and East/West North/South will never get away.)

I only learned my roman numerals thanks to a hyperfixation with Final Fantasy games.

Ride or die with your assistive technology. I am a spreadsheet wizard (Excel, Google Sheets) because I learned how to make it do all the math for me. It's glorious. No shame in whipping out your phone to punch in numbers to add things other people can do in their heads. I abused Google Maps. I use tally marks on paper.

You are smarter than your disability makes you think you are. Ironically, I have an excellent grasp of math theory and once I emerged from the hell of long division and counting change, I excelled in algebra, trigonometry, and differential calculus. I didn't hit a wall until integral calculus in college, because the equations started to get too long for me to handle again. Your mileage may vary on this, though. I still managed to get an above average math score on standardized tests despite having undiagnosed dyscalculia, because the questions on things like the SAT and GRE are less about the math and more about avoiding the traps. I have a master's degree in business. You can have a very successful career (just, uh, probably not in a math oriented area) despite dyscalculia.

Find a math buddy. I'm incredibly lucky that the person I fell in love with and married is a math whiz, one who is patient and understands that it's not my fault I can't help much with the budgeting. He is also my calendar and emergency calculator. (Love you, hubby.) A significant other or friend you can trust can really help out here. Barring that, hire an accountant or get some accounting software like Mint to do the grunt work of the mathing for you every month.

Here's some more info on Dyscalculia since I feel like it wasn't enough.

So i've stated that it is a Math learning disability deemed "Math dyslexia" because of the similarity that it is a learning disability that have similar lack of understanding and processing of the category(numbers,words/letters) Dyscalculia is NOT Dyslexia though, again, they are completely different.

Dyscalculia is not normally noticed throughout life as like most of learning disabilities up until there is obvious signs later on in the person's life/work space so I AM going to share some signs to notice and acknowledge as well as some more info that I may or may not have included in my last post.

Dyscalculia signs/behaviour in all grades:

Counting on fingers.

persistent inability to memorise Math facts. Commonly "Basic" math facts.

Difficulty counting backwards.

Difficulty in understanding place value.

Weak mental arithmetic skills.

Struggle with reading charts and graphs.

Having trouble measuring things (like ingredients).

May not understand the concept of counting.

Trouble processing number symbols ( like putting 8 with the actual name "Eight").

Hard time understanding math phrases like Greater Than and Less Than.

Lack confidence in situations that require understanding speed, distance, and directions, may get lost easily.

• High levels of Math Anxiety.

And so many more included from primary school and WAY far in to adulthood!

I am currently a student in /High School/ and my math level up from primary school to now has always been incredibly hard for me and on a very low level. Though I DO get good grades in Math most of the time there are situations where I just lose that grip due to my dyscalulia.

Though things like this may seem hopeless and upsetting and frustrating, especially if you have friends and peers who do so much more easier in math, it's completely okay to have such a learning disability and you are absolutely NOT alone.

To prove so I am going to share things that I HAVE struggled in with math since I was very young :]

My dyscalculia struggles:

counting on my fingers not matter the math equation (adding,subtracting, etc).

Inability to read an analog clock.

almost complete inability to count money dollars and money coins.

I dont know my Multiplication tables and almost completely unable to do division.

Trouble with Greater than and Less than/trouble with place value.

trouble with understanding positive numbers and negative nunbers and when to use the signs for them.

trouble with figuring out measurements, especially in distance and time.

Very sure theres more but over all almost completely avoiding math situations and math activities due to the anxiety i get having to preform them especially if its things i know i cant do (like completely avoiding having to determine the time on an analog clock).

[END]🌙

Dyscalculia can be a very hard thing to deal with especially since its a life long struggle and with its less known popularity its a learning disability that ive never seen brought into light and IM here to change that because people need to know. Struggling with it or not IT STILL exists and is highly misunderstood and completely inacknowledged. Its fun to learn about things like this anyways so I have a lot of fun writing these :]

Thank you for reading <3

[coming-up-with-usernames-is-hard]

PhD Blog Week 3

First full week of courses, and I'm suddenly very busy!

Reading

Not much this week, read part of the next chapter of Date's Solitons

Courses

Lie Theory: looked at nilpotent/solvable/simple/semisimple Lie algebras and some basic theorems regarding these special cases

Conformal Field Theory and Vertex Operator Algebras: defined conformal transformations and classified all conformal transformations of ℝ²/ℂ/S². Heavy on the differential geometry at the start, but it looks like the next lecture will be introducing all of the physics

Differential Topology: Defined a manifold, and just about squeezed the definition of the tangent space into the end of the lecture. Slower pace than I feared given that manifolds are considered a prerequisite

Talks

Spent a lot of time this week learning algebraic geometry, a subject I've never studied, so I can give a talk on something next week. It's time consuming because to understand a single sentence I need to look up definitions, and to understand each of those definitions I need to look up more definitions...

PG seminar was "nuking mosquitos" (based on this math overflow question) using powerful results in areas of maths to prove trivial results. My favourite was proving that the sum of the degrees of the nodes of a graph is even (because every edge has two ends) using a generating function and a multidimensional version of Cauchy's formula to count the number, N, of graphs of total degree k. It turns out that by parameterising the integral around the contour starting at opposite sides you get a factor of exp(ikπ) difference between the two results for N, and so if k is odd then N must be zero

Reading Groups

Complex Geometry: We looked at the preliminary material needed to define the Bruhat decomposition, we should finish this week with this result, and then I'll have to apply that in my talk the following week

Infinity Categories: We looked at the motivation for infinity categories, mostly homotopy theory, which I'm not well versed in. We defined simplicial sets and looked at how they can be used as a model for (∞, 1)-categories

Supervisor Meeting

Met with my supervisors and a new postdoc, spent most of the meeting with one of my supervisors setting out the details of a proposed research area. We defined fermionic Fock spaces and looked at how it relates to combinatorial data such as Young diagrams and symmetric functions. My task this week was to make notes summarising this and chase down any errors, most of which arose from conflicting conventions across the books we're using

Teaching

TA'd three first year classes and a second year class. Talking to one of the students before the second year class he asked how I was finding the course this year, and I had to break it to him that I was the TA, so I was finding it ok

Ended the week with a party to celebrate teaching this year, although most PhD students turned up, you can't just have free food and drink and not expect them to take advantage of it!

[vanilla-voyeur]

Kinda annoyed with the assumption that all socialists are just economically illiterate dumdums who would realize the error of their ways if they'd just take an Econ 101 class. Well I have taken introductory econ classes. I've taken multiple econ classes. The university I went to has one of the top 10 economics programs in the US. I originally went into college wanting to be an econ major before I switched to CS. I got to the point of taking one upper division class right before we started getting into the calculus.

The problem with how economics is taught in school is that it takes an approach of capitalist realism that taints their interpretation of everything. Everything that supports the ends of capitalism is assumed to be good. Everything that doesn't maximize efficiency is assumed to be bad. Anyone who advocates for something that has been shown not to maximize efficiency is a big dumdum who doesn't understand economics. There is no question or discussion about whether maximizing efficiency is something we always want in every case.

We got taught that price floors and price ceilings and taxes and regulations cause deadweight loss. Deadweight loss is bad for maximizing efficiency. All those politicians who want rent control and minimum wage and increasing taxes on the 1% are big dumdums who don't understand basic economics. Are there any trade-offs where it's worth it to increase deadweight loss for some other benefit? Not considered.

I do remember getting taught that monopolies are bad. Monopolies also cause deadweight loss. Notably, it is incredibly hard to be a billionaire without being the CEO of a monopoly. Billionaires are causing deadweight loss. Any politician who's against trust busting is an economically illiterate dumdum. If you don't have a problem with billionaires then you hate the basic principles of capitalist competition. (Or alternatively you're an economically illiterate dumdum.)

There are many forms of economic efficiency, but the only one I was taught in school was Pareto efficiency. None of my professors mentioned any other variant. Pareto efficiency was treated as a law of the universe. It's just a theory by some guy. He made some pretty math equations that work under idealized conditions. What if he's wrong? What about all the other models that think he's wrong? What if he's right but he didn't consider things like institutions of oppression? (19th century white Parisian nobility are well known for taking into account how racism, sexism, classism, etc affect society.)

I think the order of classes is suspicious too. First you get simplified microeconomics then simplified macroeconomics then increase the math of each while still being simplified, all before talking about where real life capitalist countries are failing at approaching the idealized model. By that time, the capitalist realism has already set in. We should get to the differences between the graphs and the reality by the third class bare minimum. Perfect competition isn't possible. It's a utopia. Does that actually mean that we should be trying to get closer to it? What sort of trade-offs should we consider when we're departing from perfect competition? We never discussed it.

To the extent of my knowledge, my university never had a class on idealized socialism or communism or any other economic model but focuses entirely on idealized capitalism until upper division classes. The only classes that acknowledge socialism exists compares existing capitalist countries to existing socialist countries. By then, you've already drank the Kool aid of how capitalism could be at its best and it turns out theoretical capitalism is more attractive than existing totalitarian dictatorships. What would a socialist democracy look like? They never bother to ask.

You can't compare and contrast something you don't know anything about. It's all capitalist realism. Anyone who hasn't taken a Socialist Economics 101 class where they draw the simplified graphs and they explain the concepts is an economically illiterate dumdum too.