If you give a monkey infinite time to hit a typewriter, he will eventually type out the entire works of shakespeare. If you give one gorilla a finite amount of time to hit a laptop, he will eventually type out my PhD thesis...I hope

"I'm just so busy in my PhD" My notes:

Thr weirdest thing about doing a PhD is the way everyone assumes you're smart. If I was smart I'd have known better

Im trying to convince my friends we should try hat-oween, it's like Halloween, but instead of buying a whole outfit, you wear one hat + your normal clothes to try and approximate a character. I just need to find a way to monetise this idea and ill be living the easy life

POV, you're my PhD supervisor, and you've just told me I need to write my research down

I must sound insane at work to say things like "Yeah writing my D&D science books has actually been really useful experience for writing my PhD thesis"

A few weeks ago, I came across the @gorillaofdestiny.bsky.social account on YouTube. Who came up with a really cool way of writing spells in DnD (if you are into networks, at least) 2/4 youtube.com/shorts/hXbkB...

Your regular reminder that NSF grants built the internet and helped the U.S. dominate tech.

The proposed NSF cuts in America are genuinely insane. I can't see a single benefit that could possibly outweigh the long-term and short-term costs to every aspect of life. That is, of course, assuming their goal is to make life better...or that they're acting on any semblance of logic.

Me trying to figure out why my Druid code stopped working for no reason

New MIRI image of NGC 1514 was released in a recent article. arxiv.org/abs/2502.212...

The hardest part of a PhD is having to think "I don't envy the person who has to do all that work" before realising you are the person

I slightly modified the #DND spell writing system by @gorillaofdestiny.bsky.social and built a little tool to supplement my non-existent art skills. You can mess around with it here: joshgold.me/tools/dnd-sp... Here are two variations of Phantasmal Force (one of my favorite spells):

Starting a new campaign and realising with much frustration that individual purchases haven't been allowed on D&D Beyond for almost a year......... Genuinely got me and my players thinking why we bother using digital character sheets anymore

They're doing so well

If true, this would be insanely devastating. Like..."bias"?? "Inclusion"??? These come up all the time in standard scientific writing??????!?? (Also, it'd still be evil even if it was applied in a way that only impacted people...)

"There is a curse. They say: May you live in interesting times." -Terry Pratchett, Interesting Times

I have so many projects to work on and I've had so little time outside of work Until now...

every example of how AI could be useful is like “if you were eating cereal, AI could tell you what cereal you were eating”

I anticipated some rightwing weirdos in my comments for today's video but what's amazing to me is the difference in tiktok and youtube's vibe

Sometimes you just have to step back and realize you made something pretty incredible. The Mighty DM's Dice Box from materials to completion (minus all the hard work 😅). Wait till you see the inside...

It's hard work being the office Artist :(

Weird that we have to say this, but the government doesn’t get to decide what gender a person is.

It's so good!! I can't believe someone else is making maps in the way I do, surreal. I literally saw it and went, "I don't remember drawing that"

Genuinely still a bit stunned by the tiktok ban 😅 Kind of assumed it was too ridiculous to blow over but alas. I'm not American so feasibly it doesn't impact me directly but the sudden loss in audience and fellow creators will be significant

Unironically need this for personal reference constantly

More relevant than ever.

Hello @bsky.app, here's to looking into more #bluesky and beyond... 😉

The thing so frustrating about climate change denial is how straight forward the fundamental science and concepts are. I really should talk about it more.

I do this with cyberpunk a lot. It's not even a top 10 game for me (its fine but some elements just dont hit right) but the city is just fun to walk in. The tiny details of the neon hellscape perfectly sell the idea of corporate dominance

me: open uppp i just want my ice cream my AI-enabled fridge that’s mad at me for accidentally slamming the door earlier: yeah nah I don’t think so buddy

I really hate the constant forcing and pushing of AI into every product. I am currently researching ML applications and it just reeks or industry leaders not knowing (or ignoring) glaring issues with all forms of ML...especially the generative models

“Modern condensed matter physics has no relevance to the average person!” Meanwhile, condensed matter physicists: arxiv.org/abs/2501.00536 ⚛️ 🧪

Origami Black Hole xkcd.com/3033

Happy Hogmanay Folks!

I have a brilliant plan, all I need is: - the copyright to everything - all the money in the world

Mineral Moon 🌙 Subtle colors in the Moon’s surface are due to concentrations of different minerals in the lunar regolith. Reddish brown areas are higher in iron, blue areas are higher in titanium. The colors can be brought out in photos. 🐡🔭

Yet another day of manim testing. Bit tougher with graphs but I'm starting to get it sorted. Want to make a video talking about why and how physicists rely on equations so much and how to interpret them. The foundation is solid but we'll see how it goes 😂

Seeing images of mars' surface leave me in awe. Partly because omg we sent cute robots to get info on a DIFFERENT PLANET But also...lmao Earth > Mars every time. Our planet rules and our geography kicks ass.

Finally Learning #manim for my D&D-science work and managed to animate one of the nicer derivations (that I'm like...60% sure doesn't have any issues in it but I focussed more on animation so there's probably something daft in there)

I love wallace and gromit so much. Humour both elegant and deeply deeply silly

astronomy things people should see in their lifetime: - lunar/solar eclipse - the milky way - meteor shower/comet - northern lights - planets/moon through a telescope

Stop Forcing A.I. into Fucking EVERYTHING!

JWST observed NGC 3627 for the second time. This one was processed by @yuvharpaz.bsky.social nerdculture.de/@yuvharpaz/1... 🔭 🧪

"We are made of stardust, we are a way for the universe to know itself" I am part of the universe and I care

But I do, I hope you see some cool art or science today or something

Today I just said "The End" to a 4 year D&D campaign and NO I AM NOT OK

Yes.

Finally completed my map of the #discworld