@christianp@mathstodon.xyz
@christianp@mathstodon.xyz avatar

christianp

@christianp@mathstodon.xyz

Mathematician, koala fan, mathstodon.xyz admin,
⅓ of https://aperiodical.com. He/him

This profile is from a federated server and may be incomplete. Browse more on the original instance.

christianp, to random
@christianp@mathstodon.xyz avatar

"It's a simple task," I thought, "don't overthink it, just use a spreadsheet."

I can't work out how to do this: I have two series of height measurements of my kids, along with their ages when the measurements were taken.
How do I plot them both on the same scatter graph, so I can see which kid was taller at any age?

I thought that if I added a column saying which kid each measurement was from, I'd be able to use it to set the marker colour or style, but that doesn't seem to be an option.

Please don't suggest any other tools for this: I'm more than capable of doing it outside a spreadsheet; I just want to know if it's possible in Google Sheets.

christianp,
@christianp@mathstodon.xyz avatar

@ambiguousname The ages are in days, so don't necessarily match.

christianp,
@christianp@mathstodon.xyz avatar

@ambiguousname ahhh, but it can deal with empty cells! So this works. Thanks!

christianp, to random
@christianp@mathstodon.xyz avatar

It can be hard to articulate how #dyspraxia affects me.
The clumsiness is easy - I drop things and bump into things a lot more often than most people.
But the executive function problems are harder to understand.
Yesterday I had a perfect example of it:

I needed to take the bin out. First I had to go and pick up the bin. Then I had to decide whether I'd go out through the front door, or the garage. I chose the garage, so I opened the garage door. I got outside and...

I wasn't holding the bin. The first step had completely vanished from my mind and I didn't realise until I needed to be holding a bin.

christianp,
@christianp@mathstodon.xyz avatar

PS shout out to the medical student who told me authoritatively that I couldn't possibly be dyspraxic because I can flip a pancake.
I hope you paid more attention in lessons before graduating!

sc_griffith, to random
@sc_griffith@mathstodon.xyz avatar

based alert

comment: If you refuse to teach the kids category theory and queer communism there's no point. Have all the kids you want. The empire is still going to collapse. Knowledge has moved beyond the empire.

christianp,
@christianp@mathstodon.xyz avatar

@sc_griffith I'm determined to work out what 'based' means from context. This brings me no closer.
(no spoilers)

christianp, to random
@christianp@mathstodon.xyz avatar

After upgrading Ubuntu to 24.04, but not immediately, I started having a problem where the system would just show an all-white screen on boot.
After searching, I tried updating my BIOS firmware, but that didn't fix it.
I've finally managed to work out how to turn off the proprietary nvidia drivers from the command line, and it's now showing something, with the open source nouveau driver.
Next I'll try re-installing the latest nvidia driver, and see if that works.

Writing this more for my own reference next time it happens than anything else.

christianp,
@christianp@mathstodon.xyz avatar

I came back home and it's back to the white screen. Uninstalling the nvidia drivers doesn't fix it.
Argg!! What do I do??

christianp,
@christianp@mathstodon.xyz avatar

Yarr, it's driving me nuts!
The monitor was still displaying the white screen aftrer I pulled the HDMI cable out, and then power cycling it.
So is it setting a mode on the monitor??
I plugged the HDMI cable into a different monitor, which worked, and then back into the original one, which suddenly came to life!

WHAT IS GOING ON

christianp,
@christianp@mathstodon.xyz avatar

@dimpase 👏

christianp,
@christianp@mathstodon.xyz avatar

@mair yeah, I have a feeling that's the solution for me too, but I don't want it to be

andrewt, to random
@andrewt@mathstodon.xyz avatar

The tech industry in a nutshell is that "prefers dark mode" is built into CSS and "is colourblind" is not. This should be a one-shot setting at the OS level, instead of telling every site individually.

christianp,
@christianp@mathstodon.xyz avatar

@andrewt it's more complicated than dark mode, in that there are at least four distinct kinds of colourblindness, but I've seen bigger enums than that

julesh, to random
@julesh@mathstodon.xyz avatar

Me and @zanzi are on our way to EMF (very slowly, because a train derailed near Carlisle)

Do we know anyone on here who's going?

christianp,
@christianp@mathstodon.xyz avatar

@julesh @zanzi I don't know if you know them, but @stecks and @mscroggs are there doing maths things

christianp, (edited ) to random
@christianp@mathstodon.xyz avatar

I'm running the #BigMathOff again, this July.

The Big Internet Math-Off is a just-for-fun tournament that I and a few friends have organised on @aperiodical, ostensibly to find the World’s Most Interesting Mathematician.

Some great people have already signed up but I still need a couple more to complete the list.

I'm particularly keen to represent a range of genders, nationalities and backgrounds.

There's more information about the competition at https://aperiodical.com/please-take-part-in-the-big-internet-math-off/

If that sounds like fun and you'd like to take part, please tell me!

UPDATE: I now have 16 competitors. The Math-Off is go!

christianp, to random
@christianp@mathstodon.xyz avatar

I've seen discussion around several in-person only events lately, where the organisers justify it by saying they can't get the best quality of conversation online.

Well, you can't get any of my conversation at an event I can't get to.

An in-person event that you have to travel to excludes people with caring responsibilities, disabilities, and limited funds.

christianp,
@christianp@mathstodon.xyz avatar

@adverbially yeah, online events are usually not good!
Physically being in a place forces you to hang around and talk to the people there, which remote attendance doesn't do, so typically people disconnect as soon as the talk they wanted to watch finishes.

I've tried a few things to improve this over several online-only conferences, with not much success. The thing that worked best was to have scheduled "networking time", with a big video call or ideally a space like gather.town, to allow for people to move between conversations.

christianp,
@christianp@mathstodon.xyz avatar

I think I'm largely preaching to the converted about this on the fediverse, but I have a reason:

Many of you, at some point, will be involved in the planning of an event. Please be the person who pushes the other organisers to really justify running the event in-person only. If there's any way remote attendance can be accommodated, please fight for it!

christianp,
@christianp@mathstodon.xyz avatar

@dmm yes, that's another strong reason to allow remote attendance, that particularly affects international meetings.

ColinTheMathmo, to random
@ColinTheMathmo@mathstodon.xyz avatar

Grrr ... affixes ...

756

⬜⬜⬜⬜⬜⬜⬜⬜➡️➡️⬇️⬜⬜⬜⬜
➡️➡️➡️➡️➡️➡️➡️➡️⬆️⬜➡️➡️➡️➡️➡️

https://www.andrewt.net/puzzles/cell-tower/?p=756

Current streak: 102 (Nobelium)

Best streak: 102

christianp,
@christianp@mathstodon.xyz avatar

@ColinTheMathmo @andrewt the natural next move is Pokémon

beecycling, to random
@beecycling@romancelandia.club avatar

Rain is proper lashing down out there, but no sign of a thunderstorm, which we're under an alert for.

christianp,
@christianp@mathstodon.xyz avatar

@beecycling we had precisely one clap of thunder out at sea about half an hour ago

christianp, to random
@christianp@mathstodon.xyz avatar

@standupmaths I'm looking through old #BigMathOff posts and saw your one about the projective plane: https://aperiodical.com/2018/07/the-big-internet-math-off-round-2-matt-parker-v-jo-morgan/

Did you ever get that animation re-made?

christianp, (edited ) to random
@christianp@mathstodon.xyz avatar

I let my branches diverge and now I have to spend the afternoon untangling diffs.

Don't be like me!

henryseg, to random
@henryseg@mathstodon.xyz avatar

New video about wild knots:
https://youtu.be/o7U3yvMF8Sw

christianp,
@christianp@mathstodon.xyz avatar

@henryseg wow, that's impressive that Desmos can do that! (and excellent work by Hsin-Po Wang putting the formulas together)

andrewt, to random
@andrewt@mathstodon.xyz avatar

I've been prototyping something based on @welshpixie's Celtic knot tutorial.

https://mastodon.art/@welshpixie/112496027266636193

The whole thing strikes me as art that's for creating rather than consuming, like life drawing or a mandala, so like, obviously my goal here is not to create computer-generated images so I don't have to draw them.

I'm playing with the maths of these knots with a view to seeing if there's a puzzle game in there, perhaps in a "get all the red dots on one knot and all the blue dots on another and you only have three walls to place" kind of deal.

Normally I'm a "stare at the puzzle and do logic until it breaks" kinda guy but given the nature of the source material it feels like this ought to be a more meditative "click around and chill out" vibe. But I've no idea, this isn't a fully-formed plan, it's just a poking-around "I bet there's a fun puzzle in here somewhere" dive.

christianp,
@christianp@mathstodon.xyz avatar

@andrewt it is indeed impossible for me to play without colour vision!

Using grayscale for the dots and completed ribbons means I can differentiate them.

I think it's worth persisting with trying to get some kind of pattern involved, though. Would it be easier if there were (dotted/dashed/whatever) stripes along the length of the ribbon, instead of across it?

christianp,
@christianp@mathstodon.xyz avatar

@andrewt yes, shapes for the pips will help a lot.

On touch screens, could it highlight ribbons when you drag your finger across them?

  • All
  • Subscribed
  • Moderated
  • Favorites
  • •
  • JUstTest
  • mdbf
  • ngwrru68w68
  • tester
  • magazineikmin
  • thenastyranch
  • rosin
  • khanakhh
  • InstantRegret
  • Youngstown
  • slotface
  • Durango
  • kavyap
  • DreamBathrooms
  • megavids
  • tacticalgear
  • osvaldo12
  • normalnudes
  • cubers
  • cisconetworking
  • everett
  • GTA5RPClips
  • ethstaker
  • Leos
  • provamag3
  • anitta
  • modclub
  • lostlight
  • All magazines
    •