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RanaldClouston @ranaldclouston.fediscience.org.ap.brid.gy · 26/09/2026

My first foray into classical Graeco-Roman literature (I've read a bit of viking stuff like Beowulf before). I can see why Hollywood is attracted to this one; it builds through a series of smaller adventures into a satisfyingly brutal scene of action and […] [Original post on fediscience.org]

The Odyssey, by Homer. Translated by Emily Wilson.

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RanaldClouston @ranaldclouston.fediscience.org.ap.brid.gy · 17/09/2026

Still a day or two left for you or your students to apply for grants to attend the #Logic Summer School at #ANU in Canberra. We can and do support international travel for students! comp.anu.edu.au/lss/grants

comp.anu.edu.au

Grants

Homepage of the Logic Summer School program at ANU School of Computing.

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Andrej Bauer @andrejbauer.mathstodon.xyz.ap.brid.gy · 16/09/2026

Having done bidding for papers at the next Certified Proofs and Programs (CPP), I have this to say: "Formalization of X in Y" isn't gonna cut it anymore. When calculators first came out, did people try to publish "We computed √(5 + log 2) to 15 decimals"?

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RanaldClouston @ranaldclouston.fediscience.org.ap.brid.gy · 15/09/2026

#KatharineKerr delivers on the climax of her second Deverry quadrilogy, with all the magic, battle scenes, and shocking character deaths one might wish for. Imagine George R. R. Martin, except working decades earlier and capable of ending a story, and you […] [Original post on fediscience.org]

A Time of Justice (in some markets released as Days of Air of Darkness) by Katharine Kerr.

The cover illustration is high cliche campy fantasy, with a shirtless mulletted 'barbarian', atop a dragon, brandishing a spear.

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theHigherGeometer @highergeometer.mathstodon.xyz.ap.brid.gy · 13/09/2026

"Forty-five of 48 members of the editorial board of the Journal of Approximation Theory resigned earlier this month for what they called Elsevier’s “concerning and potentially detrimental” decisions regarding the publication. " "An April 3 email signed by 45 editors and both former […]

mathstodon.xyz

Original post on mathstodon.xyz

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RanaldClouston @ranaldclouston.fediscience.org.ap.brid.gy · 08/09/2026

A primer on philosophical paradoxes that is surprisingly wide ranging for its length: more than 200 named paradoxes, according to the index, discussed in less than 200 pages. This means steaming through them pretty quickly, but it works as a nice introduction […] [Original post on fediscience.org]

This Sentence is False: An Introduction to Philosophical Paradoxes, by Peter Cave

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RanaldClouston @ranaldclouston.fediscience.org.ap.brid.gy · 07/09/2026

Reading a philosophy book, and saw a citation to a philosopher called 'John Wisdom', which is a pretty great bit of #nominativeDeterminism

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RanaldClouston @ranaldclouston.fediscience.org.ap.brid.gy · 05/09/2026

"This is it, he thought. This is where we've filled ourselves up with so many questions that they're starting to overflow and become answers." #TerryPratchett was my most beloved author by far when I was a teenager, but I've re-read him only a few times over […] [Original post on fediscience.org]

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RanaldClouston @ranaldclouston.fediscience.org.ap.brid.gy · 05/09/2026

Family haul from #Canberra 's wonderful #LifelineBookfair second hand book (and DVD, puzzle, etc) sale. Did we win? @bookstodon #Bookstodon

21 books, 9 DVDs, and a puzzle laid out on the floor, with multiple appearances by Stephen Hawking, Georgette Heyer, Katharine Kerr, Phillip Pullman, Sherlock Holmes in book and film form, and David Suchet as Poirot.

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Deb E. @debe.mastodon.nz.ap.brid.gy · 04/09/2026

King Kapisi "Screams From The Old Plantation" youtu.be/soEjX2YD3yM #JukeboxFridayNight #Royalty

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Ivo van Vulpen @ivovanvulpen.bsky.social · 01/09/2026

Ok, first of all 👏 for finishing the book. I'm not sure how old you are, but whether you are 10-100, the applause is the same. Very good questions that are impossible to answer in short tweets, but let me give it a try, one per 'tweet':

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RanaldClouston @ranaldclouston.fediscience.org.ap.brid.gy · 02/09/2026

An anthology of recent (2012-23) short space opera, a genre defined by editor #JonathanStrahan in an interesting introduction as "romantic adventure set on space and told on grand scale". This is a high quality collection by a diverse group of big names in […] [Original post on fediscience.org]

New Adventures in Space Opera, edited by Jonathan Strahan

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Sune Auken @suneauken.mastodon.world.ap.brid.gy · 28/08/2026

A friend sent me this picture of the local library. The text below reads: "I think somebody read out from the wrong book at the library".

A multi-story building. On the building is the word "Bibliotek" which means "library" in Danish. From the windows in the top floor a number of greenish, orange an yellow tentacles are reaching out. The playful impression is of a cthuluesque event having taken place.

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RanaldClouston @ranaldclouston.fediscience.org.ap.brid.gy · 27/08/2026

A near-future thriller of a woman drawn into a world of ecoterrorism and the smuggling of taxidermied endangered species. Jane is a unique protagonist, a hulking former collegiate wrestler and bodybuilder with a violent past, turned into an apparently […] [Original post on fediscience.org]

Hummingbird Salamander, by Jeff Vandermeer

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RanaldClouston @ranaldclouston.fediscience.org.ap.brid.gy · 26/08/2026

I watched Clue (1985) for the first time this weekend, with my kids, and I think Tim Curry's butler is one of the great comic performances in cinema. The kids were in hysterics. RIP #TimCurry

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Ivo van Vulpen @ivovanvulpen.bsky.social · 24/08/2026

Happy to hear that! 😉

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RanaldClouston @ranaldclouston.fediscience.org.ap.brid.gy · 19/08/2026

The Australian National University's annual #Logic Summer School is running for its 34th time! comp.anu.edu.au/lss . Starting on 7 December, we'll have a week of lectures by locals, including a series by me titled 'Foundations (plural) of Mathematics', and then a week from our overseas […]

fediscience.org

Original post on fediscience.org

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RanaldClouston @ranaldclouston.fediscience.org.ap.brid.gy · 19/08/2026

fediscience.org

Original post on fediscience.org

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RanaldClouston @ranaldclouston.fediscience.org.ap.brid.gy · 18/08/2026

My last read was a thousand page monster, so I was looking for something lighter and frothier, and this romantic comedy fantasy of 19th century pirate witches and their flying houses did the job. But I didn't much like it. The central joke, that the […] [Original post on fediscience.org]

The Wisteria Society of Lady Scoundrels, by India Holton

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RanaldClouston @ranaldclouston.fediscience.org.ap.brid.gy · 13/08/2026

Finished this 992 page behemoth of a novel by typographer #RianHughes , in which Earth is 'invaded' by ideas from outer space. Full of style shifts from fake wikipedia pages and BBC articles, to text-based graphic storytelling, to an entire novella presented […] [Original post on fediscience.org]

An open book, with a small amount of conventional text, but dominated by a typographical 'picture' of an exclamation plummeting towards a 'city grid' made of criss-crossing words.

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MonkeyKing @monkeyking.mastodon.nz.ap.brid.gy · 11/08/2026

Ooh, unexpected surprise: fifth season of Wellington Paranormal on the way! tvtonight.com.au/2026/08/renewed-we…

tvtonight.com.au

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RanaldClouston @ranaldclouston.fediscience.org.ap.brid.gy · 05/08/2026

Finished reading this collection of short stories and critical and philosophical essays by Borges, mostly from the 1940s, and unfortunately bounced off it pretty hard. His very short stories are written (and translated) in a style that I found dry and […] [Original post on fediscience.org]

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RanaldClouston @ranaldclouston.fediscience.org.ap.brid.gy · 28/07/2026

A romantasy about a secretly Jewish magician in inquisition-era Spain. I've not read #LeighBardugo before, and had mixed feelings about this, leaning positive. Her prose is elegant and pleasurable to read, and she balances the plausible and magical aspects […] [Original post on fediscience.org]

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RanaldClouston @ranaldclouston.fediscience.org.ap.brid.gy · 26/07/2026

I was joking with my 11yo old daughter, and #SherlockHolmes buff, that the conference I attended had filled my brain up and I needed to forget something to make room, and asked her what the most unimportant thing I knew was. She immediately replied, "the Copernican system".

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RanaldClouston @ranaldclouston.fediscience.org.ap.brid.gy · 26/07/2026

People from across the 20th century are pulled into a bizarre city with an artificial sun as part of an experiment that can only be discussed in thought terminating cliches (the Experiment is the Experiment). If it were a novella I might have called it a […] [Original post on fediscience.org]

The Doomed City, by Arkady and Boris Strugatsky

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Andrej Bauer @andrejbauer.mathstodon.xyz.ap.brid.gy · 24/07/2026

Slides with speaker notes for my FSCD talk "Sheaves as oracle computations" are now available. I suspect a video will appear at some point, too. I might write a blog post about the slide on the intermediate value theorem, as it puzzled people during the talk (because the slides is vague) […]

mathstodon.xyz

Original post on mathstodon.xyz

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RanaldClouston @ranaldclouston.fediscience.org.ap.brid.gy · 24/07/2026

[FLoC self promotion] If any logicians currently in Lisbon are interested, my invited talk at IMLA is tomorrow morning, 9:15, in room C5.09. I'll be talking intuitionistic modal logics and their possible worlds semantics. #FLoC #FLoC2026

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RanaldClouston @ranaldclouston.fediscience.org.ap.brid.gy · 24/07/2026

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Andrej Bauer @andrejbauer.mathstodon.xyz.ap.brid.gy · 18/07/2026

Do they have any good food in Lisbon? I hear they catch fish.

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RanaldClouston @ranaldclouston.fediscience.org.ap.brid.gy · 17/07/2026

Packing for #FLoC2026 in Portugal (the cat is not coming). Hope to see a few of you there? #FLoC #LICS #FSCD

A calico cat, Sweet Pea, standing in a half packed suitcase on a bed.

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RanaldClouston @ranaldclouston.fediscience.org.ap.brid.gy · 14/07/2026

Part 7 of #KatharineKerr 's neverending series of Deverry novels suffers a bit for being the penultimate part of her second quadrilogy, as it feels a bit more like moving pieces into place for a climactic novel than a full story in itself. It also tells its […] [Original post on fediscience.org]

A Time of War, by Katharine Kerr. The US title, Days of Blood and Fire, is also featured on the cover.

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RanaldClouston @ranaldclouston.fediscience.org.ap.brid.gy · 08/07/2026

In #JohnLeCarré 's 1989 novel, a British publisher gets entangled in smuggling weapons secrets out of the perestroika-era Soviet Union. This is a real slow burner - it's a spy story, but I wouldn't call it a thriller! But it completely repaid my patience. The […] [Original post on fediscience.org]

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julesh @julesh.mathstodon.xyz.ap.brid.gy · 06/07/2026

ACT2026, let's rock & roll

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RanaldClouston @ranaldclouston.fediscience.org.ap.brid.gy · 06/07/2026

Had a pretty bizarre life experience yesterday, wrestling a dog who was attacking multiple other dogs, going for their throats and everything. It was fortunately not aggressive towards people, but was squirming to get away to resume the attacks.

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🇨🇦 Joey Eremondi @joey.mathstodon.xyz.ap.brid.gy · 05/07/2026

Are there any symbolic execution/static analysis/abstract interpretation tools for functional programs that are already implemented and runnable? Specifically that support HOFs and recursion. Obviously a heavy amount of conservative approximation will be necessary. I'm aware of some papers […]

mathstodon.xyz

Original post on mathstodon.xyz

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2 Spoopy 4 You @jcrabapple.dmv.community.ap.brid.gy · 05/07/2026

🌀 In the Nebraska badlands, mysterious stone spirals up to 8 feet tall puzzled scientists for nearly a century. Paleontologist Erwin Barbour called them "Devil's Corkscrews" in 1892 and insisted they were fossilized plant roots. Edward Drinker Cope argued they were rodent burrows. Barbour […]

dmv.community

Original post on dmv.community

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Dan Piponi @dpiponi.mathstodon.xyz.ap.brid.gy · 27/06/2026

I really enjoyed Hartnett's book on Lean - the Proof in the Code. It was fun having watched all this unfold from the sidelines but wanting a more detailed narrative about what was going on. It has the usual issue in pop-sci that some statements inside my […] [Original post on mathstodon.xyz]

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RanaldClouston @ranaldclouston.fediscience.org.ap.brid.gy · 30/06/2026

I really enjoyed this plainspoken little book about particle physics by #IvoVanVulpen . It is mostly written at a level that I would happily put in the hands of a curious teenager, and indeed my 13yo is the one who got it out the library and is planning to […] [Original post on fediscience.org]

How to Find a Higgs Boson — and other big mysteries in the world of the very small, by Ivo van Vulpen. Translated from Dutch by David McKay. Illustrations by Serena Oggero.

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RanaldClouston @ranaldclouston.fediscience.org.ap.brid.gy · 25/06/2026

A present from my son for my recent birthday: the latest in #AnnLeckie ' s loosely linked series of space operas. Here imperial civil war (the main story of some of the earlier books) triggers chaos in a remote part of the empire, a rogue planet with […] [Original post on fediscience.org]

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RanaldClouston @ranaldclouston.fediscience.org.ap.brid.gy · 23/06/2026

My first time reading #LouiseErdrich . Some more familiarity might have helped, as this book is obviously personal: the main setting is the independent bookstore she owns in real life, and while the rest of the staff is fictional she appears herself as the […] [Original post on fediscience.org]

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RanaldClouston @ranaldclouston.fediscience.org.ap.brid.gy · 18/06/2026

Finished a book on attempts to send Messages to Extraterrestrial Intelligence #METI: how do you construct a message that can be understood by a hypothetical alien we will never meet or converse with, and what should be in the message? My interest in this […] [Original post on fediscience.org]

Extraterrestrial Languages, by Daniel Oberhaus

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