I tried to explain this to some colleagues and they laughed at me. We're doomed

Yes. Also, it should be illegal for companies to make the use of their hardware contingent on linking that hardware to an account and maintaining that account in whatever kind of "good standing" the company requires. You buy it, you should own it.

Each semester I go in my classroom and I try to figure out what we would use to block the doors, if it would be safe to crawl out the windows, where we could hide if there was a mass shooter in campus. It’s such an indictment of this country how we have normalized these preventable tragedies.

My heart is with my beautiful alma mater right now. We should treasure universities. www.theguardian.com/us-news/live...

In my 25yrs in the academy I 👀 the proliferation of expensive enterprise software that shifted the burden of sooo many basic administrative functions — reconciling receipts, paying honoraria, booking travel — from competent, efficient staff to faculty + students. I’d spend entire days on this crap.

And when a foreigner did visit, they had a prescribed itinerary and a chaperone. Looking forward to seeing this implemented for academic conferences in the US.

So, about the ICM next year... #mathsky

Here's a list of 15 research highlights from UBC for the last year. All, apparently, more important that the proof of the 3D Kakeya conjecture by Hong Wang and Josh Zahl which did not make the list. news.ubc.ca/2025/12/15-w...

One theory I have is that competence, self-control, responsibility, and expertise have all been feminized, leaving “masculinity” with the realm of impulsivity and petulance. So the divide is not really between “femininity” and “masculinity” so much as between adulthood and childishness.

Dedicating this to the assorted deanlets and admins who schedule final exams up to December 22, evening, and demand course grades by January 2, 9 am.

Reminds me of a uni administrator sharing ideas on how to make a cafeteria more popular: install new lighting, maybe? Paint the walls? Not a word about the food looking and tasting like garbage.

Everything we had gained was shaky at best. Here we are, less than 2 generations later, the “trad wife” is on the rise, GOP think women don’t need a vote, abortion is illegal in many states next to us. Here in Canada, women just lost their government ministry. Women should be enraged EVERY DAY.

On this day 36 years ago, 14 people died at a Montreal university because some fragile fucking man couldn’t handle a woman “taking his place” in the engineering program. Male rage isn’t a new problem. Entitled men aren’t a new problem. And women are entitled to every ounce of anger we carry.

Today's PSA: I'm a successful mathematician, I'm female but not particularly femme, and I read and enjoy romance. This should not be remarkable, or a reason for a PSA, but we are where we are, so there we go.

So it turns out it’s the massively overpaid execs who could be replaced by AI… who’d have guessed

How can anyone think it's a good idea to run oil tankers through a body of water named the Hecate Strait? Go ahead, try and brave an infamous, ship-wrecking cauldron named after combative necromancy in Shakespeare Does Carney know anything about BC at all? #bcpoli

In completely unrelated news, the noise level in most restaurants is somewhere between jackhammers and screaming raccoons. That's to support the sales of noise-cancelling headphones, presumably? Having each other's back like good friends?

Here's a story. I have hyperacusis, meaning I'm sensitive to noise. It's been a problem for a long time. But I never cared to see an audiologist about it b/c medical websites liked to attribute hyperacusis to anxiety and psychological issues. That's a no from me.

you can't tell me ostrich convoy is an actual thing happening and not a King Crimson album

While empires are ravaging Ukraine, think about donating to Ukrainians if you can. And consider de-centring these empires from your cultural consumption. There is fantastic music and literature in Ukraine that Russia is trying to destroy. Support it by learning about it. chapterukraine.com

We have a US administration trying to bully Ukrainians into accepting Russia’s proposal that their sovereignty be undone. Aside from the naked injustice of this, there are five basic practical reasons why it would make the world far more dangerous. (video) snyder.substack.com/p/the-putin-...

Phone pics from a walk.

i think if you want to have those disgusting LED headlights on your car, you should have to do a test where they blast you point blank with your own headlights and then you have 15 seconds to successfully complete some sort of vision-based task, and if you can't do it they push your car off a cliff

Bye Larry

Fall is a great time for cooking.

Just figured out that something I've been trying to prove is actually false... ... and this is exciting! That is how real progress often starts. At least for me.

Loving the latest from Fergus McCreadie. www.youtube.com/watch?v=X8JF...

And then we have to spend additional time arguing with the incompetent "correction teams".

Y'all, octopus eggshells are so incredibly beautiful. Like jewels. These, from Haida Gwaii, were just about the right size to put on your finger.

This is such a scourge. Faculty have to spend 2 or more hours per applicant, creating accounts, updating passwords, completing long questionnaires, etc, just to say "X was in my class and got an A". Which is already included in X's transcript.

CHOTINER: So you had reasons for visiting the island? SUMMERS: Is butiful plce CHOTINER: Is that buttiful or beautiful? SUMMERS: 51 % of 1. Wmen or seenery, nt shr wich.

In mathematics, I have a hard time thinking of people who *don’t* have any Chinese collaborators or graduate students or postdocs. This proposed law is xenophobic and will also decimate mathematics.

Every office has an executive tier whose emails are like: saw on news , , can we replce complianc dept with web 3 and a worker tier whose emails are like: Dear Jim, First of all, I *love* this idea! Unfortunately, I spoke with Legal and identified a few issues with this approach. For starters…

All the best people.

Today is a good day to remember, and to say, that the #MeToo movement was right, and was righteous, and has been vindicated over and over again. There was no overreach. There was no excess. There was no they-went-too-far. So much work remains to be done.

Seems possible that this is about even more than underage women. Perhaps money changing hands— corruptly and internationally, and intertwined with underaged women? Man, oh man.

Sent from his iPad.

OMG Is this why some of my math students just write random handfuls of math-related words and expect *me* to make sense of it? B/c they were taught to read using "3 clues" to approximate the meaning so now they expect me to apply the same method to reading their work?

Photos last year from Juno, Auschwitz, Hiroshima, Vietnam, Cambodia, and Bosnia. Remembering, mourning, and hoping this century does not fall victim to the same needless horrors as the last one.

Out for a walk.

One thing I've learned is that it's okay to talk about the basics and people really appreciate it when you do a good job explaining them. What's "basic" to me isn't to them (and vice versa) so trade knowledge freely and make us all better.

Lol yes.

Already run into kids who, when seeing my wildlife photos, exclaim 'that's AI'

Or else, they assume that we are "just being emotional". As in, if I tell a guy that a specific professional thing needs improvement, the guy thinks that I'm just saying this because I'm feeling sad and needy for some other completely different reason.

They want to reserve the right to be direct (and harsh) to women, but men *hate it* when women treat them the same way bc they find it disrespectful

I have stories. So many stories. So many.

THIS IS AMAZING. ALSO WHAT, IF ANYTHING, DID WE FORGET TO RUIN?

The Venn diagram of men who think women destroyed the workplace and want women to go 50/50 on bills and 98/2 on home chores in their relationships is a circle

well I for one am shocked that "every aspect of your life gets worse forever and also look at my marble bathroom" did not turn out to be a winning election strategy