@RanaldClouston@fediscience.org
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RanaldClouston

@RanaldClouston@fediscience.org

Lecturer in Computer Science at Australian National University.

He/him.

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RanaldClouston, to bookstodon
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Tfw your relative can't decide which of two @ann_leckie books to get, so gets you both ๐Ÿ˜Š @bookstodon

RanaldClouston, to boardgames
@RanaldClouston@fediscience.org avatar

Finished my second play of my new Christmas board game by and . 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

RanaldClouston, to Autism
@RanaldClouston@fediscience.org avatar

comedian '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

RanaldClouston, to scifi
@RanaldClouston@fediscience.org avatar

on my beach holiday 's selection of short from 1997. His collections seem to be always great although this is not his most diverse by authors or themes; a lot of uploading oneself into virtual reality in the air in 1997! My favourites were by @gregeganSF , Brian Stapleford, Carolyn Ives Gilman, Walter Jon Williams, Ian McDonald, and Gregory Benford & Elisabeth Malartre. @bookstodon

RanaldClouston, to random
@RanaldClouston@fediscience.org avatar

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, to Logic
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this 1854 book by George , which summarises his thoughts (first published a few years earlier) on , 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,
@RanaldClouston@fediscience.org avatar

Before I get to the book itself, note that while Boole was revolutionary, the revolution didn't catch on quickly; this precious family heirloom, a logic textbook signed by my great-great grandfather in 1885, mostly focuses on logic as Aristotle would have understood it. It does, in fact, cover Boole, but mostly to complain that his work is obscure and unnecessarily mathematical!

Half a page of a book, focusing on the section 'Boole's System of Logic': "It would not in the least be possible to give in an elementary work a notion of the system of indirect inference first discovered by the late Dr Boole... The process as actually employed by him is very obscure and difficult ; and hardly any attempt to introduce it into elementary text-books of Logic has yet been made."
Hand-written inscription inside an old book: John Porteus, 11 Barony Street, Edinburgh, 1885

RanaldClouston,
@RanaldClouston@fediscience.org avatar

's propositions do not range merely across 0 and 1, as often presented today, but across subsets of all objects in the universe (or some agreed upon universe of discourse). If this sounds like Boolean Algebra, you're half right; conjunction is indeed intersection, but disjunction (which he writes +) is disjoint union, so x+y is not meaningfully defined in general, as with x/y in arithmetic (as y might be 0). This strikes me as something which might cause trouble later.

RanaldClouston,
@RanaldClouston@fediscience.org avatar

develops by close analogy with arithmetic, though he is at pains to say this is mere analogy and there is no a priori reason the rules should be the same. So while we usually think of logic as being about entailment, Boole virtually ignores it in the early going and makes equality primary; see the attached proof of the principle of contradiction (here 1 stands for the whole universe, and x - y, defined only if y is a subset of x, is set difference), with its arithmetical flavour.

RanaldClouston,
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This footnote is an example of the arithmetical approach to making life terrible for ; given that xยฒ (i.e. x and x) = x is an axiom, shouldn't xยณ = x hold? Apparently not, as xยณ - x = 0 'factorises' into gibberish terms like 1 + x (we can't add new things to the universe), or -1, which has no meaning at all (not to be confused with the negation of 1, which is 1 - 1 = 0). I must admit to my doubts about the well-definedness of this whole enterprise!

RanaldClouston,
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@johncarlosbaez right; although Boole's logic does not form a Boolean ring. + is not xor, but rather is a partial operation that is undefined if the left and right have intersecting denotations

RanaldClouston, to ComputerScience
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I've been on Mastodon for a year, so it's time for a new pinned post with an updated dog pic! I'm a lecturer in at Australian National University in , / country. I research , , and a little , and teach an intro to programming class in . Sometimes I post about work; when I'm busy at work I'm more likely to post about , my , and other pleasant distractions

RanaldClouston, (edited ) to bookstodon
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this 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

emarktaylor, to Rugby
@emarktaylor@thecanadian.social avatar

๐Ÿ‰ ๐Ÿ‡ณ๐Ÿ‡ฟ ๐Ÿ‡ฟ๐Ÿ‡ฆ @rugby

I don't think Israel Dagg will be sending Wayne Barnes a Christmas card this year.

RanaldClouston,
@RanaldClouston@fediscience.org avatar

@emarktaylor @rugby it's a bit of tantrum isn't it? He keeps going on about 'malice' but the ref isn't obliged to mind read the players' minds to establish motivation; it's whether the actions are legal or not

RanaldClouston,
@RanaldClouston@fediscience.org avatar

@philippsteinkrueger @emarktaylor @rugby some penalties and sanctions in the rules do talk about intentions, but most of the dangerous play ones don't: https://www.world.rugby/the-game/laws/law/9 'Malice' would not have been considered a relevant factor to judging the first three cards in the final

Private
RanaldClouston,
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@philippsteinkrueger @rugby the English sports media are reliably ridiculous; their teams are always heroes or relentlessly attacked, and their status can flip on a single result. Still, I don't blame the team for choosing the game plan most likely to win for them; but it would never have worked for them two weeks in a row against quality opposition

Fanua, to mastodon
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Nice to see all the chatter on . Sadly, my Manu didn't make it out of the pool stage. So, backing another team .

RanaldClouston,
@RanaldClouston@fediscience.org avatar

@Fanua @rugby yes, they were. A near record winning streak speaks for itself

luciedigitalni, to random
@luciedigitalni@aus.social avatar

Do I know any NZers who want to tell me what's the best coverage and how to access it from the Wist Island?

RanaldClouston,
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@luciedigitalni I'm watching https://www.youtube.com/user/radionz

RanaldClouston, to bookstodon
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this (pop science) biography of . I laughed out loud several times, as Erdล‘s 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

otherdog, to bookstodon
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I have been so intimidated to start this (been on my shelf for months) but I think with the weather getting cooler and the nights longer, itโ€™s time. @bookstodon

RanaldClouston,
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@otherdog @bookstodon I liked it a lot, although I did skip the chapter written from the viewpoint of Lucia Joyce, which I found to be pretty unreadable; thankfully not too much in the plot required it.

Private
RanaldClouston,
@RanaldClouston@fediscience.org avatar

@ouaterebreak @sticklandtim @rugby right, that already exists, and is an important driver for umproving standards in tier 2 European rugby. But there's no mobility between 6 Nations and the rest of Euro rugby

ZachWeinersmith, to random
@ZachWeinersmith@mastodon.social avatar

Seriously though, what is this new thing with celebrities selling branded liquor?

RanaldClouston,
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@ZachWeinersmith https://gourmantic.com/acdc-the-wine-collection/

RanaldClouston, to scifi
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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 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

FrancescaJ, to random
@FrancescaJ@mastodon.nz avatar

I honestly feel watching the lose by that much should be more fun. Was it because I live in Aus in now or was it just not a scintillating game of rugby?

RanaldClouston,
@RanaldClouston@fediscience.org avatar

@FrancescaJ I like the All Blacks to be a bit better than the Wallabies, but a complete collapse in standards for Australian rugby is not really in our interests given how intertwined our rugby is (Super rugby & Bledisloe) @rugby

ct_bergstrom, (edited ) to random
@ct_bergstrom@fediscience.org avatar

AITA, academic publishing edition.

Journal sends a review back to me because as reviewer I did not run the code and replicate the results.

My reply: "As an unpaid anonymous peer reviewer who handles probably 30 manuscripts a year, I am absolutely not in the position of running and evaluating code any more than I am in the position of running gels to evaluate lab results. If this is important to you, I suspect you can find a consultant who will do it at a reasonable rate."

Am I the asshole?

RanaldClouston,
@RanaldClouston@fediscience.org avatar

@ct_bergstrom some computer science conferences have a separate artefact evaluation committee to handle exactly this sort of job.

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