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b

@b.xoxo.zone.ap.brid.gy

2 followers 0 following 187 posts

Don't panic. [bridged from xoxo.zone/@b on the fediverse by fed.brid.gy ]

Posts Replies Media

b @b.xoxo.zone.ap.brid.gy · 09/10/2026

If somebody announces a talk with no institutional affiliation, will anybody show up? In under a hour, we're going to find out.

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b @b.xoxo.zone.ap.brid.gy · 08/10/2026

They're called "Polish notation" and "reverse Polish notation" because "Łukasiewicz notation" was deemed too hard to pronounce (like "Wukaseevics", I guess, it's not that complicated). This has always been a little insulting and bigoted;, but everything renders Unicode now, so maybe we can […]

Original post on xoxo.zone

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b @b.xoxo.zone.ap.brid.gy · 06/10/2026

A reminder that I'll be giving this half-hour talk on Friday on copyright law (mis)-applied to AI. Think of it as an off-cycle #SolsticeSchool talk.

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b @b.xoxo.zone.ap.brid.gy · 19/09/2026

Hi everybody, I'll be presenting a seminar on AI and copyright on Friday 9 October @ 11AM Eastern (16:00 UTC), based on my paper "The Art Critics Won't Save You from the Robots". Even if you somehow have zero interest in AI, this talk will help you to understand why U.S. copyright law feels […]

Original post on xoxo.zone

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b @b.xoxo.zone.ap.brid.gy · 21/08/2026

#FollowFriday @b0rk , who will use cheerful stick figures to teach you things even some experts don't know about the command line, and how to gracefully handle mansplainers.

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b @b.xoxo.zone.ap.brid.gy · 20/08/2026

@waldoj You're right, I should've said the diversity in cameraphones has collapsed.

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b @b.xoxo.zone.ap.brid.gy · 20/08/2026

The collapse of diversity in telephones after the iPhone came out was obvious, from keyboards and flips and slides to nothing but glass rectangles. But the diversity keeps collapsing, and new glass rectangles are all between 16 and 19cm, with an aspect ratio between 19.5:10 and 22:10. Flip […]

Original post on xoxo.zone

b @b.xoxo.zone.ap.brid.gy · 20/08/2026

Tried replacing the battery, but I somehow borked the screen in the process and now everything is noisy and every pixel has a column of after-images. The cables are seated correctly; that's all I know to check. Do I buy a new display, a new ribbon, is it hopeless?

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b @b.xoxo.zone.ap.brid.gy · 20/08/2026

RIP to the telephone I've had for five years, the Samsung SM-P205 - Screen size was the Golden Ratio, like a paperback. It's Golden! Why doesn't anybody sell a telephone with this aspect ratio anymore? - 8 inch screen was the perfect size for reading all the PDFs and web pages the world sent […]

Original post on xoxo.zone

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b @b.xoxo.zone.ap.brid.gy · 17/08/2026

@b0rk Probably won't fit on this cheat sheet, but I'd love to see an explainer on how to respond to "the authenticity of host [SHA HASH] is unknown" if I want to take it seriously and not ignore it, because I have no idea.

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b @b.xoxo.zone.ap.brid.gy · 12/08/2026

The first network-theory analysis of the U.S. corporate/partnership web is published! And it's open access! Two lessons: ∙ All the hellishly complicated convolutions you'd expect are there at the micro level. ∙ It's extremely regular at the macro level, and we can use those regularities to […]

Original post on xoxo.zone

b @b.xoxo.zone.ap.brid.gy · 09/08/2026

Here's a nice one-pager by @ajschumacher on how you can write simple 2x2 matrices that act like complex numbers. If that sounds surprising or weird to you, you're probably the target audience. planspace.org/20260804-some_matrice…

Some matrices behave just like complex numbers

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b @b.xoxo.zone.ap.brid.gy · 07/08/2026

A #FollowFriday for @tomstafford , a Professor of Cognitive Science who has been teaching us about interesting behavioral quirks for decades.

b @b.xoxo.zone.ap.brid.gy · 07/08/2026

We're going further afield here (Iraq), but this combo really pegs the Brooklyn Sound (see upthread), with its immersive jazz maqams. "Rivers of sound" is truly descriptive. newamsterdamrecords.bandcamp.com/al…

newamsterdamrecords.bandcamp.com

Not Two, by Amir ElSaffar / Rivers of Sound

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b @b.xoxo.zone.ap.brid.gy · 06/08/2026

A lot of the Middle Eastern Sound traces back to Golden Era Spain. Had been a fan of Tamar Ilana for a few years before II heard her mother, a proper musicologist, perform selected Sephardic faves at the Bulgarian Embassy a few months ago (yes, Golden Era Spain → Bulgaria → Israel is a lineage […]

Original post on xoxo.zone

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b @b.xoxo.zone.ap.brid.gy · 06/08/2026

Tamar Sagiv is a cellist composing with depressing things in mind, but she avoids the Sad Cello trope by pulling from many traditions, with tinges of Bach-ian double stops and turns of phrases from her homeland to a bit of the blues on one so-labeled track […]

Original post on xoxo.zone

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b @b.xoxo.zone.ap.brid.gy · 06/08/2026

Here's هيا زعاترة‎ (Haya Zaatry), who writes surprisingly bright pop, until you read the lyrics. hayazaatry.bandcamp.com/album/rahaw…

hayazaatry.bandcamp.com

Rahawan, by Haya Zaatry

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b @b.xoxo.zone.ap.brid.gy · 06/08/2026

Some picks (none by me) for your Bandcamp Friday, for those who celebrate. Canary records (maybe just one person) digitizes old records, what is sometimes described by Canary's notes as "ethno-exotica". This ghost story is from a collection of field recordings from one of the most ethnically […]

Original post on xoxo.zone

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b @b.xoxo.zone.ap.brid.gy · 05/08/2026

Many of our debates are between people who care about how things are made and people who don't care: vegetarianism, environmental destruction for consumer junk, slavery and sweatshop labor, training of AI models. It's frustrating, but I'm not sure if there's a way to get people who don't care […]

Original post on xoxo.zone

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b @b.xoxo.zone.ap.brid.gy · 02/08/2026

My personal favorite work was my migration study, the only study of the causes/correlates of migration using the full US pop. The short answer: the hyperrational economists are wrong and it's not about income gain. For the methodologists, I got there by proving that a statistic from the 1950s […]

Original post on xoxo.zone

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b @b.xoxo.zone.ap.brid.gy · 01/08/2026

#followFriday for @johncarlosbaez , a mathematician who is always finding interesting things—when he isn't writing them himself. Even when his explainers are over my head, they feel like an inspiration to keep learning until I can get the details.

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b @b.xoxo.zone.ap.brid.gy · 22/07/2026

Here's National Geographic explaining how the Endangered Species Act is being cut to pieces. It published earlier this week, but #2 and #3 have already been put into regulation. www.nationalgeographic.com/animals/…

nationalgeographic.com

What proposed changes to the Endangered Species Act mean for wildlife

Four major updates could alter the way the act is administered—and how animals are protected.

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b @b.xoxo.zone.ap.brid.gy · 13/07/2026

RE: mastodon.social/@grimalkina/1168753… RTing this because not only do you help the author with posts positively referencing their work, but you help the timeline. Wouldn't you rather have a feed of exciting long reads than endless USPOL snark?

mastodon.social

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Reposted by b

Tom Stafford @tomstafford.mastodon.online.ap.brid.gy · 12/07/2026

Sunday night bump for Monday's post: tomstafford.substack.com/p/striking… "A natural experiment shows how we always have something to learn, even about the things we are most familiar with."

tomstafford.substack.com

Striking evidence for forced experimentation

A natural experiment shows how we always have something to learn, even about the things we are most familiar with.

b @b.xoxo.zone.ap.brid.gy · 12/07/2026

All you need to know about the US Supreme Court is that its opinion in a case about Prince has zero Prince lyrics, but repeated references to The Sound of Music. www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/22pdf… Missed opportunities: "We all need to reach out for something new. That […]

Original post on xoxo.zone

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b @b.xoxo.zone.ap.brid.gy · 06/07/2026

RE: xoxo.zone/@b/102974865712800421 Made my first update of Ludwig van Shuffle in ~7 years. So nice having software simple and specific enough that it doesn't require attention. PS: I'm still astonished that I've never seen this functionality anywhere else. I can't be the only person […]

Original post on xoxo.zone

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b @b.xoxo.zone.ap.brid.gy · 29/06/2026

You'll never guess what brand of coffee they _don't_ sell at the Folger Shakespeare Library café. Totally a missed opportunity.

b @b.xoxo.zone.ap.brid.gy · 28/06/2026

Super-glad I got this op-ed about 12-dimensional spheres into Scientific American before it got sold out. www.scientificamerican.com/article/… It's an explainer about the curse of dimensionality and its relevance to social […]

Original post on xoxo.zone

b @b.xoxo.zone.ap.brid.gy · 26/06/2026

There's much more in the article. If you're not a lawyer—especially if you're not a lawyer—I expect you'll get from it a better understanding of copyright and how it could be better. Thx for reading! 7/7 papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abs…

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b @b.xoxo.zone.ap.brid.gy · 26/06/2026

Of the two threads, comparative criticism is far more pro-business. You can be a megacorp or a 10-year old kid and violate copyright under the compare-the-texts approach. That makes comparative criticism divisive, and if comparative criticism==copyright, then that makes copyright divisive. But […]

Original post on xoxo.zone

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b @b.xoxo.zone.ap.brid.gy · 26/06/2026

The simpler approach to AI, I propose, is to go back to the other thread: when you say you're going to mass-harvest the work of creators so that you can replace those creators at mass scale, that's dead center in the sphere of unfair business dealings. If you only pay creators with enough […]

Original post on xoxo.zone

b @b.xoxo.zone.ap.brid.gy · 26/06/2026

When somebody tells you that a work is transformative and therefore fair use, they're equating comparative criticism with the whole of copyright law. Fediverse, the thing I most want you to get out of this paper is that the ordinary property approach to copyright is why copyright is problematic […]

Original post on xoxo.zone

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b @b.xoxo.zone.ap.brid.gy · 26/06/2026

The ordinary property approach leads to a sort of analysis where judges try to isolate the spark of creativity in an earlier work and determine whether a later work used that spark, and if so, whether it added sufficiently novel changes to that spark. It's comparative art criticism, but by […]

Original post on xoxo.zone

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b @b.xoxo.zone.ap.brid.gy · 26/06/2026

There are two threads of copyright law: ∙ As protection of unique artistic expressions. There is a "spark of creativity" which is like any ordinary property. ∙ Unauthorized copying as bad faith business dealings. Creators can't create knowing that anyone can copy their work for free. Both are […]

Original post on xoxo.zone

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b @b.xoxo.zone.ap.brid.gy · 26/06/2026

OK, intellectual property fans, here's a draft law review essay I wrote for you about AI and copyright, entitled "The art critics won't save you from the robots". It's really about a trend in copyright jurisprudence which is distorting the AI debate. You shift the trend, you fix the debate—and […]

Original post on xoxo.zone

b @b.xoxo.zone.ap.brid.gy · 16/06/2026

The golden age of piracy (mid-1600s) wasn't too far behind the popularization of the printing press and establishment of a printing industry (mid-to-late 1500s). Authors of the late 1600s would analogize printers who copied their works to pirates ("land pirates" or "word pirates"), and we still […]

Original post on xoxo.zone

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b @b.xoxo.zone.ap.brid.gy · 15/06/2026

TeX tip: \defs are pattern matched! E.g., \def\todo(<#1>){{\bf #1}} then usage: \todo(<Get yr act together.>) If your heavily-used macros have a different format, you're less likely to drown in curly braces. I'd be interested to hear if you all have other uses for going beyond curly braces in […]

Original post on xoxo.zone

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b @b.xoxo.zone.ap.brid.gy · 14/06/2026

Why are genies always granting wishes ironically? What's in it for them? What motivates them? They seem sidelined as characters. Next time you see something with a genie in it, you can check whether there are at least two genies, who talk to each other, about something other than granting wishes.

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b @b.xoxo.zone.ap.brid.gy · 13/06/2026

Oh, and as a follow-up to my last post, the demonym for a person who lives in Las Vegas is: Vegan. There used to be a free local paper called The Vegan Times, even. Have a lucky day, everybody.

b @b.xoxo.zone.ap.brid.gy · 13/06/2026

[Unsolicited pronunciation tip] Throwaway particles aren't stressed, like "the PLAINS" and not "THE plains", or even "saint JOSEPH" and not "SAINT joseph". The same works in Spanish! Not "LAS vegas" but "las VEGAS", not "SAN josé" but "san JOSË".

b @b.xoxo.zone.ap.brid.gy · 08/06/2026

@skewray O no, sorry I misunderstood you (and so probably wound up mansplaining). But it is nice that given the Discrete topology where all points in \Re are singleton open sets, intervals like (0, 1) are also open, as the union of the uncountable set of points in the range.

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b @b.xoxo.zone.ap.brid.gy · 08/06/2026

@skewray Great post, btw, thx for writing it. Exactly what a blog should be.

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b @b.xoxo.zone.ap.brid.gy · 08/06/2026

@skewray If a topology includes only finite unions and intersections, you can't distinguish closed from open sets—infinite unions of open sets (==infinite intersections of closed sets) is the only distinction. Infinite unions are also nice for constructions, like in 2-D you can construct an […]

Original post on xoxo.zone

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b @b.xoxo.zone.ap.brid.gy · 02/06/2026

Hey, orchestra nerds, what are your favorite works to perform? I've read more than enough audience favorites lists, but I expect the pieces that excite you as a performer are different.

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b @b.xoxo.zone.ap.brid.gy · 18/05/2026

Card games: they don't all have to be trick taking or set collection. Carbondale is a grid-building, friendly thievery card game playable with the standard decks of cards you have in your house right now: carbondale.network . #SelfPromotionSunday

carbondale.network

carbondale.network

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b @b.xoxo.zone.ap.brid.gy · 15/05/2026

It finally happened: I sent a colleague 200 lines of code, and he 'improved' it by feeding it to an AI. Was so chipper when he sent me 2,000 lines in return, but then having to fix it and explain to them why the robot-generated version wasn't workable took most of my day. I'm never getting that […]

Original post on xoxo.zone

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b @b.xoxo.zone.ap.brid.gy · 29/04/2026

For you fans of science writer/comic musician Liz Landau, her latest is really her finest. Passed it on to an expectant coworker, who commented "I'm tearing up just a little". www.youtube.com/watch?v=WJ71REKRdWY

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b @b.xoxo.zone.ap.brid.gy · 20/04/2026

At work, have been sporadically passing around that essay I wrote on the history of modern math and how it advises better computing technique (see link below), and I think a few people have taken it to heart and are writing better code. Best reaction so far: "the big lesson is to stay on good […]

Original post on xoxo.zone

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b @b.xoxo.zone.ap.brid.gy · 18/04/2026

RE: mastodon.social/@ethanschoonover/11… This is how I do toothpaste. 💯 , would recommend.

mastodon.social

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b @b.xoxo.zone.ap.brid.gy · 15/04/2026

My metaphorical hat is off to those of you in academia. 95% of my interactions with academics are stellar and the highlight of my day, and then 5% are with the most toxic, defensive, gatekeeping jerks I ever have to deal with. I don't know how those of you who encounter those people every day […]

Original post on xoxo.zone

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