Remote

Andrew

@andrewt@mathstodon.xyz

mastodon 4.7.2

I'm kind of a Marmite person, in that I'm essentially a byproduct of the brewing industry.

Manchester MathsJam regular and occasional tamed programmer for the Nerds. Bi/polyam

1420 Followers

900 Following

50 Posts

Joined April 18, 2018

Website:

https://www.andrewt.net

Pronouns:

he/him/any

Old account:

https://mastodon.social/@andrewt

Art account:

https://mastodon.art/@andrewt

Andrew @andrewt@mathstodon.xyz

· 1w ago

RE: https://todon.eu/@redjives/117223317766147041 This is absolutely right, and I think a big part of the problem is that tech has utterly refused to standardise on *anything*. Oh, you want a web server? You can get a cheap managed one but it'll only run certain languages and databases. Or you can rent a computer somewhere and install everything up to and including your favourite Linux distribution, and maybe you'll even set it all up securely. That's ridiculous. We've had the internet for decades now, you should just be able to download a zip file with an app in it in a standard format and put it on a standard server and expect it to work securely. In practice, the nearest thing we ever had to that is that Lamp stack. This is, I think, a big part of why Wordpress is so popular — it's easier to find a hosting service that runs Wordpress and configure it with plugins to be what you need than it is to set up and install a second server stack. Obviously we'll always want to be able to just connect computers running arbitrary code to the internet, but we should have *something* that's easy and standardised by now (but then, when have software developers every tried to make this stuff *more* accessible to regular people?)

Quoting

@redjives@todon.eu

In light of the recent 1Password muck, I would like to gently remind all you techies: I don't want to self host – not my email, not my password manager, not my remote storage/backup. I'm not a sysadmin. I'm likely to fuck it up eventually. I'm happy for y'all who feel comfortable doing that but it's not really the most useful advice / suggestion for general use.

Open quoted post

J—dV: "In light of the recent 1Password muck, I would li…" - Todon.eu

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Andrew @andrewt@mathstodon.xyz

· 2mo ago

Replying to

@ErikJonker@mastodon.social @olivia@scholar.social I feel like if the argument is just "we should support them in it because they're going to do it anyway" then that's equally true of *everything* students do despite being asked not to, so by that logic universities should have supportive policies about how best to use essay mills to increase learning, and the most responsible forms of plagiarism. What makes AI special?

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Andrew @andrewt@mathstodon.xyz

· 2mo ago

Nobody whose done modern web development should be surprised that people want to use AI. We put JavaScript in HTML, and then put XML in JavaScript. A static webpage built with create-react-app is 300MB and people do it anyway. The Dom was "slow" so we built a Virtual Dom to go with it. We have tools that compile JavaScript to JavaScript. The industry-standard is to use a state-driven framework in an event-driven environment. CSS is either put inside JavaScript, or else we use a framework that carefully reimplements every possible command in a way that prevents them being re-used, and then graft re-use back onto it because it turned out to be useful. Nothing works because we make junior web developers rebuild the button and text box components from the ground up for every project instead of just using the browser ones. Web development has not made a lick of sense in years. LLMs couldn't possibly make it any worse, they just make the bad developers faster.

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Andrew @andrewt@mathstodon.xyz

· 4mo ago

my hot take is that there are two categories of board game — sorry, not sorry

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Andrew @andrewt@mathstodon.xyz

· 5mo ago

Replying to

The others:

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Andrew @andrewt@mathstodon.xyz

· 5mo ago

Replying to

I would make a game out of these but I mean

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Andrew @andrewt@mathstodon.xyz

· 4mo ago

I have no idea why I made this

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Andrew @andrewt@mathstodon.xyz

· 2mo ago

Star Trek Voyager first aired in 1995, which means technically Robert Picardo is the Eighth Doctor

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Andrew @andrewt@mathstodon.xyz

· 5mo ago

i am good at godot

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Andrew @andrewt@mathstodon.xyz

· 4mo ago

Half-accidentally created this image which I thought people would like for its slightly trippy twisted flax vibe and also the Windows 95 aesthetic the 50% teal gives it

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Andrew @andrewt@mathstodon.xyz

· 5mo ago

Suppose there are two boxes. One contains an unknown amount of money, and the other contains twice that amount. You choose one and open it. The host then opens a third box and reveals a goat, and offers you the chance to swap boxes. A perfect predictor has placed a million dollars in the box you won't choose. If you swap, and another person in the next room doesn't, you get both boxes, but if they swap and you don't, you get nothing. Whatever amount you win, the devil will put it into a cauldron two dollars a day, and remove a dollar every day, into a second cauldron. After infinity days, every dollar has been removed and replaced, and all the original dollars are in a new cauldron. Is the first cauldron your prize, or the second one?

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Andrew @andrewt@mathstodon.xyz

· 2mo ago

Replying to

@mhoye@cosocial.ca @chroma@raccoonisland.social yeah, I agree with this — I remember a time before Slack or Discord existed, and nobody except huge nerds used IRC then either. I barely understand it and I had a ZX Spectrum. There's a lot to like about it, but "IRC is unpopular mostly because it's inconvenient" is such a self-evidently true statement it kind of baffles me that anyone could disagree

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Andrew @andrewt@mathstodon.xyz

· 4mo ago

Apparently people on Bluesky are writing little self-care books for language models and the language models are ignoring them because they're ridiculous

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Andrew @andrewt@mathstodon.xyz

· 5mo ago

Replying to

@neil I mean it really sounds like you've invented a cat

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Andrew @andrewt@mathstodon.xyz

· 5mo ago

I use James Hoffmann's timings for Aeropress coffee: pour in the water, wait two minutes, swirl, wait another 30 seconds, then plunge.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j6VlT_jUVPc

You can time this remarkably well using Coffee by Chappell Roan.

https://music.youtube.com/watch?v=HMT4XTftXLs

The main vocals from "can't meet you for coffee" to the first "never just coffee" take almost exactly 2'30". Swirl at the climax of "I don't need it any more".

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Andrew @andrewt@mathstodon.xyz

· 5mo ago

Replying to

@millardjk @QCCEChris @smeg this. I've been beeped many times for cycling in the main lane, by motorists who have two wheels in the bike lane. Like what, I thought we were sharing!

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Andrew @andrewt@mathstodon.xyz

· 5mo ago

Replying to

@skewray I can tell you the goat's parents have two children of whom at least one is a boy born on a Tuesday

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Andrew @andrewt@mathstodon.xyz

· 6mo ago

Replying to

@slothrop @drmikepj @graste I had to work with both Lync and LINQ at one job, at least Microsoft spelled them differently

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Andrew @andrewt@mathstodon.xyz

· 5mo ago

Excited to hear about agentic software development until I realised "agentic" does not mean "without men"

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Andrew @andrewt@mathstodon.xyz

· 4mo ago

Replying to

@cass@muffin.industries famously of course humans can read qr codes and computers cannot

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Andrew @andrewt@mathstodon.xyz

· 5mo ago

I've set another #CrypticCrossword

https://www.mycrossword.co.uk/cryptic/3371

Sample clues:
⭐ Star junking circular letter, erroneously forwarded (3,5)
🦌 Female deer with clipped tail and pupils extremely aquiver for buck (6)
🛸 Alien got in UFO with X, beating Mulder at his own game? (9)

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Andrew @andrewt@mathstodon.xyz

· 4mo ago

🎶 In this house we believe the sun should never set upon an argument.
🎶 In this house we believe we place our happiness in other people's hands.
🎶 In this house we believe that junk food tastes so good because it's bad for you.
🎶 In this house we believe your parents did the best job they knew how to do.

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Andrew @andrewt@mathstodon.xyz

· 5mo ago

@neil@mastodon.neilzone.co.uk I find it really hard to believe they have any significant sign-up rate if their strategy is asking people at random to do something as deeply strange and suspicious as taking an eye scan to prove their humanity to someone standing in front of them who can plainly see they're a human. Anyone who agrees to that needs to have a state-sponsored cynic follow them around and keep them out of trouble

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Andrew @andrewt@mathstodon.xyz

· 5mo ago

Replying to

@darkling you should ask the guard who guards everyone who does not guard themselves

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Andrew @andrewt@mathstodon.xyz

· 5mo ago

Replying to

@hp the cauldron with the pauldron is the pot you should trust not

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Andrew @andrewt@mathstodon.xyz

· 5mo ago

Replying to

@michaelgemar @fraggle yes, but that track takes it back in time where it will kill five baby Goat Hitlers

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Andrew @andrewt@mathstodon.xyz

· 4mo ago

That 4th/9th Doctor crossover episode was terrible

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Andrew @andrewt@mathstodon.xyz

· 5mo ago

Replying to

@GoatsLive hahaha

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Andrew @andrewt@mathstodon.xyz

· 5mo ago

Replying to

@bencurthoys should be able to get an upper and lower bound on this — he needs more iron than a human body normally has, but less than that plus this one syringe although i gather the field *gradient* also matters but we can presumably model him as a solenoid?

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Andrew @andrewt@mathstodon.xyz

· 5mo ago

Replying to

Obviously I should add: this is idly looking into it with Google. Magnetism is really complicated and I'm no expert. If I've overlooked a complexity it'll probably reduce the effect, although as scanners get more powerful it'll likely increase. Normally you do these kinds of sums and it says "you are nine orders of magnitude away from anything happening" and you can assume the complexities don't matter. This little one-and-a-half orders of magnitude difference is *not much* — I'm confident in saying cornflakes in an MRI scanner aren't a hazard, but I've really no idea whether or how much they'd slide about

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Andrew @andrewt@mathstodon.xyz

· 5mo ago

Replying to

@tal Yeah, I assumed there was nothing else in cereal that would be affected by the field enough it couldn't be ignored compared to the iron. Didn't check if that's right but it feels likely. I guess it's talking about 3T (but I've not carefully read the whole paper). For a 7T scanner I would guess the gradient will also increase and you'd end up with more than seven-thirds as much force. (Probably not 14x quite yet, though.)

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Andrew @andrewt@mathstodon.xyz

· 6mo ago

Replying to

@taq I KNOW RIGHT

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Andrew @andrewt@mathstodon.xyz

· 6mo ago

Replying to

@eragon git came out after Resident Evil 4

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Andrew @andrewt@mathstodon.xyz

· 6mo ago

Replying to

@lritter I mean that sounds fine and all, but I last used Mercurial in 2012 and as you say, git documentation is markedly easier to come by these days (even if that is partly because you rely on it more) Are there decent GUIs out there that support hg?

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Andrew @andrewt@mathstodon.xyz

· 6mo ago

Replying to

@lritter I guess my worry with hg-git is that it'd be like using a Dvorak keyboard — sure, it's easier while I'm doing it, but I still need to know how to type on Qwerty but now I'm context switching

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Andrew @andrewt@mathstodon.xyz

· 6mo ago

Replying to

@Kaution obviously i already use a gui for git

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Andrew @andrewt@mathstodon.xyz

· 5mo ago

Replying to

@kranzi ok but it's still there, right? the magnet in the mri scanner doesn't care if the body can absorb it i guess if a cereal says "29mg iron / 100g" it might be that only half of that is magnetic, which would reduce the effet?

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Andrew @andrewt@mathstodon.xyz

· 5mo ago

Replying to

@jcastroarnaud but what about your precious bodily fluids?

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Andrew @andrewt@mathstodon.xyz

· 5mo ago

Replying to

@memnus yeah, I didn't think to look up what *kind* of iron it was, but I've definitely seen a video of someone smashing up cornflakes and extracting what looked basically like iron filings with a magnet

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Andrew @andrewt@mathstodon.xyz

· 5mo ago

Replying to

@adrianco@mastodon.social @timbray@cosocial.ca there are non-developers using openclaw? surely not

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Andrew @andrewt@mathstodon.xyz

· 6mo ago

Replying to

@eragon American Dad is older than git

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Andrew @andrewt@mathstodon.xyz

· 5mo ago

This is an absolutely superb rundown of all the Doki Doki Panic games Nintendo has put out over the years

https://youtu.be/pW41C1ZgnCs

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Andrew @andrewt@mathstodon.xyz

· 6mo ago

Replying to

@lritter Yeah, sounds like we have kinda different use cases — I tend not to touch the terminal unless I need to. A CLI VC system is ok if I'm writing like a Node or Python app where I'm in and out of the terminal all day, but if I'm noodling about in Godot or something, I'm firmly in GUI-land

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Andrew @andrewt@mathstodon.xyz

· 5mo ago

Replying to

@mavnn @hp oh well yes, if you assume that the whole thing's nonsense obviously

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Andrew @andrewt@mathstodon.xyz

· 5mo ago

Replying to

@mavnn @hp oh, everything in this has an anthropomorphic face like in mario, did I not mention that

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Andrew @andrewt@mathstodon.xyz

· 5mo ago

Replying to

@kranzi Yeah, but you can get iron from cereal with a magnet, right? That's a classic demo https://www.youtube.com/shorts/oFOodWFNfaI Is there a step I'm missing?

How to get metal out of cereal!

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Andrew @andrewt@mathstodon.xyz

· 5mo ago

Replying to

@kranzi Probably good advice for any scanning room tbh

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Andrew @andrewt@mathstodon.xyz

· 5mo ago

Replying to

@cass I feel like we'd know if there was I think the thing is that any particular tiny iron particle is so small that even "250x its weight" is basically zero. (And the aggregate isn't enough to move a bowl of cereal so that's fine too.)

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