In conclusion: porn research is very bad and we don’t know anything. So it goes.

via: https://thingofthings.substack.com/p/polysemy-and-porn

The main issue is that, by the time you get to the frontiers of math, the words to describe the concepts don’t really exist yet. Communicating these ideas is a bit like trying to explain a vacuum cleaner to someone who has never seen one, except you’re only allowed to use words that are four letters long or shorter.

The core idea here is that if you’re a post doc, don’t just do what you’re told.

Exclusive: Some scientists say many detections are most likely error, with one high-profile study called a ‘joke’

Seems like we don’t know what we’re doing on the microplastics front.

Intelligence does not make you a feminist.

As of January 1, 2026, all ACM publications and related artifacts in the ACM Digital Library are now open access. This change reflects the long-standing and growing call across the global computing community for research to be more accessible, discoverable, and reusable.

Hi! I’m Misha. I do research in combinatorics and teach math, occasionally to high-school students.

via: https://vertex.degree/

Each grantee that is an institution of higher education, as defined in 20 U.S.C. 1002(a), that is private (hereinafter “private institution”) must comply with its stated institutional policies regarding freedom of speech, including academic freedom, as a material condition of the Department’s grant.

I finally found how the DoE can prevent a private institution from having funding. This definitely encourages schools that even remotely rely on federal funding to stay in lockstep with Section 983 and the First Amendment. Damn.

via: https://www.congress.gov/crs_external_products/LSB/HTML/LSB10438.web.html

Resources to assist grantees in the administration of Federal grants awarded by the Department of Education.

From which the DoE can stem the flow.

An interesting little article which exposed me to various cursed parts of the U.S. Code.

Someone please explain to me why this doesn’t basically extend protected speech (i.e. hate speech) to all colleges and universities… Hell, not even private schools are a refuge.

via: https://www.congress.gov/crs_external_products/LSB/HTML/LSB10438.web.html

I’m a fifth-year Ph.D. student in the Department of Mathematics at The Ohio State University. I’m interested in algebraic topology, semigroup theory, and computer science.

via: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CxGtAuJdjYI

Viewpoint diversity is great at the level of the intellectual community. But it’s not necessarily something we should aspire to at the local level—in fact, when it comes to hiring faculty, viewpoint homogeneity is often better. Fans of viewpoint diversity should recognize that trade-offs are involved—encouraging diversity involves making difficult, uncomfortable choices.

Most rejected, and all institutions let the clock run out on the deal. Guess Kornbluth set a trend. Trump has expanded the compact to all colleges: we’ll see if anyone bites.

The place of scientists in society over the past 80 years has been a historical anomaly.

Something to chew on as I get ready to apply to grad school and continue to seek a research profession.

via: https://www.reinvent.science/p/use-humor see: https://isotropic.org/papers/chicken.pdf

Mankiw’s 10 principles of economics, translated for the uninitiated

via: https://www.reinvent.science/p/use-humor

I’m currently a Principal Scientist at Galois, Inc.. My research addresses problems in software reliability through advances in program analysis, computer-checkable proofs, and their combination. Recently I have been working on new programming languages for data privacy and secure computation, and new verification techniques for software defined networking. I used to help run and still actively collaborate with the UVM PLAID Lab.

Good advice in general.