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Owen Biesel

@owenbiesel.bsky.social
729 followers 607 following 687 posts

Math prof, dad, gardener, knitter, bike rider, community member, friendly introvert. he/him 🏳️‍🌈 Also on mastodon as @owenbiesel@mathstodon.xyz

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Reposted by Owen Biesel
Louigi Addario-Berry @louigi.bsky.social · 7h
Please consider signing (and sharing) this petition to save the life of Christa Pike, whom Tennessee is scheduled to execute today. The Sixth Circuit has just issued a stay and it's possible that the Governor can be swayed to grant clemency. actionnetwork.org/petitions/me...
actionnetwork.org
Mercy for Christa: Stop the Execution of Christa Pike in Tennessee
Please sign the petition below asking Governor Bill Lee to do everything within his power to stop Christa's execution.  After adding your name, please ask 5 friends to do the same and share widely on ...
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paulpro @mariopro.bsky.social · 10h
Amy Kurzweil
instagram.com/amykurzweil
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Owen Biesel @owenbiesel.bsky.social · 8h
Something I wish people would internalize is that 100 ineligible people voting in an election is exactly as much election interference as a policy that prevents 100 eligible people from voting.
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ArtButMakeItSports @artbutmakeitsports.bsky.social · 29/09/2026
Circus Performers, by Walt Kuhn, 1978, 📸 via @marisakabas.bsky.social
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𝚃𝚊𝚛𝚊𝚜 𝙶𝚛𝚎𝚜𝚌𝚘𝚎 🚇 @taras-grescoe.com · 23/01/2025
"Motorized vehicles create remoteness which they alone can shrink. They create distances for all, and shrink them for only a few."
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Dr Katie Twomey @k2mey.eurosky.social · 28/09/2026
This is quite cool. My university is the first organisation in the world to force Microsoft to allow us to turn off copilot summaries in Word 365, after a backlash against it from staff (including, very vocally, me). That cannot have been easy for our heroic IT people so hats very much off to them!
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Nathan Day @nathanday.bsky.social · 28/09/2026
We also, naturally, also looked at the opposite - scenarios which look very different on the surface, but have the same underlying mathematical structure.
Bonnyrigg Rose beat East Fife 4–2. A 3 × 5 grid is provided to explore the question: “How many different scores could there have been at half time?” The score 3–1 is shown as an example.Two-digit numbers are formed where the first digit is a square number and the second digit is odd. A 3 × 5 grid is provided to explore how many numbers are possible, with 47 shown as an example.The number 400 with the question: “How many different factors does this number have?” A 3 × 5 grid, labelled “Power of 2” and “Power of 5”, represents possible factors. 2^3*5^1=40 is shown as an example.Four counting problems linked by the question “Why do these questions all have the same answer?” The problems concern possible half-time scores in a 4–2 football match, factors of 400, two-digit numbers with a square first digit and odd second digit, and the number of lines connecting five points to three points.
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Chenxin Li, PhD @chenxinli2.bsky.social · 25/09/2026
We are basically like this in research already. Postdocs and PhD students growing plants, doing tissue culture, and pipetting, while AI chat bots doing the analyses, writing proposals and papers. Humans having to do the menial tasks, while AI chat bots took over the creative work.
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Bryn Davidson - Lanefab @lanefab.com · 25/09/2026
Shifting from “net zero” to “phase out” means Germany is recognizing that carbon capture is fantasy and their fossil fuel dependence is a real problem at a lot of levels
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Owen Biesel @owenbiesel.bsky.social · 25/09/2026
All of this is extremely solarpunk!
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Oregon 🕎🎲 @oregonthedm.bsky.social · 25/09/2026
Most riveting thing I've seen all week
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Michael Andersen @andersem.bsky.social · 25/09/2026
I have a confession to make. The townhomes I & others spent most of a decade trying to legalize are popping up all over Oregon & elsewhere...and I love that...but they're a problem in one big way. (get ready for a twisty thread about the housing report @sightline.org just published)
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Michael Andersen @andersem.bsky.social · 25/09/2026
So to zoom all the way back in, if we want buildings like these to (a) exist in walkable neighborhoods & smaller cities and (b) have elevators inside, we need to exert influence on the private (national, but not governmental!) standards-writing bodies that have failed to get with the elevator times.
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Pookleblinky @pookleblinky.bsky.social · 25/09/2026
Reminder that in Canada upon becoming an engineer you get an iron ring made of a collapsed bridge, purposely designed to be uncomfortable, to remind you that your ethics demand you give a fuck even about the boring grudgework of such as double-checking your math. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iron_Ring
en.wikipedia.org
Iron Ring - Wikipedia
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Dr Compact Housedwarf @cpthousedwarf.bsky.social · 24/09/2026
More forward thinking young people in office please!
Photo of bus shelter with a green roof planted in native plants in NYC. Several people waiting for a bus with a bus arriving.
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Marco @malmeida.bsky.social · 24/09/2026
Do I have any GIS pros in my mutuals!
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Doug Gordon @brooklynspoke.bsky.social · 23/09/2026
Yes! Image a future where parents put their kids in driverless cars to take them to school while they themselves get in different cars to go to work. Instead of one or two cars chaining trips, now you might have four separate cars making four separate trips. Would be a disaster at scale.
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Bart⚓️ @bartgonnissen.bsky.social · 23/09/2026
The Facial Expressions of Tethys by artist Julius von Bismarck. A suspended high-sea buoy that moves in real time. Sensors on a twin buoy out in the Atlantic Ocean send live satellite data to motors inside the museum. This makes the indoor buoy copy the exact, real-time movements of the ocean waves.
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Doug Gordon @brooklynspoke.bsky.social · 23/09/2026
No one who goes to Paris, Amsterdam, Tokyo, or even Disneyland ever walks around and thinks, "You know what would make this place better and more pleasant? Robot cars."
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Nissa Mitchell @nissamitchell.com · 23/09/2026
I continue to be amazed at the number of well-meaning cishet parents who believe that discussing the existence of queer or trans folks isn't appropriate before a certain age—as if we don't discuss and expose kids to cis and heterosexual things from the moment they're born without issue.
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singular locus sarah @scgriffith.bsky.social · 23/09/2026
im not saying prohibition was good policy, but seeing the tidal wave of immiseration that unrestricted gambling is causing... now i get it
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Ben Werdmuller @werd.io · 23/09/2026
When you connect a Waymo ride with a bus route, Waymo will pay your bus fare. Which is useful for two reasons: it helps them curry favor with city governments that might otherwise be wary of self-driving rideshares, and it gives them data about where to provide more cars to replace buses later.
waymo.com
Introducing transit rewards
Today, Waymo is excited to announce our transit rewards program, which we will initially offer in the San Francisco Bay Area, with future cities to follow. This first-of-its-kind initiative rewards ri...
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Tyler, from the Internet @tylerfromtheinternet.com · 23/09/2026
hi, it's me since 2024. I worked 100k+ jobs for most of my career, then AI and fascists ruined the fields I work in and I turned in 7k applications before giving up we've actually been here for a while
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404 Media @404media.co · 22/09/2026
"This has potential for so much negative PR. It could portray us as ‘their AI is not good enough so they still need humans’ kind of coverage for this launch."
404media.co
Meta Tests Muse AI Agent Calls That Are Actually Made By Humans in a Call Center
"This has potential for so much negative PR. It could portray us as ‘their AI is not good enough so they still need humans’ kind of coverage for this launch."
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Bike Lane Uprising @bikelaneuprising.bsky.social · 21/09/2026
Freaked me out the first time it happened to me
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Urban Land Rent 🇸🇴🚰 @urbanlandrent.bsky.social · 13/09/2026
Sorry no, it’s just really silly to equate the sound of street life: people talking, playing music etc with car noise. For one thing, there are documented health consequences for noise pollution from cars coeh.ucdavis.edu/research/how...
coeh.ucdavis.edu
How noise pollution quietly affects your health
Whether you live deep in the country or in the heart of a bustling city, the relentless hum of modern life is as constant as the nonstop, digital cacophony that bombards the senses and demands our con...
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Urban Truth Collective @urbantruth.bsky.social · 19/09/2026
The WAR ON WALKING has taken many forms around the world. It’s often as simple as how we signal who space is and isn’t for. Once our eyes are opened to all the ways we’ve prioritized cars over people, we can’t unsee it. Frustrating photo contributed by @stadsplanering.bsky.social. #WarOnWalking
Background photo from North Macedonia, where “sidewalks are mostly used to park cars” as explained by photo contributor Carl-Henrik Barnekow. Text says “Don’t buy the lie that there’s a war on cars. They’ve been waging a war on walking for a century.” Via the Urban Truth Collective. #WarOnCars #UrbanTruth
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Owen Biesel @owenbiesel.bsky.social · 19/09/2026
We did this ourselves last winter! It's been great!
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Urban Dispatch @urbandispatch.bsky.social · 19/09/2026
Nice, that big offshore wind project just had its last turbine installed and should be fully connected before winter fully arrives. That'll be a huge benefit to us in New England this winter and keep those oil plants quieter www.canarymedia.com/articles/off...
canarymedia.com
Major US offshore wind farm installs its last turbine
Despite Trump’s attacks, Revolution Wind is nearing completion off the coast of Rhode Island. The 704-MW project is set to be fully operational this year.
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Quinn Daedal @quinnanya.me · 19/09/2026
Of all the ways I imagined Google Scholar going up in flames, being made inaccessible from university IP addresses due to AI-driven scraping wasn't at the top of my list.
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paulpro @mariopro.bsky.social · 18/09/2026
Nathan W. Pyle
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Kerri Ana @kerriana.bsky.social · 18/09/2026
Drivers have killed 27 pedestrians/cyclists this year in Connecticut. The most recent preventable fatal collision happened yesterday in East Haven on Route 80 when a driver killed a 5-year-old boy. kerriana.org/mapping-conn...
Map showing where drivers have killed 27 pedestrians/cyclists in Connecticut in 2026. Five of these markers represent youth under 18.
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SE Gyges @segyges.bsky.social · 17/09/2026
This industry frames its regulations in this way because it has, at its core, a millenarian death cult that worships and fears AI as the cause of the end of the world, that feels compelled to create AI, and that at least somewhat wants to destroy AI as a field.
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Mayor Zohran Kwame Mamdani @mayor.nyc.gov · 17/09/2026
Could new bus shelter roofs help New Yorkers stay cool in extreme heat? We're testing a few in Brownsville to find out: a green roof covered with native plants, and reflective roofs covered with low-cost, heat-resilient film.
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Sunny Moraine @dynamicsymmetry.bsky.social · 14/09/2026
Like totally aside from the real practical considerations about what to do/not do, can cis people at least try to get outside their own fucking heads on this? At least recognize and understand the very legitimate anger and exhaustion here? Because I’m not even seeing much of THAT
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Timnit Gebru @timnitgebru.blacksky.app · 14/09/2026
The only person in public service who has consistently made 100% sense on issues of "AI," which is why they hate her so much.
Law enforcers already have authority to charge companies and their CEOs for creating and releasing dangerous, unvetted, or defective products. We shouldn’t let discussions about new legal regimes distract from the fact that there’s no AI exemption from laws already on the books — a point 
@FTC
 emphasized repeatedly during my tenure.

1. There is an extensive set of laws that govern dangerous and defective products. For example, releasing unvetted AI models or agents can violate consumer protection laws. Shipping flawed AI tools without implementing adequate measures to detect and stop rogue or defective AI agents can be an “unfair or deceptive” act or practice under the FTC Act (and analogous state laws). And some state AGs are already exploring holding AI firms and their CEOs criminally liable when their models participate in criminal activity.

2. Existing laws also prohibit “unfair methods of competition.” This covers instances where AI firms appropriate the competitively sensitive information of their customers, including through tracking their use of various tools. It can also cover instances where firms pursue dangerous behavior, aware that doing so may compel rivals to do the same.As the Supreme Court has noted: “A method of competition which casts upon one's competitors the burden of the loss of business unless they will descend to a practice which they are under a powerful moral compulsion not to adopt, even though it is not criminal, was thought to involve the kind of unfairness at which the [unfair methods of competition] statute was aimed."

3. The highly concentrated and interconnected structure of these markets could be creating major risks and conflicts of interest. We had started investigating these partnerships and cross-investments across the stack (and released a preliminarily overview of some findings: https://ftc.gov/news-events/news/press-releases/2025/01/ftc-issues-staff-report-ai-partnerships-investments-study). 

Both federal and state enforcers should be scrutinizing these opaque relationships and inter-dependencies. We are already seeing how these relationships could undermine accountability. For example, OpenAI could face liability given the Hugging Face incident, but Hugging Face being bought up by Nvidia means that we’re unlikely to see it file a lawsuit over this — given Nvidia’s strong incentive to see OpenAI continue full speed ahead.4. As AI tools dramatically change the landscape of cybersecurity risks and hacks, all businesses should be doubling down on having core security protections in place. Firms that fail to invest in adequate data security measures or fix known vulnerabilities can also be breaking the law. A recent analysis showed that around 1/3 of Fortune 100 companies do not even have a way to notify them about security issues. During my 
@FTC
 tenure, we sued firms for poor data security practices and held CEOs liable when they were personally responsible.

https://this.weekinsecurity.com/dozens-of-americas-largest-companies-have-no-simple-way-to-report-security-flaws/

https://ftc.gov/news-events/news/press-releases/2022/10/ftc-takes-action-against-drizly-its-ceo-james-cory-rellas-security-failures-exposed-data-25-million

5. As policymakers consider new legal regimes, we should be looking to lessons from prior efforts to govern major sectors, such as banking and other networks, platforms, and utilities. Tools like structural separations, nondiscrimination, and supervision could be key, and there’s a rich history of what works and what doesn’t. But we can and must pursue any new efforts alongside enforcing existing laws.
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Tien Chih @tienchihmath.bsky.social · 13/09/2026
Not being a wealthy investor is Luddite behavior.
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Maria Gehrke | Art as a Portal to Your Vision ✨ @livelovemaria.bsky.social · 12/09/2026
More Solarpunk Art August catchup. Day 20: "Snowy Solarpunk" Traditional log cabin, a dog sled as mode of transport in the snow and an in-ground greenhouse, also called walipini, utilizing the heat of the ground. #solarpunk #climatechange #watercolorartwork #solarpunkart #SolarpunkArtAugust
Solarpunk in the snow, watercolor art card
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Raven Amos (Autumn Edition)🎨🐦‍⬛ @alaskanime.bsky.social · 11/09/2026
The Duality of Man
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Greg Egan @gregegansf.bsky.social · 27/07/2026
While the Fields Medal celebrates the under-40s, the mathematician Joan Birman has, at the age of 99, solved a major open problem in representations of the Braid groups, a topic she has worked on for more than 60 years.
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Tom Button @tombutton.bsky.social · 11/09/2026
I saw this graph from @jburnmurdoch.ft.com on LinkedIn (posted without credit but the FT styling was a giveaway!). A really interesting chart to discuss in #AlevelMaths, Core Maths or Data Science lessons.
Plot of life expectancy vs income for England and US from @jburnmurdoch at the FT
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Dr. Martin Skrodzki @msmathcomp.bsky.social · 11/09/2026
Here's your list of prompts for creating #MathArt throughout October. Happy #MathOber and looking forward to some beautiful #Art.
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scwiba @scwiba.bsky.social · 11/09/2026
This man won his primary by 30 points.
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Louigi Addario-Berry @louigi.bsky.social · 09/09/2026
I'm proud to announce the creation of the Association for Human Mathematics. We aim to protect mathematics as a human endeavour against the threat of AI and to maintain the independence of the mathematical community from corporate interests. www.ahmath.org
ahmath.org
AHM
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Louigi Addario-Berry @louigi.bsky.social · 09/09/2026
Researchers in mathematics at the graduate level or above are welcome to join AHM. Please read our founding statement and, if it resonates with you, consider joining! docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1F...
docs.google.com
The Association for Human Mathematics - Membership Statement
The Association for Human Mathematics (AHM) protects mathematics as a human endeavor against the threat of artificial intelligence. We work to maintain the independence of the mathematical community f...
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Fietser @americanfietser.bsky.social · 10/09/2026
It's this. Other countries get actual benefits in their day to day lives from taxes that they can see and feel. I learned this when I experienced socialized healthcare when living abroad. Others have high quality options in transportation infrastructure. The list goes on. We get oligarchs and wars.
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Seth Klein @sethdklein.bsky.social · 10/09/2026
Boo! Feds quietly exempt oilsands and gas power plants from environmental impact assessments www.nationalobserver.com/2026/09/10/n...
nationalobserver.com
Feds quietly exempt oilsands and gas power plants from environmental impact assessments
The change comes as part of a suite of amendments to Canada's impact assessment laws passed by the Carney government early Wednesday morning.
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Darren Buck @bikepedantic.bsky.social · 09/09/2026
Bike lanes. Because people need options now more than ever.
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Owen Biesel @owenbiesel.bsky.social · 09/09/2026
Today was a really nice fall day on which I rode three different bikes. 1st bike, "Sky": a light blue step-through cruiser I use to commute to work. 2nd bike, "Sunny": a bright yellow class 1 e-bike to get to a doctor's appt 3rd bike, "Bax": our front-loading cargo bike that needed a new chain
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Owen Biesel @owenbiesel.bsky.social · 08/09/2026
A thing I can't unsee is how much space cars take up, and how much time it takes them to get through an intersection. Eight cars waiting in one lane at a stoplight feels like a Lot of Traffic, and if the cycle is short you might need to wait through more than one before you can go. Bikes are fast!
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