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Matt Mack

@matthras.bsky.social
1K followers 776 following 2.1K posts

Hard-of-hearing + mild AuDHD mathematician, cellist, anime+manga+VTuber fan with a giant backlog of games and books to get through. Chronically online: matthras@aus.social, matthras@x.com, matthras.com

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Matt Mack @matthras.bsky.social · 13h
Hate being hard-of-hearing: I use a small square mic (Widex Sound Assist) to help me hear others e.g. across a table. But I have to explain it to everyone because people not clued in tend to stare at it with fear and think I'm secretly recording them. So frustrating.
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Matt Mack @matthras.bsky.social · 30/09/2026
Advisory Group on Mathematics & AI just released a report: "Responsible Release of AI-Generated Mathematics": agmai.org/general-se... For onlookers+non-mathematicians, I think it's worth reading to get an idea of how maths as a discipline maintains standards for building knowledge. 1/2
agmai.org
general-sep29
Responsible Release of AI-Generated Mathematics September 29, 2026 Back to main page Download PDF At present, some frontier AI labs are testing advanced mathematical problems on proprietary models …
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Matt Mack @matthras.bsky.social · 29/09/2026
Interesting for me to think about and apply this to (Aussie) maths academia as I know it.
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Matt Mack @matthras.bsky.social · 27/09/2026
I've been struggling to find the words for why this guest post /really/ irritates me. Yes, we need more mathematicians, I don't disagree with the reasons given. terrytao.wordpress.c... 1/2
terrytao.wordpress.com
We’re gonna need a lot more mathematicians
[This is a guest post by Amit Sahai. This blog post was initially written in a different file format and converted using AI. — T.] When I was an undergraduate student, I remember talking with…
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Matt Mack @matthras.bsky.social · 24/09/2026
Finished Neagley S1, recommend watching if you want more Reacher. Highlight for me was the non-verbal communication, it's amazing how much can be expressed with subtle facial expressions & movement + sufficient camera time to let them sink in for the viewer.
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Matt Mack @matthras.bsky.social · 24/09/2026
Random thought experiment in my head over the past few months: What is the minimum amount of information you'd need to teach a layman that LLMs are not 'magic'? Bit of maths (Markov chains), cognitive psych, communication/theory-of-mind models, what else?
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Matt Mack @matthras.bsky.social · 22/09/2026
Today I got primary school kids to argue over the definition of a sandwich while I continued to show them increasingly bizarre examples, including a cat between two slices of bread, and a full loaf cut in half with some ham & lettuce in the middle. #HoagieHomies Today was a good day 😁
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Matt Mack @matthras.bsky.social · 21/09/2026
Finished watching Reacher S4. Enjoyed it, it's more of the same, but can see why some people are grumbling: Reacher got hurt a lot more, some "too convenient" happenings, spotted one inconsistency between scenes. Not offputting for me yet though, still happy to switch brain off.
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Matt Mack @matthras.bsky.social · 19/09/2026
Grant Sanderson's (3blue1brown) guest post on Terry Tao's blog pretty much affirms and expands on my opinion of what's missing in maths academia: more maths communication overall, and especially towards different audiences.
terrytao.wordpress.com
If math is more than proof, we need to better celebrate the rest of it
[This is a guest post by Grant Sanderson. This blog post was initially written in a different file format and converted using AI. — T.] A sentiment echoing throughout the mathematics communit…
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Matt Mack @matthras.bsky.social · 19/09/2026
Finished watching The Bear S1 after someone recommended it to me in terms of realism matching that of The Pitt. Gotta say, though, those emotions are much more raw! Working through Reacher S4 now that the whole season's out. Enjoying it but noticing more "slightly off" bits 😬
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Matt Mack @matthras.bsky.social · 18/09/2026
Thought I was smart when I learnt I could write custom rules (via Google Apps Script) for deleting emails for my Gmail inboxes. Wrote one as a test, left it to trigger overnight. Next morning I realised I pointed it towards the wrong email inbox /facepalm
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Matt Mack @matthras.bsky.social · 18/09/2026
It's been tough to figure out my thoughts + nuance, so I'm happy to see others express it. So far in my AI experimentation I'm restricting myself to free+local models and it really does help shave time off learning & coding that would be spent browsing textbooks + internet.
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Matt Mack @matthras.bsky.social · 17/09/2026
Today's Foot-In-Mouth Moment: I ran into someone I occasionally meet while walking to/from work. Me: "How was the cruise?" Her: "It was lovely! But I got sick." Me: "Isn't that the norm?" /facepalm She ended up getting pneumonia (yikes!) but is almost back to normal now.
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Matt Mack @matthras.bsky.social · 16/09/2026
Today I tried making banana bread in the rice cooker as I randomly saw on social media, ended up finishing it in the oven :( You basically need one of the more exxy rice cookers, your cheapo $50 Kmart one won't cut it.
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Matt Mack @matthras.bsky.social · 15/09/2026
Teams is so frustratingly screen-space-inefficient for tuning into presentations delivered online, especially when I turn on live-captions. So many sidebars and menus that I want to hide, grrrrrr.
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Matt Mack @matthras.bsky.social · 14/09/2026
This past month I've been going through my chewing gum stash. Clicked for me yesterday that it was probably an anxiety uptick where the chewing helps calm me down. I was reminded of when I was crunching through nuts while writing up my Masters thesis for exactly the same reason.
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Matt Mack @matthras.bsky.social · 13/09/2026
Something I'm finding frustrating with media training that I see in universities is that they're all catered towards traditional media, which is not necessarily wrong, they're just unable to provide insight/discussion on managing e.g. a social media account for communication.
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Reposted by Matt Mack
Peter Keep @mathprofpeter.bsky.social · 10/09/2026
Ok but why did I write this? #HoagieHomies
Aside

Sometimes this theorem is called the Sandwich Theorem, since the upper bounding function and the lower bounding function act as the slices of bread, while the strangely behaved middle function acts like the toppings on the sandwich.

We choose not to use that naming convention in this text in order to preserve the flexibility of the definition of a sandwich. An open-faced sandwich is still a sandwich (in the opinion of the textbook author), but this result clearly doesn’t hold when we only have one bounding function.
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Matt Mack @matthras.bsky.social · 11/09/2026
I was randomly thinking of crocheting my own poster tube/carry-case a while back then I realised it probably wouldn't be sufficiently waterproof /facepalm Might still try though 🤔
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Matt Mack @matthras.bsky.social · 10/09/2026
Made apple crumble (RecipeTinEat's) last night because I was stewing pretty hard over recent Maths+AI news.
Single tea dish with a hearty helping of apple crumble - oats, butter and brown sugar as a crust, with softened diced granny smith and pink lady cubed apples as filling. Single tea dish with a hearty helping of apple crumble, next to it on top of a stove is an oven tray of the remaining apple crumble.
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Matt Mack @matthras.bsky.social · 06/09/2026
Something nice: Got an email from a past student on Saturday, she got into a summer vacation research scholarship that I recommended she apply to. Worth noting she's a mature-age student who initially exhibited the same lack of self-confidence I usually see in female students.
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Matt Mack @matthras.bsky.social · 06/09/2026
One stupid thing about my (Widex) hearing aid is that if I want to change its default settings I have to pay $150 for an appointment for an audiologist to adjust. I got the volume bumped up a bit but now there are situations where it's a little too much. 1/3
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Matt Mack @matthras.bsky.social · 06/09/2026
Last boardgames session we played "The Mind: Soulmates", fun card game where players have to correctly put their number cards in order without knowing what others have. I highly dislike the jagged difficulty curve associated with the levels, though. boardgamegeek.com/bo...
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Matt Mack @matthras.bsky.social · 05/09/2026
Just watched movie Venom: The Last Dance (2024). It's more of the same, but it's exactly what I wanted whilst mindlessly preparing more psyllium husk capsules. 3/5 Also let me know if you're on Letterboxd, my username is the same on there.
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Matt Mack @matthras.bsky.social · 05/09/2026
Seems like the only way to know what my supervisors are up to and/or have done is either read their (inscrutable-enough) papers or listen to them give a (digestible, but rare) talk on it. In the few times I did I've gotten a better understanding of... 1/2
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Matt Mack @matthras.bsky.social · 03/09/2026
TIL it's possible to just end up spending an entire day responding to corrections on an ethics application.
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Reposted by Matt Mack
Kate Littlejohn @kelittlejohn.bsky.social · 02/09/2026
I'm currently in the middle of PhD research that is showing unequivocally that this is not even close to a thing. Women are still massively underrepresented in the curriculum and almost every teacher I interviewed raised the manosphere's influence on male students as an explicit blocker.
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Matt Mack @matthras.bsky.social · 02/09/2026
One funny thing about Doctordle is that after I've done the psychiatric ones I let a (bipolar, AuDHD, agoraphobic, lotta other psychiatric bullshit) friend know of them and he usually guesses them in 1-3 because he's extensively read up on them and knows the patterns 😂
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Matt Mack @matthras.bsky.social · 01/09/2026
I need an in-office couch/recliner; like, a comfy 'thinking' chair sort of space inside my office. There's couches outside my office but in my brain they're more for chilling/napping. First-world problem 🙄
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Matt Mack @matthras.bsky.social · 31/08/2026
My brain has decided that I'm going to attempt to digitise a bunch of my old tax documents to hopefully unclutter the last reason I keep procrastinating on my tax return (it probably isn't but having less physical bulk is welcome nonetheless!)
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Matt Mack @matthras.bsky.social · 29/08/2026
Finished TV series Reacher Season 3. Still lots of fun, will probably wait for all of Season 4 to be out before watching it, same for Neagley. Just learnt there's 30 books in the series, let's hope these books grab my attention!
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Matt Mack @matthras.bsky.social · 28/08/2026
Poster session was yesterday. I'm having the same existential crisis about realising that how others approach them is significantly different than what I expected. Also at academics asking me to explain it like you didn't give yourself a chance to read it through first, wtf?!
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Matt Mack @matthras.bsky.social · 27/08/2026
Evil Matt to Normal Matt: "Yes, you're at a wound healing conference, it's completely natural to get promotional dermatology products. Now stop complaining and swipe a few more bags of that free sunscreen and moisturiser, you're probably saving like ~$100 in daily skin care!"
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Reposted by Matt Mack
Christopher Hanusa @mathzorro.bsky.social · 26/08/2026
Is a cheesecake a pie? #HoagieHomies
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Matt Mack @matthras.bsky.social · 26/08/2026
TIL the (cute!) spiny mouse has incredible regenerative properties and people are studying it to see if the similar can be activated for humans. (I already knew of zebrafish previously, but they're worth looking up too)
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Matt Mack @matthras.bsky.social · 25/08/2026
Presenting an academic poster in two days and I'm thinking "Well I'm going to look silly just standing next to my poster, so maybe I should practice random poses: maybe muscle flexing, maybe one from JoJo, what else...?" Reality is that I'll probably just antisocially crochet 🙃
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Matt Mack @matthras.bsky.social · 25/08/2026
Today's Nice Thing: My PhD buddy and I being delighted at getting the building's printer to bulk-print tests and automatically staple them as well 😁🙃
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Matt Mack @matthras.bsky.social · 24/08/2026
Just listened to Sarah give a talk on her work, very fascinating!
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Matt Mack @matthras.bsky.social · 24/08/2026
Monday morning, strong procrastination + demand avoidance feelings to power through for a deadline today. This will be useful information to unpack for later but wow do I need to power through this one!
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Matt Mack @matthras.bsky.social · 23/08/2026
Finished watching anime Darwin Jihen Season 1 last night. Personally I enjoyed it as an adult more familiar with adult politics/bullshit, but wouldn't recommend it to anyone younger and immature who watches anime for entertainment. 1/2
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Reposted by Matt Mack
Anil Dash @anildash.com · 21/08/2026
Here's a more fully articulated version of the argument I'd make: simply shaming people about their AI slop isn't an effective strategy for stopping Big AI. There needs to be a power-aware theory of change. www.anildash.com/2026/08/21/a...
anildash.com
Why shaming people about AI slop isn’t enough to stop Big AI - Anil Dash
A blog about making culture. Since 1999.
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Matt Mack @matthras.bsky.social · 22/08/2026
Finished watching TV series "Reacher" S1 last night. It's very well written, sufficiently complex story, interesting, distinct and complex characters that were well-portrayed especially in non-verbal communication. Some gore+nudity that felt natural in the moment. 1/2
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Reposted by Matt Mack
Adriana Salerno Dominguez @mathyadriana.bsky.social · 20/08/2026
It is interesting to read pieces about stuff you worked on (especially when it’s called “insane”), but this response by Andrew was excellent. (And yes, I’m the math professor mentioned here).
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Matt Mack @matthras.bsky.social · 20/08/2026
Funny Teams automated captions mistake in this week's postgraduate maths seminar: "So we start with a positive Omega naughty solving our ode"
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Matt Mack @matthras.bsky.social · 20/08/2026
Randomly trying Inkscape on my work laptop for drawing vector diagrams for a poster I'm presenting next week and its usability has really jumped up from when I remember it many years ago. It probably helps that I dabbled with Adobe Illustrate+Affinity, most commands are the same.
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Matt Mack @matthras.bsky.social · 19/08/2026
Today, email from supervisor about his potentially moving office to the main city campus since "additional office space [is] now available". My stupid brain's first thought: "Who died?" (The actual reason is much more boring, I assure you)
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Matt Mack @matthras.bsky.social · 18/08/2026
Been working on an academic poster for a two-day conference next week and it's fascinating thinking through various design decisions and wondering if perhaps I'm making mine too simple, but also looking at others and wondering "Why have paragraphs of text?"
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Matt Mack @matthras.bsky.social · 17/08/2026
Was randomly reading up on electric toothbrushes this morning and I'm happy to accept the evidence that using one over manual brushing results in better outcomes, but it also makes me wonder how people were doing manual toothbrushing in comparison 🤔
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Matt Mack @matthras.bsky.social · 16/08/2026
My brain is once again doing the thing where "less important work task" MUST be done before it'll free itself up for me to concentrate on 'MUCH MORE PRESSING WORK TASK" 🙄
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Matt Mack @matthras.bsky.social · 15/08/2026
Today I did nothing productive and I'm feeling a lot better. I've been quite emotionally moody given recent news in academia. Sigh. Thank goodness I have the weekend to stew a bit.
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