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InitialsDiceBearhttps://github.com/dicebear/dicebearhttps://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/„Initials” (https://github.com/dicebear/dicebear) by „DiceBear”, licensed under „CC0 1.0” (https://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/)M

monotremata

@ monotremata @lemmy.ca

Posts
2
Comments
186
Joined
2 yr. ago

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  • Also the mathematicians wouldn’t decline to give an answer.

    Are you sure? I only minored in math, but even I would struggle to provide an answer to this. It would have to be something incredibly vague, like "a number is a mathematical object that has certain consistent properties relevant to the field of study." Because otherwise you get situations like "is infinity a number?" and you can't answer categorically, because usually it's not, but then you look at the transfinite numbers where you can indeed have omega-plus-one as a number. And someone asks if you can have an infinite number of digits to the left of the decimal place, and you say "well, not in the reals, but there are the P-adic numbers..." and folks ask if you can have an infinitely small number and you say "well, in the reals you can only have an arbitrarily small number, but in game theory there are the surreal numbers, where..."

    So yeah, I'm not sure "what is a number" is even a math question. It's more a philosophy question, or sometimes a cognitive science question (like Lakoff and Nuñez's "Where Mathematics Comes From").

  • Break Things !== Move Fast

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  • Mayb someday...

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  • Not looking so bad now

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  • I guess it's not technically a new movie, but I just bought the 4k blu ray rerelease of Dark City that came out this year. So there are still some new releases in the format.

  • Audio 📢

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  • Or--and hear me out here, Mr. Nolan--maybe have the important dialogue take place once the characters are off the speedboat.

    (I assume that wasn't actually important dialogue, but I'll never know.)

  • What meals do you cook when very low on money?

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  • Bulgur wheat makes a really good textural element in vegetarian chili.

  • Denmark zoo asks public to donate unwanted small pets or horses to feed captive predators

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  • I mean, Laura Loomer has literally called for 65 million people to be fed to alligators, so this would practically qualify as a moderate position by current GOP standards.

  • ‘Banana Republic’: Social Media Reacts to Trump Firing Statistics Chief After Bleak Jobs Report

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  • I got the number from this page: https://ballotpedia.org/Election_results,_2024:_Analysis_of_voter_turnout_in_the_2024_general_election

    which lists it as "eligible voters," which is in turn based on data from here: https://election.lab.ufl.edu/2024-general-election-turnout/

    which discusses the methodology:

    The denominator for these VEP turnout rates is constructed by estimating the voting-age population or VAP (everyone age 18 and older residing in the United States). Ineligible populations are subtracted from the VAP consisting of non-citizens and felons (depending on state disenfranchisement laws). Eligible overseas voters are added to the national VEP estimates only as no reliable method exists to apportion these eligible voters to states.

    So no, it's not just registered voters. It's their best estimate of how many people are old enough and not disqualified.

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  • There's also "Book" by Robert Grudin. At one point

    there's an uprising and the footnotes rebel against the plot.

  • ‘Banana Republic’: Social Media Reacts to Trump Firing Statistics Chief After Bleak Jobs Report

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  • Remember most eligible voters don’t vote.

    Voter turnout in the 2024 election was 63.7%. That's still a lot of folks who didn't vote, but it's not "most."

  • Being a Dystopian Future Sci-Fi Writer... - CatTrigger

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  • It's really weird rewatching MythBusters at this point, because the show is so heavily structured around ad breaks. It starts with a teaser that includes clips of moments that will happen in the show, then it has an overview of the myths, then it splits into the A myths and the B myths. Each of these gets touched on, then there's a preview of what will happen in the next segment after the ad, then there's the implied break, then there's a review of what happened before the break, then there's a new piece... it's constantly revisiting and excerpting things to blow up about 15 minutes of content into a 50-minute show.

    Back then it all seemed so normal...

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  • Hot take: 3D printing toys kinda sucks

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  • Thanks! I haven't actually published these pieces yet. (Well, the slide-glide cyclide thing was published by someone else, but I think it was later taken down--there may be plans for the original mathematician to sell them?) The puzzle box is just a little too kluged together to really publish; I modified a lot of things after the fact to get it together, and I'm not comfortable publishing it in that state, but I also don't really want to put in the work to finish it. The kaleidoscope would actually be okay, but it's limited--it's a bit tricky to actually cut the mirrors, and it really only works to reflect things right up against it. I want to design an adapter for it that will hold an acrylic sphere (which you can get inexpensively from China) so that you can use it to look at scenes as well. But I haven't actually gotten around to that yet either. I'll give some thought to publishing it as-is, though.

  • Hot take: 3D printing toys kinda sucks

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  • I dunno. I agree with this to some extent for sure--I don't print a lot of the meme models that are everywhere on 3d printing forums. But there are toys that would not exist without 3d printing that I think are pretty great.

    I designed a kaleidoscope that reflects things not to tile a plane, but instead to tile the surface of a disdyakis triacontahedron: https://imgur.com/gallery/i-made-kaleidoscope-P4atHey I had to cut the mirrors from acrylic by hand, but the templates for them and the shell that holds them in place are all 3d printed. And that thing is a pretty great toy.

    This thing: https://imgur.com/gallery/make-of-cyclidial-iris-by-vergo-henry-segerman-XHN4MC0

    is a math sculpture that I didn't design, just printed, but it's completely beautiful, and it's had real staying power as both a toy and a decoration. It sits out on our coffee table all the time, but my niece plays with it every time she's over here.

    And this puzzle box I designed: https://imgur.com/gallery/i-made-puzzle-box-nieces-birthday-U1q408R

    was a big hit with her too. I'm not sure if she'll continue to play with it long-term, but based on my own tendencies as a kid, I think she might end up investigating the mechanisms involved for some time to come.

    Things that you could buy at the store you're generally better off buying at the store. But there are things it's not economical to mass produce, and it never used to be possible to design and make your own toys. Both ideosyncratic toys and bespoke toys are pretty great uses of 3d printing in my opinion.

  • Moire/Vernier Radius Gauge

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  • Not as far as I know. Practically speaking there are several disadvantages--the slots limit the light on the markings, parallax effects can mess with the reading, it requires two full surfaces sliding against each other which increases friction, etc. Plus with a regular vernier scale you can see both sides of a line, which could give you a better sense of how they line up ("vernier acuity"). But in a case like this, where precision isn't a top priority and ease of use might outrank it, I think there's an argument to be made for it.

  • Moire/Vernier Radius Gauge

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  • I wouldn't have caught that the gallery link was wrong if you hadn't mentioned not knowing how the tool was used, so thank you as well!

  • To fight Trump's funding freezes, states propose a new gambit: Withholding federal payments

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  • Yeah, I think we just disagree about this. You're implying that letting this go forward would be giving in to the state acting capriciously, but that's really not what this is. The states have literally already started spending the money--hiring contractors and so forth to physically build things--based on the funds that the government had already decided to send them, but is now arbitrarily yanking back. Note that this is different from "we are accustomed to receiving funds for this"; instead it's "you made a specific commitment to provide X funds for Y purpose, and are now suddenly stiffing us on the bill." In that light, withholding a portion of the funds that the state ostensibly owes the government in order to make up that unexpected shortfall really isn't that unreasonable. You keep portraying this as them withholding money "because they disagree with federal policies," and saying "what those policies are and why is completely irrelevant," but the policy they disagree with is the sudden and arbitrary withholding of previously-committed funds to the state, and they are withholding state funds to the feds as a direct way of offsetting that deficit. That makes it feel extremely relevant.

    I just don't think it absolutely has to be the slippery slope you're portraying it as. I'm getting into technicalities because we're discussing the law and precedent, and technicalities matter a whole freaking lot when you're dealing with the law. There's a reason descending into technicalities is referred to in roleplaying games as "rules lawyering".

    And as for highly populous states having a larger influence on federal policy...isn't that just democracy? Power derives from the consent of the governed, and at the moment that consent is at a particularly low ebb.

    In any case, yeah, I think we just disagree on this, and it's all moot in the face of the specific court in power. I'll let you get the last word if you want to reply, but I'll probably drop it at this point.

  • To fight Trump's funding freezes, states propose a new gambit: Withholding federal payments

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  • I feel like you're missing a point here. It's significant that this isn't just

    they disagree with federal policies that are affecting them.

    It's that the federal government has made a commitment to provide funds to the state (e.g. the broadband construction funds, funds to build EV charging stations, etc.) and the federal government is now refusing to disburse those funds because the current administration has decided it doesn't like paying the bills the previous administration incurred, at least to states Trump feels aren't adequately supportive of his policies. The proposal in this case is to withhold delivery of funds the state is supposed to give the government in order to offset the funds the government is also contractually obligated to deliver.

    I agree with you that this specific supreme court would definitely rule in favor of the feds, but I definitely don't think the case is as absurdly one-sided as you seem to find it. I think a different court could probably find precedent for this kind of dispute if they were so inclined.

  • Moire/Vernier Radius Gauge

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  • Yeah, it's definitely not the most precise thing. It's good to around ±1mm. I tried to measure 1.75mm filament with it, and it just reads 1, not even between 1 and 2, so for critical measurements the physical matches are definitely better.

    Edit: at some point I realized that I was thinking about this particular measurement wrong. 1.75mm filament has a radius of 0.875mm, so "1" is the closest reading this tool can produce. Whoops! Still, it's definitely not better than ±0.5mm.

    And yeah, here the vernier effect is not giving very high precision; it's just giving a way to space the marks out enough to be printable, but indicate movements that are as small as a printed line.