Rook Bridson

…so my next step as a pragmatic applied mathematician is generating data from a lot of numerical solutions to try and guess the Taylor coefficient (as a function of problem parameters) or at least something close enough with the right asymptotic behaviour.

It’s honestly delightful 😊

The context is solving an ODE which is itself an approximation to what I actually want to work on, which alas is an unsolvable nonlinear BVP. My asymptotic analysis took me pretty far but not quite all the way to an accurate approximation near the boundary I care most about,

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.

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

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.

Oh dear. Now that I think about, it's the same for me with fireworks and garbage trucks...

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.

But I do my best to avoid people and places where I might not be safe, and then remind myself nobody else really cares how I present, and the good people already have made it clear I’m accepted and welcomed. That helps get me through the dysphoric days

Aw thank you — but I cannot stress enough how much I curate my selfies, throwing out 5+ for each one I keep, and some days I simply cannot find a single one that I like no matter how I pose and mess with lighting etc.

I still have days I lack confidence in public, cringe at my reflection, cry…

Best Human Hair Toppers & Wigs For Women Get the best human hair toppers and wigs for women at BabesWIG. Our licensed hairstylists Design premium collection features natural-looking styles in various colors for woman. Elevate your look effor...

shout out to babeswig.com for making human hair pieces that are halfway affordable!!

Selfie in a green fleece with loose hair: dark brown from a topper, slightly more auburn from my scalp, but mixed together and difficult to tell apart.

I have been growing out what hair I do have for 1.5 years now, and that lets me go with just a 9”x9” topper instead of a full wig, and it is working really well for me (looks good, convenient, and mostly secure enough just with clips). I think I’m mostly at peace with this now but it’s been rough.

I tried minoxidil foam a decent length of time (washing hands really carefully thinking about our dog) but did not find it did all that much, and eventually gave up on it 😕

Labour continues to troll the trans community - and to prioritise pleasing the right wing press. We know Hilary Cass was selected for her transphobic views: Kemi Badenoch told us exactly that.

So why is she running trans policy for Labour?

Horrifying thread. Just do not travel to the US.

Nooooo 😂

…usually because in a graphics paper the demos look great! But sure enough, every time I actually try it out, I see my understanding was correct, and it’s easy to find a problem where the actual convergence is extremely slow… but didn’t get tested in the paper.

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…

Horrifying.

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

Anyways, I’m now in the “fun” part of debugging a prototype code which clearly isn’t converging but doesn’t have any obvious disasters; I’m hoping it’s only a typo in the code or at worst an algebra mistake, and there’s nothing deeper that needs thought 😬

…prototype reference code that has an attractive structure to follow as well as the nastiest math bits worked out readably, even if it isn’t directly usable in production, and if it’s a big project then also a plan of attack and division of labour for the actual developers to follow.

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), …

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

And yet — I can't help but wish that somehow I could also be a dancer, violist, composer, painter, poet, etc. etc. at the level which would be in reach if just one passion, on its own, were the main focus in my life 😂

...so I am grateful from the bottom of my heart that I did find a niche in computational mathematics where I can truly feel good at what I do, that demands that mix of depth and breadth to bridge research math with creative industry.

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 ...

every now and then i try to get some understanding of how to define fairness quantitatively, thinking of b-splines as giving optimal fairness for the width of their support, so that could be optimized when designing splines with other properties (like interpolation)

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

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

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

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.

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.

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