iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

Michael Barany @mbarany.com · 14/09/2026

I've been avoiding microslop products wherever possible and I knew the automated suggestions were getting baaaad, but this still floored me

microslop slopfice suggests replacing "a unanimously" with "an unanimously"

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Michael Barany @mbarany.com · 17/08/2026

Tycho always here when you need him (please bring treats and pats)

the softest boy, tongue out, at your service

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Michael Barany @mbarany.com · 01/08/2026

Not the Big Funder precision targeting my 3 biggest bugbears of current maths comms

ICM2026 has taken over Philadelphia for the past week, featuring everything from the Fields Medal announcements, research talks on AI, and public events celebrating the wonder of #math.

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Michael Barany @mbarany.com · 17/04/2026

full of something anyway

AI Disclosure: The warm-up concept and pedagogy described here are entirely my own, developed without AI assistance. I used Claude to build a skill that automates the LaTeX formatting of each warm-up, and Claude helped me edit and refine this column.

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Michael Barany @mbarany.com · 17/04/2026

went to his website to see if he's done anything with LLMs and found this instead

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Michael Barany @mbarany.com · 02/03/2026

happy, copy editor's "appreciatoin week" to those whom celabrate

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Michael Barany @mbarany.com · 23/02/2026

outstanding French scholarship has no need of your American "cookies" 🍪

University of Chicago Press Journals: Cookie absent

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Michael Barany @mbarany.com · 26/12/2025

Russell Group but it's just guys like this checking out their pensions collectionimages.npg.org.uk/large/mw2510...

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Michael Barany @mbarany.com · 13/11/2025

spellcheck failing on the best Scottish word

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Michael Barany @mbarany.com · 12/11/2025

it was so bright here in Scotland, rare clear-ish night for this time of year

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Michael Barany @mbarany.com · 23/10/2025

so disappointed this mac is planning to give up when it gets to 100

Battery
Power Source: Power Adapter
Will Stop Charging at 100%

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Michael Barany @mbarany.com · 21/10/2025

this from the linked article is right except for the last four words

This is where higher education is heading. The intellectual core is being hollowed out from both directions, administrators treating universities as hedge funds, politicians treating them as job-training centers. What’s dying in the middle is the idea of the university itself: a place devoted to knowledge for its own sake.

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Michael Barany @mbarany.com · 11/10/2025

these are apparently big in France

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Michael Barany @mbarany.com · 11/10/2025

never change, ai overview

link to policy 852 followed by overview saying that it doesn’t exist

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Michael Barany @mbarany.com · 08/10/2025

in other news I was not aware Claude Lévi-Strauss had his own shop

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Michael Barany @mbarany.com · 08/10/2025

building of the first newspaper to call the Fields Medal a Nobel Prize of mathematics (almost certainly a joke that went over the journalist’s head), now a starbucks

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Michael Barany @mbarany.com · 05/10/2025

and if a foreign adversary snuck into our pantry and rustled up a hearty stew we would probably consider it an act of hospitality, I suppose, in an equally meaningful hypothetical

“If a foreign adversary snuck into our Federal budget and cut science research and education the way we're cutting it ourselves — strategically undermining America's long-term health, wealth, and security — we would likely consider it an act of war." - Neil deGrasse Tyson

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Michael Barany @mbarany.com · 02/10/2025

update, it has been escalated

Thank you for contacting Springer Nature.

I have reviewed your request which needs the involvement of another department. I have therefore escalated it to the relevant team for processing and they will update you accordingly.

If you have any questions, please do not hesitate to contact us quoting your Ticket ID [#10470777].

With kind regards,

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Michael Barany @mbarany.com · 29/09/2025

will let you know if I get a reply

Thanks for this exciting news! Could you please advise the cost for design and licensing of a template that could be tattooed by a local practitioner on a body part of my choice?
Thank you,
Michael

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Michael Barany @mbarany.com · 22/09/2025

new menacing journal spam dropped

WAR Journal of Multidisciplinary Bulletin
Thank you. WAR TEAM

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Michael Barany @mbarany.com · 05/09/2025

grumble grumble hate to see it all over the #4s2025 zoom event interface

zoom's obnoxious "AI" insertion blarrgghh

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Michael Barany @mbarany.com · 31/08/2025

we used to get a somewhat helpful daily digest by email of new enrollments on our courses; now we still get the email but it just says this every time:

Some changes happened on your course "Themes and Perspectives in the History of Science" yesterday (29/Aug/2025):

No changes have occurred on this course instance.

We'll notify you again if anything changes.

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Michael Barany @mbarany.com · 26/08/2025

new profile pic? 👍/👎

alarmingly wide eyes and a hand wave, mic, mad prof vibes

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Michael Barany @mbarany.com · 25/08/2025

another start of the semester, another email generated by Information Security that expects us to ignore all the anti-phishing training and message injections we've been enduring

top of an email from lastpass with a "you don't often get email from this address" message injection

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Michael Barany @mbarany.com · 14/08/2025

... - culturally, a lot of mathematical collaboration is conspiratorial. I gave a talk in this direction a few years ago:

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Michael Barany @mbarany.com · 05/08/2025

with ratios like this they could be the American Proportion Association

AHA tweet about AI guidance getting completely ratioed

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Michael Barany @mbarany.com · 01/08/2025

"settings available down to course level" tells me that uni admins are still going to opt everyone in and make it somewhere between a pain and impossible to turn off for individual courses, it's clear the "opt-in" model here is mainly top level

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Michael Barany @mbarany.com · 21/07/2025

Can anyone at @ucea.bsky.social @ucu.org.uk explain what this means from the "final offer" on joint work on sector finances? How are employers imagining that working with the union on this would end up supporting a dispute? (At worst, I imagine it likely just does very little to mitigate disputes.)

Additionally, any joint work on
sector funding will only be taken forward following assurances that it will not be used to support a trade
dispute which results in industrial action at UCEA member institutions.

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Michael Barany @mbarany.com · 02/07/2025

and can we all take a moment to appreciate this session info page

several people did not think what they were typing was the final program text

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Michael Barany @mbarany.com · 02/07/2025

omg just clocked this distinction in the app

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Michael Barany @mbarany.com · 28/06/2025

in other news, the way the app handles localisation is making a confusing timezone situation even more confusing by converting the event times to UK local but basing the today/tomorrow labels on what day it is in New Zealand (at least I think that's what's happening)

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Michael Barany @mbarany.com · 28/06/2025

Indeed! these are cossike numbers, similar to variables

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Michael Barany @mbarany.com · 28/06/2025

as maths signs go, also really like this one

please ensure you turn the water off after use otherwise it will cause a flood in director's office

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Michael Barany @mbarany.com · 28/06/2025

post an unusual sign if you feel like it

Robert Recorde did NOT invent the = sign

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Michael Barany @mbarany.com · 15/05/2025

that glorious stage of spring when the untamed weeds outside my office are thick enough to provided both shade and a sound barrier to the busy street below