iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

Lukas Graf @lukasmathgraf.bsky.social · 29/05/2026

Started my train journey to #SIAMOP26. If everything goes well, I should arrive in Edinburgh tomorrow evening. If not ... I should still be able to make it in time for my talk on Friday afternoon :D

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Florian Aigner @florianaigner.at · 25/05/2026

Ich habe den Welt-Artikel von Kristina Schröder gelesen, damit ihr es nicht müsst. Ja, er ist so daneben, wie die Überschrift vermuten lässt. Aber was meint sie eigentlich? Was fällt hier angeblich aus? (Thread)

WELT.de-Kommentar von Kristina Schröder: "Die Apokalypse fällt aus. Können wir bitte noch mal über das Klimaziel sprechen?"

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Dr. Jens Foell @jensfoell.de · 05/04/2026

This is what the US president posted on Easter Sunday. Nobody who’s voted for him should know a day without being reminded of what they did.

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Lukas Graf @lukasmathgraf.bsky.social · 22/03/2026

The International Conference on Operations Research takes place in Passau this year! Abstract submission is open until April 30th: or2026.de

A poster for the conference OR 2026 in Passau. The background image is a panorama view of Passau in autumn.
There are multiple boxes with text:
One stating the title and moto of the conference: International Conference on Operations Research 2026 - Converging Streams in Decision Making
One stating the date of the conference as September 1-4, 2026 as well as the submission deadline: April 30, 2026
There is a link to the conference website https://or2026.de for more information and the contact email address info@or2026.de

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Florian Aigner @florianaigner.at · 21/03/2026

Ich bin wirklich sehr für moralische Regeln. Ich fand "the witch is dead" nach Thatchers Tod geschmacklos. Ich habe mich sogar beim Jubel über Bin Ladens Ermordung geärgert. Aber wenn nach Trumps Tod Menschen weltweit auf der Straße feiern, dann mache ich mir auch eine richtig gute Flasche auf.

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"Online Rent-a-Sage" Bret Devereaux @bretdevereaux.bsky.social · 15/03/2026

I love this joke. You love this joke. We all do. It is hilarious. Buuuuuut...you know we're about to discuss Roman calendars, right? And that this joke isn't quite right? SO! Let's talk about Roman calendars and why the 'number months' (Sept-Dec) do not match their numbers (7-10)! 1/

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Lukas Graf @lukasmathgraf.bsky.social · 17/02/2026

For reasons I currently have to create a presentation with PowerPoint - and I just learned that PowerPoint cannot animate tables? E.g., have it appear row by row? Apparently the officially recommended way is to turn the table into a vector graphic, un-group it and then animate the parts ... WTF?!

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Lukas Graf @lukasmathgraf.bsky.social · 01/02/2026

The newest NotJustBikes video raises some interesting points about the problematic side effects of car-centric routing planers: www.youtube.com/watch?v=csHd... And it makes me even sadder that komoot doesn't exist anymore - it was such a useful Google Maps replacement for cycling and hiking :-/

youtube.com

Why I don't use Google Maps in Amsterdam

YouTube video by Not Just Bikes

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Société Mathématique de France @socmathfrance.bsky.social · 26/01/2026

La SMF ne tiendra pas de stand au Congrès International des Mathématiciens (ICM) de Philadelphie en 2026. (1/3) (Motion du Conseil d'Administration du 16 janvier 2026) smf.emath.fr/actualites-s...

smf.emath.fr

ICM 2026 - motion du CA | Société Mathématique de France

La SMF ne tiendra pas de stand à l'ICM de Philadelphie.

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Clément Canonne @ccanonne.github.io · 20/01/2026

By the way, one can disable the "AI Companion" in Zoom Workplace via the Settings, in the online portal. (context: I go on Zoom to talk to people, usually, and haven't found any use for this.) support.zoom.com/hc/en/articl...

The panel in the Zoom portal allowing one to enable/disable various features of the AI companion.

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Florian Aigner @florianaigner.at · 20/01/2026

Europa sollte geschlossen die Fußball-WM 2026 boykottieren. Lasst uns doch in Europa stattdessen ein fröhliches völkerverbindendes Fußballturnier austragen. Die Zeit der FIFA sollte vorbei sein. Gründen wir stattdessen eine kleine, gemeinschaftlich organisierte Non-Profit-Fußballvereinigung.

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Marcel Dirsus @marceldirsus.com · 19/01/2026

This is a red line. If we let the United States force Denmark to give up territory by threatening an invasion, we're done. There are no good options here, but we have to stand with Denmark

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Florian Aigner @florianaigner.at · 13/01/2026

Seht euch das Video an. Das ist kein Rechtsstaat mehr. Es ist nicht mehr das Land, mit dem wir jahrzehntelang Werte teilten. Entweder wir erkennen das und grenzen uns ab, oder diese neuen Werte der Macht durch Gewalt werden sich bei uns auch durchsetzen.

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Lukas Graf @lukasmathgraf.bsky.social · 09/01/2026

Did you know? The city of Passau sometimes has these weird red stripes alongside roads. These are there to indicate where you can dump excess snow 🙂👍 In the summer, you may, of course, also use them for parking!

A photo of a street crossing for cyclists and pedestrians. On one side of the road there is also a red stripe indicating a cycling lane. While the road itself is completely snow free, there is still snow on the red stripes and blocking several parts of the crossing.

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Opal @opalescentopal.bsky.social · 22/12/2025

I want you to imagine, for a moment, a world in which Sunny Delight-- the orange-juice-ish kids drink-- was hailed as a technical marvel and the wave of the future.

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Marcel Dirsus @marceldirsus.com · 22/12/2025

In conclusion, we should negotiate! But Putin won't be won over through superior argument or an appeal to higher morals. This is about power. Ukrainians will have to make painful concessions either way, but there's a difference between that and outright surrender

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Marcel Dirsus @marceldirsus.com · 22/12/2025

Ukrainians have to decide what's best for Ukrainians. But for us, the least bad option is the same it's always been: Cripple the Russian economy and empower Ukraine's military to inflict more and more pain on Moscow

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Marcel Dirsus @marceldirsus.com · 22/12/2025

The whole "people say we can't talk to Putin" thing increasingly feels like a straw man. Is anyone here actually opposed to negotiations? Western leaders practically begged Putin not to invade. Zelensky would sit down with Putin tomorrow if he agreed to meet outside Russia

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Arolsen Archives @arolsenarchives.bsky.social · 19/12/2025

Light after darkness: In the Fürstenfeldbrück DP camp, two children and Yaakov Goldman, the chief rabbi of the U.S. Army in Europe, join to light the third candle on the hanukkiah. It is 1945, and they are celebrating Hanukkah for the first time since the Holocaust.

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Emily M. Bender @emilymbender.bsky.social · 18/12/2025

I don't know how many times this needs to be said, but apparently a lot: If you are not in a position to verify the accuracy of some synthetic text, the synthetic text is not useful/has a high potential to be misleading. This is one of those cases.

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Lukas Graf @lukasmathgraf.bsky.social · 18/12/2025

I love this logic: "abstracts are often badly written => let's use LLMs to write more badly written abstracts" Instead of, you know: "abstracts are often badly written => let's improve our review process to make the authors write better abstracts"

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Robin Ince @robinince.bsky.social · 13/12/2025

Very sad that I felt I had no choice but to resign from The Infinite Monkey Cage - a victory for the transphobes and other bigots - I did it because so much of the media has chosen to believe the kind and empathetic people are a fiction - they are real and so often unrepresented.

This is the saddest day of my professional life.
Today is not only the final recording of the latest series of The Infinite Monkey Cage, it is my last ever Monkey Cage.
I never thought that I would have to leave the show. I always imagined going on until | dropped dead under the studio lights due to a brain aneurysm caused by my final attempt to understand notions of quantum gravity or the shock of being told about fly maggot infestations in the sacks of macaque monkeys.
I resigned in September, after sixteen years of dedication to the show,
A show that I named and helped develop over all those years.
Unfortunately, my opinions outside the BBC have been considered problematic for sometime, whether it has been voicing support for the trans community, criticism of Donald Trump, numerous other outlandish opinions, including once gently criticising Stephen Fry.
These things were considered to conflict with being a freelance BBC science presenter

In a recent meeting where BBC Studio executives again voiced problems with me, I realised my choices.
Obedience and being quieter to remain making Monkey Cage, or 'Resign and have the freedom to speak out against what I believe are injustices'.
•
I chose the latter.
It broke my heart.
I love this show and I love the audience, and it is because of the audience in particular, that this decision was so difficult to make.
I kept thinking about all the extremist voices promoting hate and division. They are being given so many platforms, while voices that represent kindness, open mindedness, empathy seem to be scarcer and scarcer.
I felt I couldn't pamper myself with the luxury of silence.
One of my many privileges is that I am able to resign and I can speak out even if it is to the detriment of my career.

I have thought a lot about my heroes, Sinead O Connor, James Baldwin, Audre Lorde, and so many more.
I think of Sinead's words, "the job of an artist is to be themselves at any cost".
James Baldwin said prejudice was really just a word for cowardice.
Audre Lorde, viewing her life, wrote that her only regrets were her silences.
I think of my father as I resign, he brought me up to believe in fairness , justice and kindness.
Though my heart is broken, it is also full of fire.
I apologise to our incredible listeners for my departure, your love of the show means a great deal.
I am so sorry to let you down.
I hope that you can understand my reasoning.
I have to accept that I am not what the current
BBC expects of their freelance presenters.

Despite this I should add that I have always worked far more than my contracted hours to try and ensure the show was always the best it could be, as well as making myself accessible and responsive to the audience wherever and whenever I met them. Every night, we have recorded, I have been filled with determination to make the best show possible. This was not
"just a job"
I hope that with my departure I can be a better ally to the LGBTQ community, to the neurodivergent community, to activists fighting against those who aim to brutalise society, to those currently in prison on hunger strike, and to all those who fight for a more inclusive world.
From many conversations, I know there are many Monkey Cage listeners who support these communities and activists too.
The strawberry is dead.
Long live the strawberry. B

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Katie Mack @astrokatie.com · 12/12/2025

Doubly offensive because the architects are never the ones sitting out on the beam

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Lukas Graf @lukasmathgraf.bsky.social · 01/12/2025

I'd prefer the second one - the first one feels a bit too cluttered for me (in particular, all the UI elements are kind of distracting). Though, either is a nice change from the usual TikZ drawings one sees in every talk on this subject!

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Rutger Bregman @rutgerbregman.com · 25/11/2025

I wish I didn’t have to share this. But the BBC has decided to censor my first Reith Lecture. They deleted the line in which I describe Donald Trump as “the most openly corrupt president in American history.” /1

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Florian Aigner @florianaigner.at · 04/11/2025

Der Denkfehler so vieler Leute, von Ezra Klein bis Sam Harris: "Die Leute wählen rechtsradikal, dann müssen wir halt alle etwas rechtsradikaler werden, um den Status Quo halbwegs zu konservieren." Gewählt wird meist aber nicht FÜR Rechtsradikalismus, sondern in erster Linie GEGEN den Status Quo.

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Matthew Noe @noethematt.bsky.social · 28/10/2025

"I DON'T NEED YOU TO FUCKING REWRITE WHAT I'VE JUST WRITTEN!"

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Python Software Foundation @python.org · 27/10/2025

TLDR; The PSF has made the decision to put our community and our shared diversity, equity, and inclusion values ahead of seeking $1.5M in new revenue. Please read and share. pyfound.blogspot.com/2025/10/NSF-... 🧵

python.org

The official home of the Python Programming Language

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Bissiges Mäuschen 🐭 @bmauschen.eurosky.social · 07/10/2025

What I would prefer as an operating system to run everything on before I would use ChatGPT: * Windows 95 * Skype * A first generation Gameboy * An Etch A Sketch * Printouts on Tibetan prayer flags * Stone Tablets (And I mean pills you need to swallow!) * The guts of a goat * Your Mom

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Lukas Graf @lukasmathgraf.bsky.social · 26/09/2025

Not-Breaking Knot-News: @standupmaths.bsky.social proves 3+3=5 using rope, scissors and tape: www.youtube.com/watch?v=Dx7f-nGohVc Also contains a great sentence-template more journalists should use: "Next we need to understand what X is - and, then, we can get to the breaking news"

youtube.com

A century-old knot conjecture was wrong all along

YouTube video by Stand-up Maths

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Retraction Watch @retractionwatch.com · 25/09/2025

Math has publication fraud, too. For a long time, mathematicians thought that as long as they keep away from predatory journals or paper mills, the problem does not affect them. This turned out to be wrong.

retractionwatch.com

Math has publication fraud, too

Ilka AgricolaCredit: Thorsten Richter Scholarly publishing in mathematics is unlike many other fields, marked by fewer papers, fewer coauthors per paper and fewer citations. But that doesn’t mean t…

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Lukas Graf @lukasmathgraf.bsky.social · 24/09/2025

When a typo in the abstract makes you more likely to read the paper :-)

The picture consists of two parts:
On the top a screenshot from a paper on arxiv. The title reads "Spectral extrema of graphs of given even size forbidding H(4,3)", the abstract below starts with the following text "A graph is sad to be H-free if it does not contain H..."
Below is a handdrawn image with the title "Without H everything is sad" and a drawing of a graph resembling a sad smiley face. Next to it is an arrow pointing to it with the text "grap(h) sad"

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Alanah Pearce @alanahpearce.bsky.social · 23/09/2025

It’s time to wake up — if you aren’t using ChatGPT to optimize your work (and your life!) you’re getting left behind. Watch this for 5 simple, lesser-known ChatGPT prompts that geniuses use! youtu.be/IS65dBNlng8

youtu.be

5 Secret Ways to Use ChatGPT Like an AI Pro (2025 easy prompt guide!)

YouTube video by Charalanahzard

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Marcel Dirsus @marceldirsus.com · 22/09/2025

America's captains of industry already behave as if the country were a dictatorship, so why would they be more likely to oppose the government if that government can imprison them? The CEOs won't save democracy. If anything, they'll sponsor its destruction

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Timo @pharmblog.bsky.social · 17/09/2025

Meiner Universität, der Uni Leipzig, fehlen 16 Mio. Euro, und es könnte sogar noch mehr werden. Das soll größtenteils über Einsparungen beim Personal ausgeglichen werden. Und da sind Wissenschaftler:innen wegen ihrer sowie schon unsicheren Beschäftigungssituation besonders vulnerabel. 1/

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Thomas Kahle @tomkalei.bsky.social · 06/09/2025

In geometry we call something 'generic' if there is nothing special about the situation. E.g, 3 generic points in the plane don't lie on a single straight line. If you prove a theorem for the generic situation, you have proved it in a special case only because you disregarded the special cases. 🤯

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Johannes Kager @johk.bsky.social · 02/09/2025

Sorry to break it to you, aber Bielefeld gibt es wirklich! And it‘s actually lovely 😃 (Die Stadt, die tatsächlich nicht existiert, ist Leifers.)

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Florian Aigner @florianaigner.at · 03/09/2025

"40h pro Woche arbeiten. Das ist doch weniger als ein Viertel! Da geht doch mehr!" Man hört das Argument von Wirtschaftstreibenden, jetzt auch vom deutschen Kanzler. Das Missverständnis dahinter: Viel arbeiten ist in erster Linie ein Privileg - das für viele einfach außer Reichweite liegt (Thread)

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Lukas Graf @lukasmathgraf.bsky.social · 02/09/2025

Guess where my train crossed the border from Austria to Germany:

A screenshot from the Deutsche Bahn App showing the journey of a train from Vienna to Frankfurt. Up to Passau all times are green, afterwards all times are red

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Lukas Graf @lukasmathgraf.bsky.social · 01/09/2025

UI design from hell (well, Editorial Manager - but what's the difference anyway): Can anyone explain to me what the first check box means?

Headline: "Required Questions"
Below: "Please respond to any questions below and click Continue:"
Below that an empty checkbox, a red asterisk and the text "Please select your area of interest from the Classifications list: (1) Select one item each from "Discipline" and "Method" (2) Select up to two items from "Topics""
Below "Please click on the question below and Continue:"
Below that another empty checkbox, a red asterisk and the text "I accept the Publisher's Terms and Conditions and Privacy Policy and the Aries Privacy Policy."

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Florian Aigner @florianaigner.at · 20/08/2025

Ich habe geschrieben, dass das Gerede von "woker Cancel Culture" bloß eine Verschwörungstheorie ist, und dass echte Meinungsunterdrückung viel eher von autoritären Regimes ausgeht. Das hat einige Leute schwer getriggert. Und das ist auch gut so. Aber ein paar Anmerkungen sind noch wichtig:

futurezone.at

Man darf ja nichts mehr sagen!

„Cancel Culture“ ist ein Mythos. Beschränkungen der Meinungsfreiheit gibt es aber tatsächlich – darüber sollten wir reden.

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Terence Tao @teorth.bsky.social · 18/08/2025

I wrote an op-ed on the world-class STEM research ecosystem in the United States, and how this ecosystem is now under attack on multiple fronts by the current administration: newsletter.ofthebrave.org/p/im-an-awar...

newsletter.ofthebrave.org

I’m an award-winning mathematician. Trump just cut my funding.

The “Mozart of Math” tried to stay out of politics. Then it came for his research.

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Opal @opalescentopal.bsky.social · 27/07/2025

With Tom Lehrer's passing, I suppose this is a moment to share the story of the prank he played on the National Security Agency, and how it went undiscovered for nearly 60 years.

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Lukas Graf @lukasmathgraf.bsky.social · 08/08/2025

PhD-level intelligence my ass #GPT-5

A screenshot from a chat with ChatGPT featuring a table called "summary table" with two columns: The left one is called "berry name" the right one is called "count of 'b'". In it are the following lines:
Boysenberry 2
Blackberry 1
Blueberry 1
Olallieberry 2
Chehalem berry 1
Marionberry 1

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Lukas Graf @lukasmathgraf.bsky.social · 08/08/2025

Had to test it myself and am happy to report: Berry-based Turing tests still work for #GPT-5:

A screenshot from a conversation with ChatGPT: The question reads "Are there any berries that have a name with three bs?".
The answer reads "You’re looking for a berry whose name contains three letter B’s—which is quite a rare linguistic quirk! I dug around, and here's what I found:
The only real berry (i.e., a fruit) that fits that description is:
Worcesterberry – a name for Ribes divaricatum, a type of gooseberry native to the Pacific Coast of North America. Conveniently, it contains exactly three “b” characters: Worcesterberry. "

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