Posts by peterb@mathstodon.xyz
(DIR) Post #AQIES9wT5uh3nLNFOy by peterb@mathstodon.xyz
2022-12-05T04:36:14Z
1 likes, 0 repeats
Today I learned that l’Hospital’s Rule was actually made by Johann Bernoulli, as a work-for-hire that l’Hospital paid for.
(DIR) Post #AROqRlv9PkHcf7hSls by peterb@mathstodon.xyz
2023-01-07T03:46:56Z
1 likes, 0 repeats
Stop arguing about “math” vs “maths”, we have much bigger problems.
(DIR) Post #ARs9vtDQuy01f4PVaq by peterb@mathstodon.xyz
2023-01-21T14:51:23Z
1 likes, 1 repeats
Me, encountering literally any podcast recommendation:"This sounds really interesting. I'd sure like to read a transcript of it instead of listening to it."
(DIR) Post #ATY8Oq3JZTbM9DBrea by peterb@mathstodon.xyz
2023-03-12T14:10:47Z
1 likes, 4 repeats
Have the banks considered eating less avocado toast?
(DIR) Post #AUgBtOZDMDyjGvBwJ6 by peterb@mathstodon.xyz
2023-04-14T19:18:12Z
1 likes, 1 repeats
Italian: The wine is male. A table is female. That is just scienceEnglish: WTF?Italian: You know. A table. It’s feminine. Like a car.English: What?Italian: La macchina, it’s a car, of course a girl.English: …Italian: Unless you call it l’automobile, then it’s a boy.English: This is DERANGED.German: Ha ha ha! I agree! So, how you say, dumbkopfenscheissgebalt.English: How does it work in German?German: Well, in German, coffee is male, a sandwich is neuter, and a pizza is female.English:English:English: Get the fuck out of my house.
(DIR) Post #AUgBtW7rFoqiiOSCmG by peterb@mathstodon.xyz
2023-04-14T19:24:03Z
0 likes, 0 repeats
(actually in both german and italian i have decided the right way to think about this is to believe - whether or not it’s true - that the gender (of nouns) follows the endings rather than the endings follow the gender.This is not easy because you ALSO have to make all the prepositions and stuff match, and in THOSE cases the endings follow the genderBut like don’t think of it like someone decided that “table” was female and then decided to call it “tavola” instead of “tavolo”. Think of it like “there was the word for table, which is tavola, which ends in an a, SO THEREFORE we call it feminine.”I do not know that this is literally true in a history-of-grammar sense, but I find it's a more constructive way to approach these largely arbitrary rules.)
(DIR) Post #AWgNPoNvyhmQPr87MW by peterb@mathstodon.xyz
2023-06-14T12:50:09Z
0 likes, 0 repeats
@grammargirl TLDR: Traumatized schoolchildren worshipped Latin due to child abuse in British public schools, which due to its deficiencies(†) makes splitting infinitive impossible. To split infinitives is great, and one should do it as often as possible to celebrate the uniqueness of English.†: See how that works? Prescriptivism is a hell of a drug.
(DIR) Post #AXMAkYF1MZMGP7ImIa by peterb@mathstodon.xyz
2023-07-04T16:20:56Z
0 likes, 1 repeats
"Learn to pilot submersibles" is the new "Learn to code""Soon afterward, Rush asked OceanGate’s director of finance and administration whether she’d like to take over as chief submersible pilot. “It freaked me out that he would want me to be head pilot, since my background is in accounting,” she told me."
(DIR) Post #AbtRFhuBRZrmSw3wMy by peterb@mathstodon.xyz
2023-11-04T02:28:16Z
0 likes, 2 repeats
Will once again casually mention the story here about Lorenzo da Ponte, the librettist of most of the mozart operas we actually like, Jewish orphan turned Catholic priest fired for sexing and gambling and being friends with Casanova, lucked into work in Austria, wrote three of the most famous operas in the canon WITH FREAKING MOZART, left Austria, narrowly dodged going to France to serve Marie Antoinette right before the Revolution, fled England and bankruptcy for New York, became a (failed) grocer in Pennsylvania, returned to New York City, helped found the American obsession with Italian opera, became Columbia’s first Jewish AND ALSO first Catholic professor, and I DID NOT MAKE ANY OF THAT UP.The man had a life that spanned multiple continents, empires and eras.Lots of books about the guy, but I'll recommend "The Librettist of Venice: The Remarkable Life of Lorenzo Da Ponte" by Rodney Bolt if you want to know more.
(DIR) Post #AhqLEXw0XYc6hC4bB2 by peterb@mathstodon.xyz
2024-05-06T00:44:39Z
0 likes, 0 repeats
You think of your credit card statement as a "bill" to be paid at the end of the month with your gas, electric, and water payments, and I think of it as a bank account with a negative balance that reflects money I've already spent. We are not the same.
(DIR) Post #Ai4P8CdLwXuGvN17q4 by peterb@mathstodon.xyz
2024-05-05T16:31:30Z
0 likes, 0 repeats
My father-in-law is a film director. He is insanely gifted. We were watching It's A Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World together years ago and I asked him what it would cost to film it today. I will never forget his answer…"We can't, we don't know how to do it."https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u0HtDsEuJgI
(DIR) Post #Am5sR859WSeYYGWOUS by peterb@mathstodon.xyz
2024-09-16T18:09:06Z
1 likes, 0 repeats
[Yes, I'm subtweeting Amazon]It is incredible to me how poorly Big Tech is mismanaging the so-called "return to office." In every team I've worked on, pre-covid, the metric was "Did you get your work done?" and nobody measured how often you were in the office, because how often you're in the office (in software development) is an unimportant metric.Post-Covid (don't @ me) we now see companies pouring all their attention and focus on putting butts back in office chairs. I'm willing to believe that tech companies have secret metrics showing that in fact people are slacking off when not in the office and everyone is less productive (although it sure is mysterious that nobody SHARES those metrics). But then the solution to that is to set concrete productivity targets that are based on what you're trying to produce, not "we want to increase our measurements of butts in chairs."You get what you measure. If your priority is having more butts in chairs, you will get more butts in chairs, and will get zero productivity improvements along with it. If what you need is more worker productivity, decide how you're measuring it and then set those targets directly, instead.
(DIR) Post #AmtRAb2m3W6C7otD5E by peterb@mathstodon.xyz
2024-10-10T21:20:06Z
0 likes, 1 repeats
I'm in this photo and don't like it.
(DIR) Post #AoZEmmKik47MsWve3k by peterb@mathstodon.xyz
2024-11-30T11:47:48Z
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@foone The Apple II had n-key rollover in 1979, there's no excuse today to not have it.
(DIR) Post #AyfM8MiNWsMhF2nV4K by peterb@mathstodon.xyz
2025-09-28T13:19:58Z
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Schroeder made some of the most interesting Apple II games which, at the time, pushed the boundaries of what people thought was possible on that slooooow hardware. Dino Eggs is the most famous (it was remade for modern systems just a few years ago) but Crisis Mountain is well-regarded too.My favorite Schroeder game is the somewhat lesser known "Short Circuit".https://mastodon.world/@Philsan/115281087241544924@Philsan
(DIR) Post #B1e7zXVn01vVMNum8W by peterb@mathstodon.xyz
2025-12-23T21:00:33Z
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@catzilla Shut down Mastodon, the best possible tweet(†) has been sent on the platform.† I said what I said.