gjm / is on Nostr

Mathematician. Reader. Fiftysomething. Cruciverbalist. Not very good at thinking of witty things to put in short bios.

I wasn't on Twitter before that nice Mr Musk suggested that everyone go to Mastodon, and I don't expect to be very active here, but who knows?

Last Notes

2024-08-29 17:03:00

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@npub1c9m…9xjd Possibly almost as good as a spoon of honey without turmeric sprinkled on top.

2024-07-17 18:20:16

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@npub1c9m…9xjd I feel that they should have found some suitable definition that would let them label the figure "The _wiggly_ bijection between wiggly pseudotriangulations and wiggly permutations".

2024-07-05 11:03:04

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@npub1gpa…xlk0 Final outcome seems to be better (at least according to your preferences and also mine) than the original prediction: the Conservatives have more like 120 seats, the Lib Dems more like 70, and Reform still only 4.

2024-06-18 19:56:21

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@npub1psd…9sr7 https://www.oglaf.com/blank-page/
(warning: is Oglaf. This one is fairly SFW by Oglaf's standards.)

2024-01-05 23:06:03

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@npub1psd…9sr7 It would probably be possible (which is not to say it would be a good idea) to set up a mechanism where a reader can commit that _if_ all the books in a promised series get published _then_ they will immediately buy all of them, in a way that lets the publisher (and author) see that the demand is there even though the earlier books aren't being bought yet.
I can't see it actually working very well: it would be difficult, or at least more trouble than it'd be worth, to _force_ readers to pay up, and publishers and authors still wouldn't be getting the money until the whole series was finished.
You could layer on further complexity to deal with the second of those problems: no doubt there would be financial institutions willing to buy "$X+$Y+$Z once all three books are done" and sell "something less than $X when the first book is done, something less than $Y when the second book is done, and something less than $Z when the third is done". But I expect everyone involved would hate it.

2023-10-28 21:07:22

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@npub1psd…9sr7 I think you might have misdiagnosed this case. I've encountered Hypx before on another forum, and they are very specifically advocating for hydrogen-fuel-cell vehicles (as they are on your thread), which seems unlike what a shill _for the conventional automotive industry_ would be doing.
I guess it's possible that Hypx is in the pocket of e.g. Toyota which last I heard was still hoping to make a thing of fuel-cell vehicles. But the conventional automotive industry as a whole wouldn't benefit from spreading hydrogen fuel cell hype.
There's a commercial fuel-cell product called HyPX; in the aforementioned other place Hypx has been accused of shilling for them and has denied having any connection with them. I think that sort of financial interest is more likely than Hypx astroturfing for the conventional automotive industry.