iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

Reposted by Steve McCormick

Ayliean @ayliean.bsky.social · 30/08/2025

Okay, now I’ve found their “Bagpipe Practice Room” I think Scotrail might just be having us on!

A cupboard in a train vestibule labelled “Stay Out, Bagpipe Practice Room”

Steve McCormick @quasilocal.com · 30/08/2025

Anyone in the math GR / geometric analysis communiy know anyone who's in need of a postdoc around 1 year from now and would be interested in coming to the frozen wastelands of the north? (And has/will have a non-Euro PhD)

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Steve McCormick @quasilocal.com · 11/08/2025

I asked ChatGPT if it knew who I am based off of our chats. The answer was (obviously) yes 😅

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Horatio Pornviewer @stuntbirdarmy.bsky.social · 09/08/2025

If kids’ schools trained them for work based on what everyone thought the hot new technology was going to be, both my kids would have spent the past several years learning about the blockchain. This is why schools don’t attempt to do workplace training: life is pretty long.

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Steve McCormick @quasilocal.com · 10/08/2025

A last little bit of swedish summer yesterday Guitar and some beers, spotted some berries, and then made a little spiky friend

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Steve McCormick @quasilocal.com · 01/08/2025

A friend is currently advertising a PhD position in harmonic analysis (Melbourne + Chennai*): lashi-bandara.github.io/toc/supervis... Pass it on if you know anyone who might be interested. * Position is joint between Deakin University IIT-Madras, with 3 years in Melbourne and 1 year in Chennai

lashi-bandara.github.io

PhD Project - Kato Square Root Problem on Riemannian Spaces - Lashi Bandara

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Al Yankovic @alyankovic.bsky.social · 27/07/2025

My last living musical hero is still my hero but unfortunately no longer living. RIP to the great, great Mr. Tom Lehrer.

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Steve McCormick @quasilocal.com · 14/06/2025

I'm told that when I was really little, I was running into the motion sensor to open the door of a store before arriving customers triggered it When I was visibly upset for being too slow, a group stepped back and let the door close again so I could "open it" for them -- it was the band Wet Wet Wet

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Steve McCormick @quasilocal.com · 14/06/2025

Seems arXiv now uses AI to try to convince you that you're misclassifying your own paper's subject area 🙃

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Steve McCormick @quasilocal.com · 24/05/2025

The amusing thing is that there *is* an etymological connection here... And of course some variation of calling townspeople "burgers" exists in almost all European languages. It's where "bourgeois" comes from even. And connected to place names like Hamburg, Edinburgh, Strasbourg, etc. (I think)

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Steve McCormick @quasilocal.com · 24/05/2025

Can any physicist explain this idea of boundedness of the Euclidean Einstein-Hilbert action in the context of this paper? (Purely from a GR/geometric perspective, no path integrals) arxiv.org/abs/2505.13600

arxiv.org

Constraints are not enough

The Euclidean Einstein-Hilbert action is well-known to be unbounded below and thus to raise many questions regarding the definition of the gravitational path integral. A variety of works since the lat...

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Reposted by Steve McCormick

Ketan Joshi @ketanjoshi.co · 11/05/2025

Not only is this true, there are 33 whole-ass mentions of this in the script and each one is freaking hilarious whills.nu/4/sw4.html#h...

She hands him a dish, and he grunts an embarrassed reply.
BERU (CONT'D)
Luke, you've hardly touched
your dinner. Have some bum-bum
extract. It's very mild.
OWEN
(to Luke)
The force of the Bogan is strong,
and if you don't feel you can
make it, you probably won't.
LUKE
I've never even been past this
planet...and I never thought I'd
be going alone.
Suddenly I feel very small --
and well...desperate.

LUKE
Because a terrible thing happened.
During one of his lessons a young
PADAWAN-JEDI, a boy named Darklighter,
came to know the evil half of the
force, and fell victim to the spell
of the dreaded Bogan. He ran away
from his instructor and taught the
evil ways of the Bogan Force to a
clan of Sith pirates, who then
spread untold misery throughout
the systems. They became the per-
sonal bodyguards of the Emperor.
The Jedi were hunted down by these
deadly Sith knights. With every
Jedi death, contact with the Ashla
grows weaker, and the force of the
Bogan grows more powerful.

LUKE
No, no, there's a debris chute.
It's the Bogan force making you
feel that way. Don't give up
hope...fight it!
HAN
It's no use, it's no use.
The giant hinge bolts on the blast-shield door begin to pop
as the force of the Sith knights grows stronger. Luke fires
off a rapid series of shots and half-drags Han to the small
grate in the wall.
LUKE
Well, we're going anyway. Think
of good things. Drive the Bogan
from your mind.

18. INT. REBEL SPACEFIGHTER - COCKPIT CORRIDOR
Deak Starkiller cuts down several troops who make a fren-
zied, suicidal charge with laser swords.
TROOPS
The Bogan! The Bogan!
They are no match for the incredibly agile young Jedi. For
an eerie moment, all is deathly quiet as a huge darker figure
appears in the sub-hallway. The remaining stormtroopers bow
low toward the doorway. An awesome, seven-foot BLACK KNIGHT
OF THE SITH makes his way into the blinding light of the cock-
pit area. This is LORD DARTH VADER, right hand to the MASTER
OF THE SITH. His sinister face is partially obscured by his
flowing black robes and grotesque breath mask, which are in
sharp contrast to the fascist white armored suits of the
Imperial stormtroopers. The troops instinctively back away
from the imposing warrior.

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Steve McCormick @quasilocal.com · 09/05/2025

Just got some art done by Alexandr Elichev for my latest homebrew Frosthaven class and wanted to share it somewhere :)

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Steve McCormick @quasilocal.com · 02/05/2025

How normal is it to write words correctly, but write the letters in the wrong order? Sometimes when I write fast, I fill in the letters the wrong way. Eg. When writing "Letter" in the middle of a sentence I might write the "ett" then the "L" in front of them and then the "er" ... it feels weird

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Steve McCormick @quasilocal.com · 28/04/2025

Well this can fuck right off www.theregister.com/2025/04/27/d...

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Senator Chris Van Hollen @vanhollen.senate.gov · 18/04/2025

I said my main goal of this trip was to meet with Kilmar. Tonight I had that chance. I have called his wife, Jennifer, to pass along his message of love. I look forward to providing a full update upon my return.

Photo of Senator Chris Van Hollen with Kilmar Abrego Garcia.

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Reposted by Steve McCormick

Randall Munroe @xkcd.com · 17/04/2025

de Sitter xkcd.com/3077

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Reposted by Steve McCormick

The Mary Rose Museum @maryrosemuseum.bsky.social · 15/04/2025

On the anniversary of the sinking of the Titanic, we thought we'd answer a question that's often asked, "If they raised the Mary Rose, why not raise the Titanic?" Allow our scaled diagram to explain...

A light blue diagram depicting the sea, with the water's surface at the top, and just below it is an outline of the Mary Rose, with the depth (12m, 40ft or 6.7 fathoms). There is a line showing the seabed, which takes a rapid dive into the vertical...

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Steve McCormick @quasilocal.com · 04/04/2025

Someone should make a collage of all the posts where people predicted this the moment he pivoted to weird religious zealot

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Razzball @razzball.bsky.social · 01/04/2025

Huh, weird

DOJ directs prosecutors to seek death penalty for Luigi Mangione
1 hour ago
CAH
CNN
Gunman who killed 23 in racist attack at Texas Walmart offered plea deal to avoid death penalty

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Steve McCormick @quasilocal.com · 30/03/2025

The other day in a lecture I was using an outstretched arm like a traffic cop to indicate vectors in different directions and then after something like i+2j+k I ended up saying "whoops, nearly did an Elon Musk impersonation" moment 🙃

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Michael Wong @miquai.bsky.social · 29/03/2025

I received a heartbreaking email today: A paper in a special issue I’m editing is being retracted because one of its authors is afraid of losing their job and their legal status in the U.S. if they publish a scientific study on evolution. Yes, on evolution, nature's engine of diversity.

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Steve McCormick @quasilocal.com · 27/02/2025

How do you response to AI generated emails? Especially those where it's clear that the LLM that wrote it wasn't given full information... Like, how is this a thing

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Steve McCormick @quasilocal.com · 20/02/2025

Victory! They folded and have properly credited people in the latest proof :D

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Claudio Paganini @thehappyproton.bsky.social · 19/02/2025

Happy to announce our upcoming conference on Causal Fermion Systems in Regensburg in October. This is the first time that we gather the growing international community. Come join us! causal-fermion-system.com/wp-content/u... Also please share far and wide.

causal-fermion-system.com

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Steve McCormick @quasilocal.com · 15/02/2025

Cosmologists, I have questions about comoving observers that I can't quite figure out how to formulate... But I'm gonna try here in the hopes someone can help me understand a little better... I'm thinking about the Milne model because it's something geometric and familiar. (1/N)

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Steve McCormick @quasilocal.com · 15/02/2025

Has anyone ever had an accepted article "un-accepted" after disagreeing with "style" changes introduced in the proof stage? I'm once again in a back-and-forth where I won't allow a journal to reference work of 2-3 alphabetically listed authors as "Aaronson et al."

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Steve McCormick @quasilocal.com · 10/01/2025

Got the ad out! Share with anyone who might be interested :) Two year postdoc in geometric analysis and/or mathematical general relativity: web103.reachmee.com/ext/I003/583...

web103.reachmee.com

Postdoctoral scholarship position in mathematics with focus on geometric analysis and mathematical general relativity

The Division of Mathematical Sciences, at the Department of Engineering Sciences and Mathematics at Luleå

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Steve McCormick @quasilocal.com · 11/02/2025

It's about time the world stops being so reliant on US technologies...

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STEAMLORD @exoplanetdinosaur.bsky.social · 03/02/2025

Meanwhile, over on the hellsite

Screencap of Justin Trudeau tweet that says:

The United States has confirmed that it intends to impose 25% tariffs on most Canadian goods, with 10% tariffs on energy, starting February 4.

I’ve met with the Premiers and our Cabinet today, and I’ll be speaking with President Sheinbaum of Mexico shortly.

We did not want this, but Canada is prepared. I’ll be addressing Canadians later this evening.”

To which an American John Miladin has replied:” Had Canada been treating us fairly, this would never have happened. So, buckle up Canada, you’re taking on Goliath.”

The reader note below the exchange says: “Goliath died in that story”

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Steve McCormick @quasilocal.com · 02/02/2025

Found an American recipe for mac and cheese, but used västerbotten cheese that a local craft brewery put through their meat smoker for me. This was my best ever idea.

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Steve McCormick @quasilocal.com · 02/02/2025

There definitely are some things that this new AI stuff is valuable for...

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Katie Mack @astrokatie.com · 28/01/2025

I spoke to a talented junior scientist who just got a good faculty job offer in the US and they told me “well I wouldn’t move to 1930s Germany either” so that’s how that’s going

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Steve McCormick @quasilocal.com · 28/01/2025

Course evaluation report day 🥳 I was a little anxious about this one, because I've completely overhauled a course and was running on fumes getting things together. So it really made my morning to read all the very positive comments 😊

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Panther Modern @panthermodern.bsky.social · 25/01/2025

Trump is gonna do something like threaten to leave NATO if Denmark doesn't give the USA Greenland and I bet you his ploy will fucking work. -_-

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Steve McCormick @quasilocal.com · 25/01/2025

"Next week I'll be less busy" I lie to myself, as I spend all of Saturday morning grading

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Seth Abramson @sethabramson.bsky.social · 21/01/2025

The entire nation of Australia gets it. Media in that country are having to blur what Elon Musk did twice in public today because of laws there regarding the Nazi salute.

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Patton Oswalt @pattonoswalt.bsky.social · 21/01/2025

He was karate-chopping the neck of a transgender ghost. Calm down everyone.

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Steve McCormick @quasilocal.com · 21/01/2025

Sharing this for anyone who might be interested. Some great speakers on the geometric/mathematical side of general relativity, aimed at students and young researchers. math.ku.dk/conferences/mathematical-relativity

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