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Connor Boyle

@connorboyle.io
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connorboyle.io

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Connor Boyle @connorboyle.io · 11/09/2026
AI solved a Millennium Prize problem before we achieved widespread IPv6 adoption. Trying to let that one sink in
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Connor Boyle @connorboyle.io · 07/09/2026
An organization with this logo is accusing the Mercator projection of distorting the true appearance of Africa
The logo of the United Nations
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John Lansing @pipedreaming.bsky.social · 26/08/2026
TP usage is the biggest factor in horizontal drainage performance yet some plumbing codes discourage bidets by assuming they contribute to additional loads to the plumbing system, whereas this should be the opposite. Bidets should have negative Drainage Fixture Units actually (not a thing…yet).
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Connor Boyle @connorboyle.io · 11/08/2026
More and more people feel the need to clarify that they're talking about *direct* descendants, but nobody can seem to agree what an "indirect descendant" is
Screenshot of Google Ngram graph of term "direct descendant" vs. "indirect descendant". The former is in wide and increasing use, while the latter is consistently very near zero.
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John Lansing @pipedreaming.bsky.social · 09/08/2026
Given the number of roof collapses worldwide from inadequatly designed storm drainage systems, I wouldn’t want to be inside a building with a downspout nozzle throttling the outlet this much. Also, this point would have landed better if it wasn’t made with AI generated images.
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Connor Boyle @connorboyle.io · 05/08/2026
This may ruffle some feathers, but I'm just gonna come out and say it: "hydrogen bomb" is a dumb name for the thing that it describes; it sounds like a chemical bomb using hydrogen gas and an oxidizer. Maybe it should be called the "deuterium bomb"!
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Trevor Reed @transportreform.bsky.social · 31/07/2026
Having $18.1B in identified funding ($2.3B per mile) and it not being enough is the issue. Skytrain's Broadway Extension opening in '27 is delivering 6 underground stations over 3.5 miles (3.1 tunneled, .4 elevated) for $~600M per mile (US). www.broadwaysubway.ca
broadwaysubway.ca
Home - Broadway Subway Project
The Broadway Subway Project is a 5.7 km extension of the Millennium Line, from VCC-Clark Station to Broadway and Arbutus. It will provide fast, frequent and convenient SkyTrain service to B.C.’s secon...
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Connor Boyle @connorboyle.io · 19/07/2026
My emoji keyboard (GBoard on Samsung) shows an... unusual-looking... flag for Spain
An emoji keyboard showing a version of the Spanish flag with a black crest
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Connor Boyle @connorboyle.io · 13/07/2026
The Proto-Indo-European word *gʰóstis apparently meant both "guest" and "host". This peculiar aspect of their culture persists up to the present day, such as in the popular Indo-European show "Saturday Night Live" which every week features a "host" who is in fact a "guest"!
The actor Jake Gyllenhaal, standing on the Saturday Night Live stage
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Connor Boyle @connorboyle.io · 08/07/2026
Apparently in '06, FIFA made Serbia-Montenegro play as one team, even days after the two nations had broken apart
reddit.com
From the vexillology community on Reddit: Serbia-Montenegro fans hold tied Montenegrin, Serbia-Montenegro and Serbian flags outside the stadium during Germany 2006 World Cup.
Explore this post and more from the vexillology community
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Kiran @kirancodes.me · 07/07/2026
"You will own nothing and be happy." - JVM Garbage Collector
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The Register @theregister.com · 24/06/2026
Boffin claims Microsoft's supposed quantum leap does not compute due to 'basic Python errors'
theregister.com
Boffin claims Microsoft's supposed quantum leap does not compute due to 'basic Python errors'
Nature paper argues researchers cherry-picked data. Redmond insists its work is sound
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Connor Boyle @connorboyle.io · 24/06/2026
"...the absence of adverse events leading to treatment discontinuation throughout the trial" Remembering this paper, which claimed that time of treatment could more than DOUBLE your chances of 3-year survival. They claimed ZERO (/210 patients) dropped out post-randomization. Hmmmm!
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Connor Boyle @connorboyle.io · 02/06/2026
Spotted some pro-Shah graffiti in the U District in Seattle. جاوید شاه "Javid Shah" I believe means "long live the Shah"
Close up of graffiti-ed wall with many instances of Persian phrase "جاويد شاه"Zoomed out view of graffiti-ed wall, showing the street in front of it
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Kiran @kirancodes.me · 27/05/2026
claude, find the input for which the following function does not terminate def f(n): return 3 * n + 1 if n % 2 == 1 else n // 2 make no mistakes
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Connor Boyle @connorboyle.io · 22/05/2026
This trending blog post on Hacker News from yesterday, imploring people not to respond to questions with a wall of copy-pasted AI-generated text, appears to itself be... a 100% AI-generated wall of text!
A trending article list on Hacker News showing the blog post "Throwing AI-generated walls of text into conversations" at #12.A report from Pangram showing the opening paragraphs of that blog post as "100% AI-generated"A screenshot of a blog post. The first header says "What's a slop grenade?" The second header says "Why it's wrong"
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Timothy Gowers @wtgowers.bsky.social · 20/05/2026
OpenAI's claim that this is a central conjecture in discrete geometry is not an exaggeration. This will I think be looked back on as the first time that AI solved a major mathematics problem (defined as a problem that all experts in some subfield had thought about). openai.com/index/model-...
openai.com
An OpenAI model has disproved a central conjecture in discrete geometry
An OpenAI model solved the 80-year-old unit distance problem, disproving a major conjecture in discrete geometry and marking a milestone in AI-driven mathematics.
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Captain Disillusion @captaindisillusion.bsky.social · 18/05/2026
I don’t really care about the personal convictions of a man in a… button-up bomber jacket and a zipper shirt? What?
Crop of the Rockwell “Freedom of Speech” painting highlighting the man’s attire
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Connor Boyle @connorboyle.io · 16/05/2026
You freeloaders need to wake up and realize you can't mooch off others handing out Unicode code points for free anymore. Emojipedia is now a subscription-based service!
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Connor Boyle @connorboyle.io · 14/05/2026
reddit.com
From the desmos community on Reddit: Due to the stars of Brazil not being where they actually are in the sky, despite what the constitution says, I've made a graph showing what the differences are.
Explore this post and more from the desmos community
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Connor Boyle @connorboyle.io · 12/05/2026
Infowars.com currently showing text "Off Air"... Is it finally happening?
View of mobile browser navigated to website infowars.com, showing the text "Off Air" on an otherwise blank page
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Connor Boyle @connorboyle.io · 02/05/2026
Given the evolutionary pressure, it seems kind of amazing that no animal has evolved internal closed-loop refrigeration.
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Connor Boyle @connorboyle.io · 29/04/2026
youtube.com
Liquid Selves (1992)
YouTube video by karlsims
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Connor Boyle @connorboyle.io · 16/04/2026
youtube.com
Octopus has a weird plural because foot has a weird plural
YouTube video by Jackson Crawford
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Connor Boyle @connorboyle.io · 10/04/2026
The words for "young" in Italian ("giovane") and Persian ("javān جوان") are pronounced very similarly. This is not just a coincidence; it is a result of the fact that Italian and Persian were once the same language, 6,000 years ago (en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Proto-I...)
en.wikipedia.org
Proto-Indo-European language - Wikipedia
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Zach Weinersmith @zachweinersmith.bsky.social · 09/04/2026
So this happened www.smbc-comics.com/comic/sphere... #smbc #comics #math
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Connor Boyle @connorboyle.io · 08/04/2026
Currently waiting in the lobby to interview at a Silicon Valley company. The fire alarm panel is beeping incessantly; I overheard the receptionist state that it goes off at exactly 10:42 AM every day! (And beeps until someone with the right technical knowledge comes to turn it off)
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Connor Boyle @connorboyle.io · 05/04/2026
The big clock at Union Depot in Centralia, WA is slow by ~13 minutes
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Connor Boyle @connorboyle.io · 26/03/2026
In general-purpose programming, we specify whether we are using a 32-bit (`float`) or a 64-bit (`double`) floating point number, but we p much never specify the share of bits allocated to significand vs exponent 11 bits for exponent is not the best choice for all cases but we just sorta go with it
Diagram of 64-bit floating point number in memory; showing 1 bit to the sign, 11 bits dedicated to the exponent, and 52 bits to the fraction
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Ian @woolie.meowmeow.city · 11/03/2026
Transit priorities in this country are: 1. Jobs program 2. Social services program 3. Freeway congestion relief program ... 821. Transportation program
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Connor Boyle @connorboyle.io · 16/02/2026
I just hope that one day AI will advance to the point that it can finally tell me the name of that song that goes "doo-doo-doo doo-dat doo-dat doo, doo-dat doo"
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Connor Boyle @connorboyle.io · 12/02/2026
This appears to be the website of the company that cloned Javier Milei's dog
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Connor Boyle @connorboyle.io · 11/02/2026
TIL in Japan hairpins are called "American pins" (amerikapin アメリカピン)
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Connor Boyle @connorboyle.io · 07/02/2026
TIL that Leslie Cheung and Anita Mui both died in the same year, 2003. Unrelatedly, SARS was happening. Brutal year for Hong Kong.
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Retraction Watch @retractionwatch.com · 04/02/2026
The Lancet has put an expression of concern on a 2006 case report of a baby’s death purportedly from morphine poisoning through breast milk. The decision comes just days after the New Yorker published a year-long investigation into the death and the controversies that have surrounded it.
retractionwatch.com
Lancet flags long-scrutinized report of infant poisoned by opioids in breast milk
The Hospital for Sick Children in Toronto The Lancet has put an expression of concern on a 2006 case report of a baby’s death purportedly from morphine poisoning through breast milk. The decision c…
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Damian Carrington @dpcarrington.bsky.social · 13/01/2026
‘A bombshell’: doubt cast on discoveries of #microplastics throughout human body, from brain to blood, arteries to testes Exclusive: Some scientists say many detections are most likely error, with one high-profile study called a ‘joke’ Story by me www.theguardian.com/environment/...
theguardian.com
‘A bombshell’: doubt cast on discovery of microplastics throughout human body
Exclusive: Some scientists say many detections are most likely error, with one high-profile study called a ‘joke’
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Connor Boyle @connorboyle.io · 06/01/2026
@stephenjacobsmith.com how can I figure out what the required minimum decibel level is for a smoke alarm in CA? A loved one of mine has a very sensitive alarm that is *extremely loud*. It's ruining dinners and probably damaging the dog's hearing :( but building management say it is required by code
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The Urbanist @theurbanist.org · 06/12/2025
With three “downtown” stations and counting, Sound Transit must overhaul its station naming policy and name its stations less confusingly so that riders can easily navigate a growing system. Op-ed by Stephen Fesler: www.theurbanist.org/2025/12/05/o...
theurbanist.org
Op-Ed: Sound Transit’s Station Naming Policy Has Run Amok Again » The Urbanist
# With three “downtown” stations and counting, Sound Transit must overhaul its station naming policy and name its stations less confusingly so that riders can easily navigate a growing system.
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Connor Boyle @connorboyle.io · 08/11/2025
(*Wikipedia's)
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Alon (they/them) @alonlevy.bsky.social · 15/10/2025
Every city that has driverless cars before driverless metros needs to hang its head in shame.
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Hacker News @mm-hacker-news.bsky.social · 18/09/2025
Fast Fourier Transforms Part 1: Cooley-Tukey connorboyle.io/2025/09/11/fft-coole…
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Connor Boyle @connorboyle.io · 12/10/2025
Very pleased to share that there is now a version of OpenRailwayMap that shows rail operators, e.g.: openrailwaymap.app#view=12.08/4...
A map of Seattle showing rail lines in color. The names of the owners/operators are shown alongside the rail lines
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Connor Boyle @connorboyle.io · 03/10/2025
Saw the new Coast Salish story pole on UW campus today. Looks neat! www.washington.edu/news/2025/09...
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Retraction Watch @retractionwatch.com · 22/09/2025
If you're a journal or publisher using institutional email addresses to verify the identity of authors or reviewers, you'll want to read this story by @joelving.bsky.social.
retractionwatch.com
University email addresses no longer effective bulwark against fake peer review
To guard against identity theft, academic publishers have been using institutional email addresses to verify authors and reviewers are who they say they are. Now, however, findings appearing in a p…
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Connor Boyle @connorboyle.io · 20/09/2025
This presidential proclamation is INSANE. The employer of any H-1(b) applicant or holder trying to enter the United States starting September 21 will have to pay $100,000 to allow the worker to re-enter. That's about 36 hours of notice! Tell all your immigrant friends and colleagues about it!
whitehouse.gov
Restriction on Entry of Certain Nonimmigrant Workers
BY THE PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA A PROCLAMATION The H-1B nonimmigrant visa program was created to bring temporary workers into the United
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Connor Boyle @connorboyle.io · 19/09/2025
@stephenjacobsmith.com you might be interested in this? You seem like the most immigration-oriented person I follow on here
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Connor Boyle @connorboyle.io · 19/09/2025
Perhaps the best software I've ever used is a Chinese-language dictionary app called Pleco. It works perfectly offline, has never once crashed on me, and has transferred in-app purchases across devices going all the way back to the Palm Pilot version in 2001. www.pleco.com
pleco.com
Pleco Software – The #1 Chinese dictionary app for iOS and Android
The #1 Chinese dictionary app for iOS and Android
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Connor Boyle @connorboyle.io · 15/09/2025
How the Cooley-Tukey FFT algorithm calculates the discrete Fourier transform of a signal
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Stephen Jacob Smith @stephenjacobsmith.com · 11/09/2025
Interesting how if you Google Translate “fire sprinkler” into French, you get what I believe is a very Quebecois word. I guess because Quebec requires way, way more sprinklers than France itself, so its terminology dominates in the corpus.
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Connor Boyle @connorboyle.io · 05/08/2025
Maybe I'm being too snarky by posting this, but...
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