RanaldClouston

RanaldClouston, 1 month ago to scifi

#FinishedReading my favourite #AnnLeckie yet! Just so beautifully handled in its themes, its characters, and its wild and weird alien biology and culture, and with a streak of dark humour and even (sort of) romance to go with it. #Bookstodon @bookstodon #SciFi

RanaldClouston, 1 month ago to random

Now that Threads are starting to federate, are there any interesting logicians / type theorists / category theorists / PL theorists etc there I should be following?

RanaldClouston, 1 month ago to Canberra

Helen Clark is visiting #ANU #Canberra https://www.anu.edu.au/events/in-conversation-with-rt-hon-helen-clark

RanaldClouston, 2 months ago to scifi

#FinishedReading this slim volume of early 50s #SciFi by #AEVanVogt . The goofy title and stories of visiting inhabitable Mars and Venus makes this look like super old fashioned stuff, but that, like much else in this book, is an illusion. This is pure Cold War paranoia, with disorienting temporal and character shifts, mind control drugs, sinister conspiracies etc, and in general this feels like a bridge to the high points of Philip K Dick. #Bookstodon @bookstodon

RanaldClouston, 2 months ago to bookstodon

#FinishedReading my first foray into 18th century literature, although I doubt much of the rest of it reads like this, with its twisted structure, absurd digressions, and typographical jokes. Some of it is incredibly quotable, fresh, and fun; other parts border on incomprehensible as the centuries render the jokes obscure. #Bookstodon @bookstodon #TristramShandy #LaurenceSterne

A page from Tristram Shandy, in which the author describes the progress of the story in various chapters diagrammatically, with meandering looping lines

RanaldClouston, 3 months ago to bookstodon

Tfw when you find parts 2, 3, and 4 of a 4-part series at a second hand book sale, but not part 1 (and then buy them anyway) #LifelineBookfair #KatherineKerr #Bookstodon @bookstodon

RanaldClouston, 3 months ago to Netflix

Just finished watching #Katla and I thought it was beautiful and incredible, and easily the best thing I've seen from #Netflix , even though I don't see many people talking about it (and don't recall much talk about it when it came out in 2021). And because it's a one-off limited series Netflix can't cancel it!

RanaldClouston, 4 months ago to comics

#FinishedReading (well, re-reading): I don't think these books are even close to as famous as Alan Moore's earlier more serious work like V and Watchmen, but I rate them just as highly; the sheer density of characters, interleaving subplots, and visual gags is incredible. #Bookstodon @bookstodon #comics #GeneHa #ZanderCannon

Superhero cops walk onto a bar filled with gods, one of whom (Baldur) lies dead on the floor. Policer officer Smax orders the crowd "Nobody move in a mysterious way..."

RanaldClouston, 4 months ago to bookstodon

#FinishedReading This odd little #CarloRovelli book starts as a quite nice pop sci glance at time in 20th century physics, then shifts to speculations in philosophy of science. It comes with ecstatic blurbs from e.g. Phillip Pullman and Nick Hornby, who (like me) lack expertise to judge the meat of the book. Is it bullshit? Is it original? The whole package, including its sometimes strange language choices (who still uses 'Peking'?) left me intrigued but sceptical. #Bookstodon @bookstodon

RanaldClouston, 4 months ago to bookstodon

Tfw your relative can't decide which of two @ann_leckie books to get, so gets you both 😊 #Bookstodon @bookstodon

RanaldClouston, 4 months ago to boardgames

Finished my second play of my new Christmas board game #SmallWorld by #PhillipeKeyaerts and #DaysOfWonder . My Stout Orcs, Merchant Sorcerers, and Underworld Humans were able to take this one! Such a fun game, with enough strategic depth and difficult decisions to add challenge without feeling heavy. #Boardgames @boardgames

RanaldClouston, 4 months ago to Autism

#FinishedReading comedian #FernBrady 's autobiography. Don't be fooled by her day job and the silly Frankie Boyle blurb on the cover; although there's a lot of wit, this is a traumatic story about being an undiagnosed autistic girl and woman in a society that is often hostile to both autism and women. Not a light read but eye opening for an allistic dad of (thankfully, diagnosed) autistic kids, and definitely recommended. #Bookstodon @bookstodon #Autism

RanaldClouston, 5 months ago to random

This is a cracker of an article from @henryfarrell : "The OpenAI saga is a fight between God and Money; between a quite peculiar quasi-religious movement, and a quite ordinary desire to make cold hard cash" https://crookedtimber.org/2023/11/21/what-openai-shares-with-scientology/

RanaldClouston, 6 months ago to Logic

#AmReading this 1854 book by George #Boole , which summarises his thoughts (first published a few years earlier) on #logic , as well as probability. Boole built the world I live in as a logician (and to extent, the world we all live in in the age of computers) but this is the first time I've read him in the original, so I thought I might make a thread with a few notes in it as I read it over the next few weeks.

RanaldClouston, 6 months ago to ComputerScience

I've been on Mastodon for a year, so it's time for a new pinned #introduction post with an updated dog pic! I'm a lecturer in #computerScience at Australian National University #ANU in #Canberra , #Ngunnawal / #Ngambri country. I research #typeTheory , #logic , #proofTheory and a little #categoryTheory , and teach an intro to programming class in #Haskell . Sometimes I post about work; when I'm busy at work I'm more likely to post about #books , my #labradoodle , and other pleasant distractions

RanaldClouston, 6 months ago (edited 6 months ago) to bookstodon

#FinishedReading this #KimStanleyRobinson #AlternateHistory epic, spanning 600 years (and 772 pages!) after the total depopulation of Europe by the Plague. The story is essentially 10 short stories / novellas across this time, linked by the reincarnation of characters. It did occasionally feel like work - KSR loves characters who lecture, although he usuallly writes about intellectuals for whom this makes sense - but overall I find it rewarding and rich. #Bookstodon @bookstodon

RanaldClouston, 7 months ago to bookstodon

#FinishedReading this (pop science) biography of #Erdős . I laughed out loud several times, as Erdős was both a unique individual and almost the archetypal obsessed / absent-minded mathematician. My favourite story was when surgery on one of his eyes was delayed because he was adamant he wanted to read a mathematics journal with his other eye during the operation. The mathematical content is very accessible but fortunately not completely absent. #Bookstodon @bookstodon

RanaldClouston, 7 months ago to scifi

#FinishedReading one of my absolute favourites as a child when I first got old enough to raid my parents' bookshelves, so a huge nostalgia hit for me in this. This is a classic 70s first contact #SciFi story and fortunately stands up great to re-reading as an adult, apart from the almost total lack of female characters, which I notice these days but I guess didn't concern me as a preteen boy. Still, inventive, surprising, and lots of fun. #Bookstodon @bookstodon #LarryNiven #JerryPournelle

RanaldClouston, 8 months ago to Canberra

Tuggeranong looking pretty today in the sun #Canberra

RanaldClouston, 8 months ago (edited 8 months ago) to Astronomy

#FinishedReading this fascinating look at how indigenous people around the world (but with particular focus on Australia) understand #astronomy , both for storytelling and for practical matters like navigation and tracking seasons - these are not separate concerns, as the stories act in part as mnemonics for the vital skills. Always nice to see references to #ANU scientists, in this case indigenous astronomers @karlienoon and Peter Swanton. #Bookstodon @bookstodon #IndigenousKnowledge

RanaldClouston, 8 months ago to bookstodon

#FinishedReading #JaneAusten 's last book, free courtesy of @gutenberg_org . Loved the humanity and humour, although in the gallery of sparkling characters, including the narrator Anne, is it just me or is Captain Wentworth a bit of a cipher? #Bookstodon @bookstodon

RanaldClouston, 8 months ago to bookstodon

#FinishedReading (as an ebook because I'm travelling) #SamanthaShannon's Roots of Chaos series is epic and stunning, but this series is pure popcorn and feels like she was having a holiday writing it: sexy vampire-esque creatures, magical gangsters, constant twists and betrayals, heapings of supernatural violence; it's the sort of book where a villain's most potent weapon is the enslaved poltergeist of Jack the Ripper. #Bookstodon @bookstodon

RanaldClouston, 8 months ago to Cambridge

I'm enjoying the #Pittsposium in #Cambridge , a workshop in honour of my PhD supervisor Andy Pitts. Loved this talk by Larry Paulson, who advocated for mathematicians to use proof assistants with liberal use of sorry / admitted for parts of proofs they are confident in to avoid burning time on small details, for example the many lines of code required when verifying one sentence proofs in a standard textbook. #ITP

RanaldClouston, 9 months ago to TheCulture

#FinishedReading the last book by #IainBanks , about a group of friends visiting a man dying of cancer, in his condemned house about to be swallowed by the next door quarry. Not quite as grim as it sounds, even though Banks's cancer diagnosis came while he was finishing the book; it argues for the value of meeting terrible things with dark humour and even rage. It feels a bit like a stage play with its restricted setting, small cast, and focus on dialogue and monologue. #Bookstodon @bookstodon

RanaldClouston, 9 months ago to scifi

#FinishedReading a cosy organic farming postapocalypse is visited by a sinister figure in a giant nuclear powered vehicle... and what a great cover by #DexterMaurer . Book was fine but running with a passive and disengaged main character was an odd choice. #JonathanLethem #Bookstodon @bookstodon #SciFi