Posts by caten@mathstodon.xyz
(DIR) Post #AhobcXQvGXq32c4klc by caten@mathstodon.xyz
2024-05-03T02:54:05Z
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In tandem with this, I have also updated my website: https://aten.coolYou can find all the latest things I've been up to there, as well as the above donation links.I'd like to focus more on research this summer, since I'm going to be starting my second postdoc. I have a number of videos I've been planning for some time. If I get enough attention and money this way, I'll try to lean into the video content production more this summer, with a similar emphasis on my usual topics, but perhaps with some more math-adjacent topics or other personal nonsense.Thanks if you read all this! Also thanks for following me on here or YouTube if you already do. I wouldn't've even tried this avenue if I didn't already have some visibility on here.2/2
(DIR) Post #AhobcaFKo5LrlXg2ca by caten@mathstodon.xyz
2024-05-03T17:23:49Z
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Thanks to everyone who already donated and/or boosted this! I still have a long way to go in order to be able to make ends meet over the summer, but this is exactly the kind of encouragement I need to lean into my web content harder. Expect more from me soon, and thank you so much again! :)
(DIR) Post #AhoedebgNcYZRRKef2 by caten@mathstodon.xyz
2024-05-06T02:10:10Z
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I decided that I'm going to start streaming math research live on Twitch! You can see a little ad for this on YouTube (https://youtu.be/mpodnpSSpho). My new Twitch channel is https://www.twitch.tv/charlotteaten/I'm actually messing around with this right now, just getting familiar with things, if you want to pop in and say hi.#streaming #LiveStreaming #math #research #Twitch #coding
(DIR) Post #AhoedfL3euqviAYtO4 by caten@mathstodon.xyz
2024-05-06T02:43:49Z
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Thanks everyone for hanging out for a bit as I tested my setup! I had a lot of fun just messing around with the software and I'm really looking forward to my first regularly-scheduled stream tomorrow.
(DIR) Post #AqEaMj1nB9u4dAWlEW by caten@mathstodon.xyz
2024-12-13T22:34:32Z
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I updated my bio. I am still interested in machine learning, and I am continuing my own projects in this area, but this terminology has become synonymous with an ideology and culture to which I am diametrically opposed.There is great value in tools like optical character recognition, speech recognition, and machine translation (when ethically applied). However, the current regime selling machine learning tools as products is completely disconnected from what I would view as a healthy and productive contribution to society.I would still like to contribute to practical applications of mathematics in the world, and I hope that academia will continue to support my efforts to contribute in a way that supports everyone, not just a small cadre of plutocrats.#MachineLearning #AI #math #ethics #research
(DIR) Post #ArfXTcrPv3TocWkNv6 by caten@mathstodon.xyz
2025-03-02T20:22:29Z
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I've switched to lurking here for a while due to the effects the current political situation in the US is having on me. I am making some big changes to how I do things, including how I livestream and host various products of my math research. I'll be posting about the steps I take as I take them.I have switched from #Firefox to #Librewolf on my desktops. This was pretty easy since I have been storing my bookmarks as a plain text file on my desktop for a while now. Very portable. I just wish #VideoDownloadHelper worked on Librewolf.I am looking into #XMPP now and trying to find a server to sign up for. Does anyone know any with open registration?I have also recently gotten into #IRC again, and am excited to get more familiar with the #Pidgin client on desktop.#math #privacy #security #federation #software
(DIR) Post #AsHifKzWBVqYOg1PQu by caten@mathstodon.xyz
2025-03-20T21:58:31Z
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Getting started with XMPP/Jabber and PGP for federated, encrypted messagingThis is a short thread where I explain how I started using the XMPP protocol and PGP encryption for secure messaging. I am not a security expert, but I am a mathematician and I am confortable with the Linux command line. This guide is for people who want to use PGP for secure messaging easily. You will need to be okay with typing commands into the Linux command line in order to do this, but I will tell you exactly what to enter.Part 1: XMPPMastodon is like email, but for social media. You sign up for an account with a server, and then you can talk with any other accounts that are signed up on other servers, as long as your servers are getting along. (No one wants emails from the sketchy spam server, and we want to be able to choose between Yahoo, Gmail, etc.) XMPP (a.k.a. Jabber) is the same thing for text messaging.Just like signing up for an email/Mastodon account, you need to sign up for an account. You can find a list of servers at https://list.jabber.at/ and will probably at least need to provide an email addess when making an account.Once you have made an account, you need a client. On Linux, I've been having a good time using Dino (https://dino.im/). You can then enter your account name and password to log into your XMPP account and start chatting! There are both public rooms and you can also message directly with your friends.#security #PGP #XMPP #FOSS #Jabber #Dino #MonoclesChat(1/4)
(DIR) Post #AsHifT2eFl6VMhY1QG by caten@mathstodon.xyz
2025-03-20T21:58:51Z
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Part 2: PGPPGP stands for Pretty Good Privacy and has a pretty storied history. The US goverment considered it a crime to teach the system to people outside the US during the 1990s (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pretty_Good_Privacy). Today, it is still considered a bit arcane to use, but I will do my best to make this simple.In order to use PGP, you create a pair of "keys". One is your "private key" that you keep to yourself, and the other is your "public key" that you share. You use someone's public key to encrypt a message for them. Only they can use their private key to decrypt and read it.This is how to use a program called GPG (GNU Privacy Guard, https://www.gnupg.org/) to create a key pair.1) GPG should already be installed on many Linux distributions. Rungpg --versionto see if GPG is installed. If you don't see anything, then download GPG from the link above.2) Generate a public/private key pair. Before you do this, write down a strong passphrase. You will be on a timer to type it in or you will have to start over. This passphrase allows you to use your private key without having to manually type it out, which would take forever. You will also need to provide a "real name" (which can be anything) and an email address. These will show up on your messages created with PGP, but don't actually have to have any connection to your email account or name. In order to generate the key pair, dogpg --gen-key(2/4)
(DIR) Post #AsHifaxyn07fwXQPFw by caten@mathstodon.xyz
2025-03-20T21:59:11Z
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3) On Dino, you should be able to click the top-left hamburger menu to see an "Accounts" option. In your account settings there is a spot that says OpenPGP followed by "Key Publishing Disabled Select Key". Click on that and you will be able to choose your PGP key that you created earlier.4) If you and a friend both do this, then you can use PGP to message securely on XMPP. On Dino, you must each start a direct conversation with each other by hitting the + button on the menu and then slecting "Start Conversation" and putting in the other person's account name and server. Even though you can talk to each other just from a request one way, you must both do this in order to use PGP.5) Once you have each requested to message each other, click on the little lock symbol to the right of where you write a message. Select "OpenPGP". Dino will automatically encypt and decrypt messages as appropriate. You will now need to use your passphrase for your PGP key each time you start Dino to read the encrypted messages.(3/4)
(DIR) Post #AsHifl7D3XRpQ3ov20 by caten@mathstodon.xyz
2025-03-20T21:59:30Z
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Part 3: Mobile and beyondYou can do all of this on mobile, too. I found a client called monocles chat (https://f-droid.org/packages/de.monocles.chat/) for Android that supports PGP using an application called OpenKeychain (https://www.openkeychain.org/) for handling keys. You can either generate a key pair on there, or copy the files containing your keys from Linux to your phone and use them there. (I'd avoid posting that private key file to any online storage, so local network is best.)You can also manually display your public key and encrypt or decrypt messages through the command line with GPG.There is another option for secure messaging on XMPP called OMEMO which is based on the Signal protocol. I have some concerns about corporation that maintains the Signal app and with the protocol itself. Signal is run by people with heavy ties to the usual sources of power in Silicon Valley, and is being heavily marketed as the "secure messaging app for activists". This central control and marketing sound dubious to me, especially because their emphasis on "forward security" means that you should be generating keys constantly on an internet-connected device. PGP makes it possible to create keys on a machine that never touches the internet again, so you can have some assurance that you're not having your keys read on creation by someone who controls your device.#Signal(4/4)
(DIR) Post #AsdctthghxdiqvTg6y by caten@mathstodon.xyz
2025-04-01T05:17:42Z
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While #TransDayOfVisibility is already over for most people, I want to use part of the last hour of it in my time zone to share that I am transgender. I never used to tell people about this, as keeping it to myself brought me a lot of safety and comfort, but I believe that by sharing my experience with people I can help to bring attention to the dire situation transgender people are in right now in the United States.I transitioned from male to female as a teenager during the 2000s. That was over half a lifetime ago now, and while I have had my share of troubles like anyone, I am very happy with my life overall. I am alarmed that young people today will not have the same chance to be themselves that I did, and that this will cause a great deal of pointless suffering.#trans #transgender #USpol
(DIR) Post #At8w3cpAW56erR9xom by caten@mathstodon.xyz
2025-04-16T03:27:29Z
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I saw today that my CoCalc (https://cocalc.com/) license was about to renew. I've been meaning to move to a more #SelfHosting or #P2P paradigm, so this was good timing for me to cancel. I left this message when doing so:"I want to support Sage, and I like using CoCalc, but I don't want to put money towards a service that supports Microsoft, Amazon, or OpenAI in any way. I didn't care so much about this before, and I even log in to CoCalc with a GitHub account, but I'm tired of having my work scraped for profit by people who donate to fascists who are destroying my nation. I would consider returning if all ties to these corporations were cut and cloud computing services came from responsible companies, perhaps in the EU."I'm pretty sure I already have backups of everything I want from GitHub, so I can be done with them too. I should have quit when Microsoft first arrived. My plan is to switch to Radicle (https://radicle.xyz/) rather than another centralized service. I'll be sure to post about how that goes.#Sage #math #SageMath #FOSS #CoCalc #Amazon #AWS #Microsoft #GitHub #facism #USpol #CloudComputing #AI #OpenAI
(DIR) Post #Avmsb19Lmr2aPct4IC by caten@mathstodon.xyz
2025-07-03T03:29:23Z
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After realizing that the vast majority of searches I make on my phone are either1) for a Wikipedia article or2) for a website whose URL I can't remember, which has a Wikipedia article with a link to the websiteI finally realized that I needed to just make Wikipedia my default search engine. This has already greatly reduced the amount of stress I experience sifting through LLM SEO spam and AI-generated nonsense.#web #search #Wikipedia
(DIR) Post #AvoF8N8HT86iIRelw8 by caten@mathstodon.xyz
2025-07-04T18:11:38Z
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With a surprising amount of people wishing a happy 4th of July (or at least using patriotic tones to advocate against fascism in the US), I thought I'd add my two cents.As someone whose ancestors were among the first in New Amsterdam/New York in the 1650s, who fought for the colonies in the American Revolution, who fought for the Union during the American Civil War, yet were never very wealthy or powerful, I speak as someone who is about as much of a cultural product of the American project as one can be.My ancestors were wrong to colonize these lands and genocide the Native Americans, as wrong as those currently genociding the Palestinians are today. The founding leaders of the United States transitioned us from monarchy to a capitalist oligarchy, a similarly regressive system that will be the death of many more of us if we don't resist it effectively.I'm not particularly close to my extended family, but I have blood relatives who are Mexican, Black, and even Israeli. It has never been more obvious how deeply we are all interconnected. It pains me that the United States never lived up to the ideals of freedom and equality it always claimed to uphold.I think it is naive to expect the US judiciary or existing democratic structures to get us out of this mess, when those structures put us here. It is my hope that a new world is (painfully) being born, and that it will be a world I will be proud to call home in my old age.#USpol #fascism #Palestine #democracy #4thOfJuly #capitalism
(DIR) Post #AzFkEUja1Dn2RQN8xE by caten@mathstodon.xyz
2025-10-16T02:08:46Z
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I was reading the Wikipedia page on the Clovis culture (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clovis_culture) of ancient North America, as one does, when I came across a mention of the subsequent Folsom tradition (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Folsom_tradition). I'm used to streets in Boulder having Native American names like Arapaho, but I didn't realize that Folsom, which has our math department at the end of it, was such a street.As you can read about at https://www.archaeologysouthwest.org/2015/02/23/george-mcjunkin-and-the-discovery-that-changed-american-archaeology/, Folsom is the name of a New Mexico town where the first evidence of these people was found. The discovery was made by a George McJunkin, who was quite the Western character. In addition to a name that sounds classically Western to my ear, McJunkin was a Black cowboy who was born into slavery in Texas but went on to become a rancher, archaeologist, and historian.#Wikipedia #history #Colorado #NewMexico #Texas #archeology #BlackHistory #NativeAmerican #Boulder
(DIR) Post #B0RZ6vsnM8zWJunXYe by caten@mathstodon.xyz
2025-11-19T21:19:14Z
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Here's a totally off-the-cuff pitch for the #p2p web: I just want to be able to load a webpage from a #bittorrent swarm by leeching, and then click an "I approve" button if it looks non-sketchy and I want to seed the page. I want to bookmark magnet links to make human-readable URLs and allow collisions between actual names/content to be decided socially (e.g. click to accept a new version of this page from this new swarm). I don't want a bunch of new protocols. No #crypto for domain names or donations. No vibe-coded corporate-sponsored AI BS. No #GitHub repos. Just give me the wild west with everything visible and no default seeding so that bad actors don't bother with it so much. Run it through a #VPN or something if you want privacy.#web3 #internet #indieweb #foss #dweb
(DIR) Post #B2MILqpS5NkRBwwTtA by caten@mathstodon.xyz
2026-01-15T23:13:28Z
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@anolandria Why not WhatsApp -> #XMPP ?
(DIR) Post #B2MILslGttanBZ0AeO by caten@mathstodon.xyz
2026-01-16T02:54:00Z
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@ferret I have a bad impression of Matrix, both in terms of culture and pedigree (that Amdocs company sounds sketchy). There are people who say it's lacking technically, but I can't speak to this myself.
(DIR) Post #B2MILuDfTntvhvIMYC by caten@mathstodon.xyz
2026-01-16T18:20:27Z
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@gnemmi I meant in more of an algorithmic sense (e.g. using JSON for exchanging large quantities of data no human will read), but fair enough.
(DIR) Post #B3GZhUeHFYu9tjTODo by caten@mathstodon.xyz
2026-02-12T15:52:14Z
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@terminaltilt Aren't you just proposing to create a single point of failure where I remember one weak password (for the password manager) instead of a dozen?