Sometimes I just want to answer "No." to every ad I see. "Hungry for and unusual culinary adventure?" No. "Think you hate tofu?" No. "Want to communicate more effectively and collaborate woth confidence?" No. "Looking forward to fall?" No.

My snack for my teaching day today is avocado blended with raw cacao powder and it is giving me sooooo much life. I used to sweeten it with a little agave but I didn't feel the need today.

Does anyone know what this kind of gate latch is called? I′m trying to find a replacement. It needs the vertical part to be dog-proof; I can only find ones without the vertical part that slots in to keep it closed.

I thought I had made a prime number of cookies again...but I was mistaken!

It's book release day in the US!! Just finished another interview about it...

What if math could reveal the hidden structures of injustice? I chat with mathematician and author @dreugeniacheng.bsky.social on @breakingmath.bsky.social about her new book "Unequal," exploring concepts like abstraction and outliers help us rethink fairness. Listen now. youtu.be/mVEJ1XeP5iU?...

“I want people to be able to gaze at math,” she said. “You can still enjoy music, even if you can’t play.” @dreugeniacheng.bsky.social spoke with me about her mission to bring math to the masses & the inspo behind her new book, Unequal: www.nytimes.com/2025/08/30/s...

Hey #math and #science friends! Sir Dash Vector Pixel-Pi would kindly like to remind everyone that @dreugeniacheng.bsky.social's new book "Unequal" comes out on Tuesday, 9/2. He thinks that one treat is zero treats and four treats is one treat in #dogmath.

The other prep I have to do for the first day of class is trying to get used to getting up earlier. I've been edging half an hour earlier per day for a just over a week. This morning I managed to get up at 6:15 but I immediately sat down on the sofa and took a 2 and a half hour nap, oops.

I don't think I even had to do that when I first taught, because the syllabus was in booklet that everyone already had. I also didn't have to deal with registration because students didn't register for class, they registered for exams, and that was done by someone else

Most amazing compliment from someone I played tennis with today: "You're like a back board - you return *everything*!" Lololol.

I need not just a weather forecast but a weather postcast, because if I wake up in the morning and it rained in the night I want to know what time it stopped, so that I can tell when the tennis courts will likely be dry enough to play.

Well an hour and a half of extremely frustrating convo later and I can definitively say it was NOT able to help me. I have now done a hack myself but does anyone want to have a go at being more ept than ChatGPT?

I've got an idiotic beamer problem after an Ubuntu upgrade. I'm going to try asking ChatGPT for help because google isn't working and the friend I asked is possibly asleep. Watch this space.

I don't deliberately use AI, but if I just google something then an AI answer appears at the top without my asking it. If it's math then I sometimes have a look just out of interest, and it's still the case that what the AI think says about math is typically plausible-looking but VERY WRONG.

Gamification anti-works on me.

No I don't use AI to write. I don't even use spell check.

BTW I ended up dipping the aquafaba meringues in chocolate... (dark choc of course, so only ingredients cacao powder, cacao butter, and a little agave for depth)

Finally got myself a sun visor for playing tennis as my eyes are struggling with the light...I got the "men′s" because I have a big head. Of course, the "men′s" was also cheaper than the "women′s" although as far as I could tell it was exactly the same except slightly bigger.

Mostly I think the weather forecast can't be "wrong" because it only gives percentage probabilities. However this afternoon it said rain at 6pm with a 100% chance. It's now gone down to 88%. I'm awaiting 6pm avidly.

Eco friendly hair implement?

Trying a new recipe this morning, was unawake enough to do the cup-to-gram conversion wrong in my head, but luckily was awake enough to realise that the dough didn't feel right at all, even though I've never made this before. PSA: 3 x 120 is not 480.

I made plant-based meringues using aquafaba and they're amazing! I've been curious about this concept for aaages and was incredulous about it pretty much all the way to the end.

I've just reconstructed a proof of Lagrange's theorem without looking it up, having not thought about it for about 12 years, and it's very very satisfying. I don't think any of it was what I would call "memory". It was all from internalised feelings about how subgroups work.

Apparently my point was easily missable. I was reflecting on human scales of measurement for daily life, not for things that need calculations. Interestingly although I find it easier to think of food in ounces when I'm estimating how much I'm eating, I can't do wine in ounces.

I really hate the argument in favour of Fahrenheit that says it's a human scale, 0 is cold, 100 is hot. Someone came up with that as a desperate attempt to justify Fahrenheit and I'm not buying it. 100 increments is way too many for air temperature for human use. I think 30 is about right, ie C.

Today had the kind of research discussion that starts with us going "The proof of this part should be tedious but not hard" and ends with us going "Arrgggh turns out we don't actually know the definition of anyyyythhhiinnnnnggg" via a few "You've frozen"s along the way

The mint choc chip ice cream sandwich cake came out pretty well and was devoured! It strikes me that that is a very long string of nouns as adjectives.

Made mint choc chip ice cream on request today. Tried a new-to-me method where you freeze it flat in a ziplocand then chuck it in a food processor - great method! Much quicker than freeze and churn in a bowl (since I don′t have an ice cream maker).

"Micro efficiency": microwaving something for 11 seconds instead of 10. (To save finger effort.)

When I was a teenager I stayed up until midnight or 1 every night and got up at 6 with no alarm. Now if I have to wake up before 9 I′m in a bad mood all day regardless of when I went to sleep. Last night I slept 10 hours and still felt terrible getting up at 6:30.

Getting up earlier makes me need more sleep. Makes no sense but is true. So it′s inefficient. Take that, "late risers are lazy" crowd! If I get up at 6 I need 8-9 hrs sleep whereas if I get up at 10 I barely need 5. I hate wasting 4 extra hours per day on sleep.

I still love chalkboard talks because the effort-to-outcome ratio is really great; way less effort than preparing a decent slide talk, and if the audience is able to take in info that way, it's great. There are also some huge advantages, including the quantity of stuff you can keep visible at once

Spot the glaring hilarities in this "data" from my fitness tracker today, besides the unlikelihood of my having only burnt 84 cal.

Not all procrastination is about putting things off. Some of it is about building up potential energy. Some of it is about holding things in your mind for longer to get them clearer, because the process of putting them into words is a very imperfect representation of something abstract.

If you would like a signed copy of my new book UNEQUAL you can pre-order from Sandmeyer′s and request my signature! I will sign it before it sgips (anywhere in the US). Out in the US Sept 2! www.sandmeyersbookstore.com/item/lqczeCE...

Apparently: "Barnes & Noble Rewards Members get 25% off pre-orders in all formats from July 8–11! Premium Members get an additional 10% off print copies." You can use code PREORDER25 to pre-order my new book UNEQUAL, out in the US in September including audiobook read by me!

I am currently looking into whether heart rate is a decent measure of calories burned - I am very amused by this idea, because my pulse hovers around 120 when playing tennis (quite hard but not wrecking myself), and also when I'm playing a Bach fugue on the piano!!

🎧 Lunchtime listening 🎧 Check out @dreugeniacheng.bsky.social on BBC Science Focus' Instant Genius podcast, discussing the maths of sameness and difference. Her new book #Unequal is out now!

So it turns out if you forget most of the egg from your first batch of brownies and forget all of the flour from the second batch, the second batch makes quite a good topping for the first batch... sort of like chocolate shortbread topped with chocolate soufflé.

In case anyone has ever wondered, I've just accidentally found out what happens if you accidentally omit two-thirds of the egg from your brownies. The answer is that they are very delicious, but rather crumbly, a bit like shortbread. (oops)

Don't miss this fascinating @newstatesman.com Q&A with mathematician and #Unequal author @dreugeniacheng.bsky.social.

I suddenly realised I could adopt a growth mentality about my loss of ability to sit cross legged...and so I′m devising some daily exercises to see if I can regain that flexibility. I mean, surely I can...

Summer 2025’s off with a bang: 🏝️ Started @dreugeniacheng.bsky.social’s “The Art of Logic” 🐬 Finished a draft ⛵️ Found a tool for exploring the public domain public.work 🏄‍♀️ Wrote my second blackout poem @dairfutures.bsky.social 🛼 Landed face-to-lawn while rollerblading & didn’t break anything!

I'm trying one of those beeswax wrappers for my seeded bread. I haven't tried one before. Let's see how this goes!

I often consult earlier drafts of my own papers rather than the published versions, because the referee required me to make the paper more incomprehensible. It's one of the reasons I stepped away from that part of the academic system.

Small talk when you′re a mathematician unfortunately often quickly results in someone saying "Oh I′m terrible at math." The worst I had was when it was the guy about to administer my general anaesthetic.

I am trying to figure out why I am so disproportionately aggravated by the social media thing of prefacimg a comment with "X here" rather than "I am an X". It must be more than the fact that I like verbs. Anyone else wound up by it and know why?

This morning in the dentist′s chair I needed to distract myself because even under local the SOUNDS are a bit horrifying...so yes I did some math research in my head, had what I think was a brilliant idea, and am now about to see if it was in fact a great idea or just a painkiller dream...

It is amazing what a relief it is to have punctuation available on my phone keyboard without having to use the symbol key. I think part of what I don′t like about the symbol key is it changing the whole keyboard to symbols instead of just activating the symbols. It hurts my brain.