Turing's high school teacher (from B. Jack Copeland's biography of Turing). More evidence for @davidbessis.bsky.social's hypothesis: great mathematicians got great by continuously reconstructing everything they were taught, for themselves. This is why Turing invented "the Turing machine" at age 23.

In advance of the Oscars tonight: a lot of comedy heroes let you down. They become unfunny/bitter/closed minded. Conan is the exception. He has grown & evolved & is funnier than he’s ever been. He’s also an extremely kind and lovely human. Just a sincere post to say: Conan rules.

One performance of Gene Hackman’s that’s slept on is that in Crimson Tide. The way he and Denzel Washington play off each other is A+.

TC shouldn’t touch a superhero movie with a ten foot pole. He should be auteur-maxxing: just keep working with visionary directors and fresh and original scripts.

I've written a free and accessible guide to Cephalopod Sentience with Alex Schnell, Piero Amodio and Peter Morse, stunningly illustrated by Roksolana Tkach. Please download and share! It's worth it for the illustrations alone! 🐙 thebrooksinstitute.org/sites/defaul...

Bonus panel here: smbc-comics.com/comic/crossr...

Another insight I had from reading @davidbessis.bsky.social's book. It always puzzled me that the best mathematical minds I knew of did not spend a great deal of time at their desks, slaving away over calculations. They spent a lot of time wandering around, sitting in cafes, chatting with folks...

@davidbessis.bsky.social has written a fascinating book. One important lesson I’m trying to learn from it is to pay really close attention to when a fact or observation is surprising in any way. And to then ask: What about my mental model can be improved to make the fact more obvious & intuitive?