iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

Vinny Calculus @vinnycalculus.bsky.social · 19h

Ok, jokes aside, how do I request my library purchase this? I believe I need an ISBN number but I have no idea where to find it for this course.

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Vinny Calculus @vinnycalculus.bsky.social · 20h

More importantly, how can we watch this for free?

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Vinny Calculus @vinnycalculus.bsky.social · 06/10/2026

How come they left out Martin? My whole life, it’s always been Halzen and Martin!

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Matt Hodges @matthodges.bsky.social · 03/10/2026

There's growing experimental evidence¹˒²˒³˒⁴ that LLMs are unusually good at talking people out of entrenched false beliefs and conspiracy theories. ¹ pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/39264999/ ² pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/41179846/ ³ sciety.org/articles/act... ⁴ connecticut.adl.org/resources/re...

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Taniel @taniel.bsky.social · 29/09/2026

Texas, the voter registration deadline is coming up next week. If you live in Texas and want to vote, be sure to check that you are registered properly — even if you you think you did what you had to. A statewide database to check: goelect.txelections.civixapps.com/ivis-mvp-ui/...

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Ethan Siegel @startswithabang.bsky.social · 30/09/2026

AI makes its first meaningful breakthrough in theoretical physics LLM-based AI just computed a specific nine-loop order calculation in theoretical physics: going well beyond what humans, alone, could do. May we hope that QED loops are next! bigthink.com/starts-with-... #physics #theory #llm #AI

bigthink.com

AI makes its first meaningful breakthrough in theoretical physics

Making more complicated, more precise predictive calculations tells us what real experiments should deliver. AI just surpassed humans at it.

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Aaron Rupar @atrupar.com · 29/09/2026

Jack Smith: "History teaches that the rule of law is rarely destroyed all at once. It's often weakened by attacks on the institutions and the public servants sworn to uphold it. Since January 2025, we have witnessed precisely such an effort."

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James Gleick @around.com · 26/09/2026

Journalists have fallen in love with the expression "went rogue." It's not appropriate. OpenAI is recklessly releasing malware: software intentionally designed to gain unauthorized access to computer systems. Show us the actual instructions and prompts. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Malware

en.wikipedia.org

Malware - Wikipedia

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Robert "The Bobby Yaga" McNees @mcnees.bsky.social · 26/09/2026

Today is the big one-two-one for special relativity. In honor of this momentous occation here is a 121-post-long thread. (I am just kidding, the thread is from last year so it is only 120 posts long. [No, I am still just kidding, it is only 35 posts.]) Happy birthday, special relativity! 🧪 ⚛️ 🔭

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Sean Carroll @seanmcarroll.bsky.social · 26/09/2026

I haven’t completely diagnosed why people judge figures like Thiel to be “smart.” Ingredients include apparent conviction and putting big words together in surprising combinations. And talking fast.

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Robert "The Bobby Yaga" McNees @mcnees.bsky.social · 20/09/2026

Mathematician Paul Erdős had a fantasy that he'd die giving a lecture. He'd prove a result, someone would ask about a generalization, he'd respond "I'll leave that to the next generation," and then he'd die. He passed away at a conference in Warsaw #OTD in 1996, just after proving a new result. 🧪 🧮

An image of Erdős in front of a blackboard, from the documentary “N is a Number: A Portrait of Paul Erdős” by George Paul Csicsery

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James Gleick @around.com · 21/09/2026

Working parents snatched up when they pick up their children at school. Longtime residents caring for elderly parents. Law-abiding immigrants seized and transported with disregard for judicial orders. Ruined lives, imprisonment, and torture.

theguardian.com

Banished to alien lands: Trump’s secret deportation deals

After a plane journey in shackles, an Iranian woman found herself in the middle of Africa in a country she did not know existed. She is one of thousands deported from the US on the back of shadowy dea...

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Sean Carroll @seanmcarroll.bsky.social · 21/09/2026

Science will always be a target for movements that rely on constructing their own version of reality.

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Vinny Calculus @vinnycalculus.bsky.social · 20/09/2026

Who came up with that? Weinberg? Distler?

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Robert "The Bobby Yaga" McNees @mcnees.bsky.social · 19/09/2026

The Austrian physicist Victor Weisskopf was born #OTD in 1908. He helped shape quantum mechanics and quantum field theory, establishing results that set the stage for Quantum Electrodynamics and the modern understanding of renormalization in QFT. 🧪 ⚛️ Image: Duscha Scott Weisskopf / Physics Today

A portrait of Victor Weisskopf from the shoulders up. He is wearing glasses and a white shirt, smiling and looking off to his left. The photo is in 3/4 perspective.

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Ethan Siegel @startswithabang.bsky.social · 17/09/2026

Do gravitational waves show evidence of wave-particle duality? All particles, both fundamental and composite, exhibit wave-particle duality at some level. If gravitational waves do, too, then gravity can be proven to be quantum in nature. bigthink.com/starts-with-... #space #astro #gravity

bigthink.com

Do gravitational waves show evidence of wave-particle duality?

All matter particles can act as waves, and massless light waves show particle-like behavior. Can gravitational waves also be particle-like?

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James Gleick @around.com · 17/09/2026

True fact: there's no such thing as “chemtrails.” The word for the trails of vapor sometimes created by aircraft is "contrails," short for condensation trails. They're water. They’ve been understood for almost a century.

nytimes.com

RFK Jr. Assures Vaccine Skeptics They Have a ‘Friend at the White House’ (Gift Article)

The health secretary spoke at a conference featuring misinformation about vaccines, including a claim that the success of the polio vaccines was a “fraud.”

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Danny Fearns @dannyfearns.bsky.social · 16/09/2026

I don't follow Formula One, but good on them for using subtitles for the hard of hearing…

F1 track with numerous Zoom signs on the advertising billboards

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Ethan Siegel @startswithabang.bsky.social · 16/09/2026

The information paradox at the heart of every black hole Einstein's general relativity gives us black holes with zero entropy. That can't be right, according to quantum physics. How will the black hole information paradox be resolved? bigthink.com/starts-with-... #physics #astro #math #blackhole

bigthink.com

The information paradox at the heart of every black hole

The matter that creates black holes won't be what comes out when they evaporate. Will the black hole information paradox ever be solved?

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Sean Carroll @seanmcarroll.bsky.social · 16/09/2026

Just to add: it fits well with the same attitudes that led to DOGE, MAHA, etc. An absolute conviction that the gang in power, who are not experts in anything at all, know better than the experts. Sharing responsibility and appreciating expertise is essential to our complex world, and is being lost.

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Anne Applebaum @anneapplebaum.wsocial.eu · 15/09/2026

The Kennedy Center was a beloved Washington institution, enjoyed by millions of people. It has been destroyed for no real reason. Just vanity, carelessness, indifference. www.theatlantic.com/ideas/2026/0...

theatlantic.com

Trump’s Kennedy Center Shakedown

The only appropriate response is to refuse to accede to his demands.

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Tom Pepinsky @tompepinsky.com · 16/09/2026

the hardest thing for the politician-bureaucrats to understand -- but which NSF staff *absolutely do* understand and always have -- is that you actually make scientific progress by giving young people money and promising not to bother them

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James Gleick @around.com · 15/09/2026

It's rare for a single person to throw the whole world into crisis, and his name doesn't even appear in this article. www.nytimes.com/2026/09/15/w...

nytimes.com

Rising Fuel Prices Set Off Anger and Protests Around the World (Gift Article)

From Indonesia to Guatemala to Syria, shortages and price increases are leading to protests and blackouts.

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Sean Carroll @seanmcarroll.bsky.social · 15/09/2026

Check whether you are registered to vote. You can play a role in preserving our centuries-old institution of government by and for the people! How exciting is that.

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Paul Guinnessy @paulguinnessy.bsky.social · 15/09/2026

Reading for pleasure is linked with structural brain changes and a laundry list of positive effects, including improved mental health and reduced risk of cognitive decline. Starting young is linked to better attention, memory, executive function, academic achievement and fewer mental health problems

newscientist.com

Reading for pleasure boosts memory, empathy and mental health | New Scientist

Fewer people are reading for pleasure, but getting lost in a good book has repeatedly been linked to substantial cognitive benefits

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Barack Obama @barackobama.bsky.social · 15/09/2026

The right to vote is one of the most fundamental parts of our democracy. Check your voter registration at IWillVote.com and make a plan to vote early or on Election Day on November 3.

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Vinny Calculus @vinnycalculus.bsky.social · 09/09/2026

Will you be pre-ordering the iFold?

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Kieran Healy @kjhealy.co · 30/08/2026

As expected, the Lake Ontario change is rolling out in the wake of GNIS updates. Bleah. Sure, “companies should simply refuse”, or “USGS employees should resign en masse”, or blah blah blah but the root cause is that the US was dumb enough to re-elect Trump and here’s another stupid consequence.

The U.S. Geographic Names Information System (GNIS) has formally changed the name for "Lake Ontario" to "Lake America" in the United States.
Since we update Google Maps to reflect name changes in official government sources, which is GNIS for the U.S., people using Maps in the U.S. will see "Lake America," those in Canada will continue to see "Lake Ontario," and those outside of the U.S. and Canada will see both names. These updates follow our long-standing policy for bodies of water with names that vary from country to country, and are starting to roll out

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Purple Teacher @peaceandteachin.bsky.social · 29/08/2026

If you live in Texas they have cancelled 1.2 million voters’ registrations. Please check your registration. If you are told you aren’t registered at the voting site, ask for a provisional ballot. They can’t steal our right to vote. #BlueWave #ProudBlue#Vouces4Victory #OneV1 vote.gov

vote.gov

Find the information you need to make registration and voting easy. Official voter registration website of the United States government.

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James Gleick @around.com · 29/08/2026

Trump Announces He Will Plunder the Resources of a Weaker Neighbor and Funnel Billions into the Pockets of His Cronies

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Vinny Calculus @vinnycalculus.bsky.social · 28/08/2026

Damn that El Niño! We need that border wall now more than ever, to keep that dude out!

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Vinny Calculus @vinnycalculus.bsky.social · 27/08/2026

I bet he was into math rock. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Math_rock

en.wikipedia.org

Math rock - Wikipedia

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Robert "The Bobby Yaga" McNees @mcnees.bsky.social · 27/08/2026

I guess “RFK Jr lied in Senate confirmation hearings, newly revealed documents indicate, but let’s be honest Bill Cassidy knew all this and voted to confirm him anyway” was too long for a headline.

theguardian.com

RFK Jr lied in Senate confirmation hearings, newly revealed documents indicate

Letters obtained by Guardian and AP contradict testimony that 2019 visit to Samoa had ‘nothing to do with vaccines’

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Robert "The Bobby Yaga" McNees @mcnees.bsky.social · 25/08/2026

RIP Dolly Parton. There are so many wonderful things to remember her for, but the one I like to bring up is all the work she did for childhood literacy. Probably its greatest advocate in our lifetimes. God bless Dolly Parton.

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Anne Applebaum @anneapplebaum.wsocial.eu · 23/08/2026

"Against Canada, Trump is fighting a trade war that very few Americans support, under leadership that most Americans reject, to achieve results that virtually all Americans would dismiss as pointless if not crazy" Read David Frum: www.theatlantic.com/ideas/2026/0...

theatlantic.com

How to Lose a Trade War

Trump’s bullying of Canada is failing.

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Vinny Calculus @vinnycalculus.bsky.social · 23/08/2026

Out of curiosity, does your machine’s fan spin up often, even when doing light tasks or idling? Does your machine get hot often?

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Robert "The Bobby Yaga" McNees @mcnees.bsky.social · 19/08/2026

Time to talk to the kids about why they are here.

The passage reads:
“A bigger problem is that using an LLM short circuits the process of thinking through questions and developing strategies to answer them. It's not that an LLM never gets things right; they often produce correct output. But correct outputs are limited to material in the model's training data - questions we already know how to answer.
Is that why you're here? To answer questions we already know how to answer? Whether you are studying Physics or English or Business, all your instructors are trying to help you learn how to answer questions for yourself. Part of that training involves questions we already understand, because that's an effective way of learning processes that can be applied to questions we don't understand. This is one of the most important aspects of your college education and it takes practice. Asking an LLM may or may not generate a correct answer, but either way it prevents you from practicing and learning these processes.”

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Jen Taub @jentaub.bsky.social · 17/08/2026

“A single-payer universal health care system could cover every American, save more than 100,000 lives a year, and still cost $1 trillion less than the system it would replace, according to a new preprint study led by researchers at the Yale School of Public Health.” ysph.yale.edu/news-article...

ysph.yale.edu

Universal Health Coverage Could Save $1 Trillion and 114,000 Lives Every Year, Yale Study Projects

A single-payer universal health care system could cover every American, save more than 100,000 lives a year, and still cost $1 trillion less than the system it

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RoseMarie @rosesbloom24.bsky.social · 13/08/2026

Two Black mayors took cities that the country loves to write off and made them measurably safer. That’s not a fluke. That’s a blueprint. Chicago and Baltimore just posted numbers that should be front-page news. They’re not. We need to talk about why. 🧵 www.theroot.com/opinion-blac...

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Vinny Calculus @vinnycalculus.bsky.social · 13/08/2026

“Physics first”? Is this a Chicago public school? Interesting that such schools exist. Are there other schools like that in Illinois? Is this part of some kind of program or is this school unique in this way?

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Nigel Goldenfeld @nigelgoldenfeld.bsky.social · 07/08/2026

What do the earliest organisms tell us about where life began on earth? This fantastic paper addresses this issue through analyses that expose early metabolism, & what the environment contributed to kick start it. Even if wrong it is worth reading for the clear introduction to metabolism.

science.org

Intermediate stages in the origin of metabolism at a phosphorylating hydrothermal vent

Enzymatic metabolism emerged from metal-catalyzed, aqueous reactions of H2, CO2, NH3 and phosphite at a hydrothermal vent.

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Randall Munroe @xkcd.com · 06/08/2026

I really recommend the 2022 documentary “It’s Quieter in the Twilight,” which profiles the scientists working in relative obscurity to keep the Voyager spacecraft operating—many of them past retirement age, but unwilling to quit until the Voyagers do. It was very sweet and thought-provoking.

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Vinny Calculus @vinnycalculus.bsky.social · 04/08/2026

My wife and I visited SF and saw the musical Hamilton. I was very disappointed. There was absolutely no physics in that show!

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