iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

Rook Bridson @rookbridson.bsky.social · 07/09/2026

glad to have a job where llm tools are largely irrelevant, at best a distraction

001

Reposted by Rook Bridson

Gillian Branstetter @gbbranstetter.bsky.social · 07/05/2026

Everyone read Judith Herman

2535

Reposted by Rook Bridson

Bruno Levy @brunolevy01.bsky.social · 28/04/2026

Preparing for our course "Optimal Transport Based fluid simulation: New and Old" with Cyprien Plateau-Holleville (EUROGRAPHICS and SIGGRAPH) 2D simulation of "droplet hurdles race" (De Maleprade et.al). Features high surface tension, viscosity and fluid boundary - domain interactions.

1286

Rook Bridson @rookbridson.bsky.social · 10/04/2026

The second idea here is a natural tie in to a whole lot of amazingly cool applied math — starting from a baseline fine-scale model, approximating its solution in a nonlinear way that abstracts away the fine-scale variations so we can focus on the larger scale behaviour

110

Rook Bridson @rookbridson.bsky.social · 09/04/2026

One of the basics of numerical analysis which took me far too long to internalize, and for which there is still a lot of misunderstanding out there in graphics, is the notion of stiffness in time integration, and associated ideas of time step selection, stability, and modeling.

180

Rook Bridson @rookbridson.bsky.social · 31/03/2026

On this trans day of visibility, again I am thinking how _good_ visibility is helpful for people who need some kind of role model to be able to figure out that they themselves are trans — it would have helped me realize before my late 40’s!! — but…

110

Reposted by Rook Bridson

Quanta Magazine @quantamagazine.org · 30/03/2026

David Dunning studied both English and math as an undergraduate. “They felt related to me,” he said. “They were both about the worlds and structures that can be summoned by writing.”

quantamagazine.org

How Writing Changes Mathematical Thought | Quanta Magazine

David E. Dunning explores how mathematical notation is a social, world-building technology.

0335

Rook Bridson @rookbridson.bsky.social · 02/03/2026

Currently playing "guess the function" (given lots of numerically determined approximate data points)

A plot of a curve f(x) where x goes from 0 to a little over 30, and f(x) drops from 0 to -10 or so, in a slightly convex way.

120

Reposted by Rook Bridson

Gillian Branstetter @gbbranstetter.bsky.social · 23/02/2026

Disagree with the very concept of the debate but it's less that we care what people think and more that we're punished if we don't. Men are generally rewarded for sociopathy.

513423

Rook Bridson @rookbridson.bsky.social · 24/02/2026

Sigh. A reminder that just because a trans woman is online and even posts the occasional (sfw) selfie it does not mean she is a sexual object; porn-focussed accounts who engage will be blocked.

000

Rook Bridson @rookbridson.bsky.social · 12/02/2026

Horrifying thread. Just do not travel to the US.

010

Rook Bridson @rookbridson.bsky.social · 11/02/2026

Every time I read a paper that claims there method of solving implicit dynamics converges super quickly, but I know it reduces to a very standard stationary iteration for linear problems (and is known to initially make good progress before slowing drastically), I have a bit of self-doubt…

130

Rook Bridson @rookbridson.bsky.social · 09/02/2026

Horrifying. And yeah, that makes an absolute no to the idea of US travel for me until It Happens.

020

Rook Bridson @rookbridson.bsky.social · 03/02/2026

I am absolutely not a software developer, but working with developers I think I am finding my preferred approach to big new algorithmic features — thinking of my output as including an accurate whitepaper with full details of implementing the new algorithm (NOT a conference paper), …

110

Rook Bridson @rookbridson.bsky.social · 31/01/2026

When the bug is actually just in your test harness, not the code you're testing...

010

Rook Bridson @rookbridson.bsky.social · 31/01/2026

My roving curiosity and flexibility are absolutely things I love about myself, but from time to time I'm keenly aware of how I have Too Many Interests to possibly have the time and energy to develop them all. I could so easily be the proverbial jack of all trades, master of none ...

120

Reposted by Rook Bridson

Phoebe du Maurier @thejoytuckclub.bsky.social · 27/01/2026

This is insane, but expected thanks to all that “clarity.”

One caller told the charity she was followed into the women's toilet, pushed into a cubicle and touched by two men. According to Chana, the men had justified it by saying the court "gave them a right to check if you're a man or woman"

3818297

Reposted by Rook Bridson

Gillian Branstetter @gbbranstetter.bsky.social · 26/01/2026

What he says here about liberal critiques of the culture war - "as if the terms of a fight can be determined by the person getting punched" - captures 98% of discourse about trans rights activism. "You're losing public opinion" no shit sherlock, do you have a spare $200m a year to even the scales

019239

Rook Bridson @rookbridson.bsky.social · 26/01/2026

the joy, and irritation, of continually finding intriguing new mathematical problems while trying to get a (good) working baseline solver going 😂

110

Reposted by Rook Bridson

Quanta Magazine @quantamagazine.org · 23/01/2026

Recently, a research team uncovered a strange exception to a mathematical rule: a pair of twisty, closed-up surfaces that are defined by the same local measurements, despite having completely different global structures.

quantamagazine.org

Two Twisty Shapes Resolve a Centuries-Old Topology Puzzle | Quanta Magazine

The Bonnet problem asks when just a bit of information is enough to uniquely identify a whole surface.

0243

Reposted by Rook Bridson

Katie Mack @astrokatie.com · 23/01/2026

lol: that is, or in principle could be, amusing actual lol: I have produced a sound, contrary to social convention lmao: I appreciate the humor of the situation actual lmao: nearby strangers are becoming concerned rotfl: that is genuinely funny actual rotfl: emergency services are already en route

2681286

Reposted by Rook Bridson

Gillian Branstetter @gbbranstetter.bsky.social · 23/01/2026

I read The Anxious Generation and once I saw he compared being trans to a contagion it immediately cast not only the rest of the book in doubt but everyone who has bought what he's selling hook line and sinker

11431124

Rook Bridson @rookbridson.bsky.social · 23/01/2026

I have a remarkable memory for things which intrigue me or engage my reasoning in some way — which is perfect for a mathematician in a niche where she often is bridging a few specialities across computational physics, computational geometry, numerical linear algebra etc BUT…

100

Rook Bridson @rookbridson.bsky.social · 21/01/2026

When it’s working (close enough to solution) full Newton beats Gauss-Newton for nonlinear least-squares but you can also see it from the angle of constrained minimization, where if you translate the problem to: minimize |y|^2 with a constraint y-f(x)=0,

120

Rook Bridson @rookbridson.bsky.social · 19/01/2026

Once again I have run out of meaningful letters to assign to mathematical quantities, without ambiguous double uses. Occasionally I wonder why papers on a given topic will choose different letters to represent the same quantity — surely it would be better to pick one as a universal standard?...

130

Rook Bridson @rookbridson.bsky.social · 17/01/2026

It’s … enlightening? to discover there are an awful lot of men out there who will group a perfectly normal headshot photo of me, like my profile picture here, together with explicit hardcore porn simply because I am trans.

010

Reposted by Rook Bridson

Gillian Branstetter @gbbranstetter.bsky.social · 15/01/2026

You're telling me a woman was forced to give up her trophy to a biological male

381879362

Rook Bridson @rookbridson.bsky.social · 15/01/2026

It has been almost two years of she/her pronouns, after two years of they/them, and to be honest I am only just getting used to hearing other people use them for me They/them feels more natural still, at some level — even before realizing I’m trans, I had preferred that on feminist grounds, …

110

Rook Bridson @rookbridson.bsky.social · 15/01/2026

We traded in our old minivan for a used Prius yesterday (empty nesting began this school year!), and while doing all the documents I realized it was the first time I have seen Ms. Rook Bridson written somewhere — another little moment of transsexual joy! 🥰

040

Rook Bridson @rookbridson.bsky.social · 14/01/2026

Remembering as a kid when there were so many distinct computer systems out there and I had a special interest in reading about their details (despite having zero expectation of ever using them), and keyboards with lots of function keys seemed so cool i don’t think i have ever used a function key 🙂

000

Rook Bridson @rookbridson.bsky.social · 14/01/2026

I thought I had learned my lesson in this work problem — where I had jumped to 3D and gotten hopelessly stuck in the complexity, then went back and did the 2D case and saw how I could simplify expressions much earlier. So I went back to 3D with those lessons, but still got stuck in complexity

110

Rook Bridson @rookbridson.bsky.social · 14/01/2026

this is also freaking me out, for fires, for water supply, for a changing insect/pest/disease environment when no freezing weather allows creatures from gentler climates to survive here

130

Rook Bridson @rookbridson.bsky.social · 07/01/2026

“Too many projects” feels like my life motto, not just in research terms but also (simultaneously) tackling transition and multifaceted mental illness and somehow also new passions like dance, alongside existing efforts in music and art. While parenting four kids to adulthood.

120

Rook Bridson @rookbridson.bsky.social · 30/12/2025

With the emails and invitations coming in for SIGGRAPH 2026, it’s hitting that I do have to make a choice about travel to the US next year I think the probability of a bad event for me (either with the border or generally in LA) is very tiny, but it’s not zero & the consequences could be awful…

150

Rook Bridson @rookbridson.bsky.social · 27/11/2025

A really great thing to check in both papers and code simulating physics is whether formulas make dimensional sense, or if they purposefully don't* you are sure you understand why. Sometimes this reveals an actual mistake or bug, sometimes it indicates to you that you _should_ pick a scaling.

150

Rook Bridson @rookbridson.bsky.social · 26/11/2025

I realize “Don’t suppress the wiggles! They’re trying to tell you something!” means something very different for me than most people. It comes from one of those insightful papers where the idea would have stuck with me regardless, but the lede is such perfect writing it really anchors in my memory

121

Rook Bridson @rookbridson.bsky.social · 19/11/2025

I thought I would take a shortcut on a derivation I'm doing for some research, jumping straight to the full 3D model rather than doing the simpler 2D version first, DESPITE telling people this is always a bad idea (ends up taking more time to get right, misses insights on the way),

130

Reposted by Rook Bridson

Rebecca Solnit @rebeccasolnit.bsky.social · 18/11/2025

Most rapists operate on the premise that they can not only overpower the victim physically, but can do so socially and legally. They count on a system that discounts the voices of victims and only too often cooperates in silencing them...

theguardian.com

The Jeffrey Epstein cover-up is an affront to US democracy | Rebecca Solnit

Democracy means a society and system in which everyone’s rights matter. Rapists count on this being untrue – and Trump is proving them right

7741191

Reposted by Rook Bridson

Katie Tightpussy, Editor-In-Chief @katie.bzky.team · 14/11/2025

transness is a gift. i need every trans woman to understand that by nature of their existence they have been blessed with the ability to pluck the strands of fate with their hands if they choose to. it is not always easy and it is not without hardship but every trans woman is capable of greatness.

292442547

Rook Bridson @rookbridson.bsky.social · 08/11/2025

I love how we know the densest possible sphere packing (equal radius, infinite domain) for 1, 2, 3, 8 and 24 dimensions but no others so far. And the 3D result only was proved in 1998, confirmed with formal logic on a computer, but a significant part is way too vast for a human to understand.

050

Reposted by Rook Bridson

Bruno Levy @brunolevy01.bsky.social · 30/10/2025

Ooops, once again I spilled some aperiodic coffee

Aperiodic tiles mimicking some liquid spilling from a coffee cup

0131

Rook Bridson @rookbridson.bsky.social · 27/10/2025

Once again I find myself deeply annoyed by how a certain subject in physics is presented / taught, and once again deciding I must derive it for myself in a clear and understandable way from first principles.

130

Rook Bridson @rookbridson.bsky.social · 17/10/2025

it has been a frustrating few weeks in that even though i’ve had some great research insights and developments, my mental illness has put me in crisis mode much of the time, to put it mildly (more to the point: i have been suffering in absolute misery for a month, in a year that’s been agony)

110

Rook Bridson @rookbridson.bsky.social · 10/09/2025

Yet again this morning I had a moment where a line of research I pursued a few years ago and never quite brought to fruition suddenly provides me with the tool I need for a different but related problem. Also, another case of wonderful synergies between numerical linear algebra and PDEs!

040

Rook Bridson @rookbridson.bsky.social · 09/09/2025

one of the hard things (for me!) in doing research for production software is at some point, when you just can’t seem to nail a problem you thought (and still think) is solvable, you have to switch to a pragmatic plan B, the good enough path, despite being aware of its flaws

120