@futurebird@sauropods.win
@futurebird@sauropods.win avatar

futurebird

@futurebird@sauropods.win

pro-ant propaganda, building electronics, writing sci-fi teaching mathematics & CS. I live in NYC.

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timhutton, to random
@timhutton@mathstodon.xyz avatar

Do all animal's mouths open horizontally?

lritter,
@lritter@mastodon.gamedev.place avatar

@futurebird @timhutton @simon there is a body mapping in the DNA (head to tail) that we share with insects

futurebird,
@futurebird@sauropods.win avatar

@econads @timhutton @simon

Most people seem to assume that and that is their primary function. But, I've watched ants use them like we might use the tips of our fingers to nudge and tap soil in particular.

llewelly,
@llewelly@sauropods.win avatar

@timhutton @simon @futurebird
I think fusion of both sides of the mandibles is the norm in tetrapods generally, but there are a number of notable exceptions, particularly baleen whales, and snakes, which for somewhat different reasons have a highly stretchy muscle there, which allows the two sides to spread very far apart, and yet be able to pull them back together when needed. Then there's Ornithischians and their predentary bone, but I've run out of room.

futurebird, (edited ) to random
@futurebird@sauropods.win avatar

Best movement of “The Planets” by Holst?

mckennas,
@mckennas@chaosfem.tw avatar

@futurebird
We love it, and we'd love it even more if it didn't feel to us like a very clever riff on the Sorcerer's Apprentice! (Which we also love, to be fair.)

Uranus is my favourite, in part because it's underplayed and good fun and a little gremliny, but we get pretty powerful visualisations with Jupiter.

— Maggie

futurebird, (edited ) to random
@futurebird@sauropods.win avatar

Is it "unjust" and "mean" to not let Pica lick (but not even eat) my mozzarella sicks?

Facts:

  1. She has done this before
  2. She won't even eat them, just mouth them.
  3. She has a strong opinion about doing this.
StrangeNoises,
@StrangeNoises@mastodon.social avatar

@futurebird @lisamelton meh, mozzarella sticks aren’t even proper food for a cat anyway; not mean. It would be annoying when a past cat would be like that with smoked salmon though. Because it’s actually quite expensive but I gave her some anyway and then she’d do that.

futurebird,
@futurebird@sauropods.win avatar

@tuckerm

Not an ant... more of a bug.

richpuchalsky,
@richpuchalsky@mastodon.social avatar

@futurebird

In my household we traditionally let all household members vote on these questions (with humans winning ties), and as children grow up and move out and as we get more cats the votes sometimes get a big dicey. For a while we had to play off the dog vote against the cat vote.

futurebird, to random
@futurebird@sauropods.win avatar

Official campaign video says "unified reich" to describe Trump victory.

Campaign blames the intern.

I guess we should be happy they aren't just doubling down and saying "what's wrong with unity" or whatever.

The Intern.

That doesn't explain anything!
Why do you have lil nazi interns? (we know why)

futurebird,
@futurebird@sauropods.win avatar

It's like the scene in Dr. Strangelove where he can't control his arm.

futurebird, (edited )
@futurebird@sauropods.win avatar

@philip_cardella

Between that and the fluoride freak out club Dr. Strangelove is MUCH more relevant of a movie than I'd like it to be.

sings

we'll meet again... don't know where... don't know wheeen...

atomicpoet, to random
@atomicpoet@atomicpoet.org avatar

About to break this open and do some recording. At this point in time, this feels like uncorking a vintage wine bottle.

futurebird, to random
@futurebird@sauropods.win avatar

E-bikes are very cool and I'm glad they are getting popular.

However.

There is a big difference between a crash at 12mph and one at 20mph.

Your ebike can give you injuries normally only found in motorcycle accidents. And there isn't enough advice on what constitutes sufficient maintenance for ebikes.

If you don't get balding tires fixed on a regular bike you could fall off and bruise or break a leg.

At ebike speeds that same fall will shatter your leg in dozens of pieces.

BE CAREFUL

futurebird,
@futurebird@sauropods.win avatar

Keep your tires and breaks in top condition.
The breaks on ebikes wear out very fast since they have to grip tires moving much faster and I don't think they have the ideal material selected for that task as of yet. Do not balk when you find out you need to get new pads every single year if you ride daily.

The same is true of the tires. They wear out fast, and can get smooth and dangerous.

Since you can ride an ebike at 20mph without being an athlete, it's just more dangerous.

djasa,
@djasa@cztwitter.cz avatar

@futurebird @DiegoBeghin

> BE CAREFUL

Very true. I've just finished 9 week sick leave caused by me falling from a bike while doing a routine turn. What was a lot different was the bike - a rental bike with less grippy tires than on my own bike and with unreasonably high pressure at the front wheel, the result was a front wheel slip at dry and clean (!) tarmac resulting in my arm bone being shattered ay the shoulder. 😬

futurebird,
@futurebird@sauropods.win avatar

@viq

Another issue is they are much heavier! Yes when I was a bike messenger I probably broke 20mph on the regular. I was also very fit and when I'd crash (which I did often) I'd just tumble around and grab the bike and get back up.

An ebike can weigh five times as much as a fixie. Even if you use pedal assist, you are still going very fast.

The bike is another object in the crash that can hurt you.

Of course if a car is involved forget it. But I'm talking about solo crashes.

futurebird,
@futurebird@sauropods.win avatar

I know this because I shattered my leg into dozens of pieces. (27 to be exact) that was three years ago. I rode my old fixie around the block for the first time two days ago. Will I ride an e-bike again? maybe?? not being sweaty at work is so worth it. (do NOT talk to me about “wipes”)

But if i get one it will have fancy breaks, frequent maintenance and I’m never going over 15mph again. Too scared.

futurebird, to random
@futurebird@sauropods.win avatar

I have a bit of a problem with buying too many blank journals & notebooks. And as my taste has grown more fancy (I'm a paper snob for the ages) I've realized that I will never write in any of the notebooks on several shelves at home. But they are very nice blank books.

I could have maybe sold them as a lot on ebay for like $50 ... but that's annoying.

I took them to work and put up a little sign on the book cart in the hall "Free blank notebooks. Take one!"

They are all gone! I'm so happy!

futurebird,
@futurebird@sauropods.win avatar

I was a little worried they'd just sit there and someone would be annoyed ... but a bunch of students and teachers like notebooks. Go figure.

And now I'm not stressed about them not being used anymore.

And I can buy some more notebooks that I like better and will use.

(At least I don't have that disease where some people get scared to use a notebook that's "too nice." What's more nice is looking at your old notes in a nice journal... even if some pages are messy or crossed out.)

futurebird, to random
@futurebird@sauropods.win avatar

A big part of programming is boring details, language idiosyncrasies. For example, I wanted a java program to tell me the coordinates of the last mouse click. In Swing presents more options than I want— it’s too much control. So I have StdDraw to make the graphics & UI options less complicated: even then it wouldn’t work until I added pauses— This took like an hour.

How do I teach this miserable skill whatever it is?
You know it can be done, you keep isolating & eliminating until it works.

inthehands,
@inthehands@hachyderm.io avatar

@futurebird Ah, this is so much of my teaching life!

I think the answer to your question is “lots of practice.” Specifically, practice in the context of problems that have enough flexibility, open-endedness, and self-direction to be investigatory tasks (as opposed to contrived problems that •will• have a correct answer). Ain’t no substitute.

1/

inthehands,
@inthehands@hachyderm.io avatar

@futurebird If that’s the case, what can an instructor do?

(1) Create contexts where this learning can happen.

(2) Be available to help get students unstuck once they’re in a good pickle, modeling the necessary problem-solving in the process.

There’s lots of specific meta-learning that can support this, both structured and informal, but that’s the heart of it there. I could go on for approximately another 6000 posts, but will stop there. Happy to answer Qs if you want.

2/2

futurebird, to random
@futurebird@sauropods.win avatar

Imagine architecture for creatures who easily climb vertical surfaces: a main entrance for a building could be in the center of the 2nd or 3rd floor— heck, you might not have floors, rather a system of depth: the number of major chambers from the main entrance— Theater ‘in the round?’ Try theatre in the sphere! Meeting rooms would have ceiling seats for the interns…

(If creatures are climbers & have fair sight the tension between natural light & space-efficiency produces incredible spaces)

darabos,
@darabos@mastodon.online avatar

@futurebird I only saw this second post and not the first one. I was still on board with it. Some opera houses are most of the way there already. Let me sit on the ceiling!!!

roberthurdman, to minimalism
@roberthurdman@mastodon.online avatar

I saw this on a bumper sticker today. I love it so much.

futurebird,
@futurebird@sauropods.win avatar

@roberthurdman

“The next big thing will be a lot of small things..”
🐜🐜🐜🐜🐜❤️

larryfeltonj, to Cats
@larryfeltonj@journa.host avatar

The Cobb County Courier's Cat of the Day, selected from the Cobb Animal Shelter website, is a sweet-tempered medium-sized male gray tabby domestic short hair who came to the shelter as a stray

https://cobbcountycourier.com/2024/05/cobb-county-courier-cat-of-the-day-ive-been-living-on-the-street-but-now-im-ready-to-settle-down/

futurebird, to random
@futurebird@sauropods.win avatar

I’ve been putting off making this post because it’s not what I wanted to report and I’m disappointed. A few weeks back my Dorymyrmex bureni colony showed tantalizing signs of a miraculous recovery from the loss of their queen. I love this colony, I wanted it to be true— (Antdrew on formiculture.com tried to warn me not to be too optimistic: Just because female workers continued to emerge weeks after the queen died did not guarantee the new queen were fertile.) He was right.

1/

futurebird,
@futurebird@sauropods.win avatar

For the past two weeks all the new workers have been tiny males. It’s exciting to see & record the male form of this species: I will have a set of all casts in my pinning box… but these winged boys mean it is likely the end of the line for this colony. If only I could take them down to Florida so they could fly!

I’m going to update my old posts about the matter; see if I can find another queen, keeping these ants has been a wonderful adventure and they have and continue to teach me so much. 2/2

futurebird, to random
@futurebird@sauropods.win avatar

What is the best explanation you’ve heard for 1 not being a prime number? For me it’s “because it breaks everything in my programs since the loops won’t terminate” but that’s obtuse. “Because the God of math decrees it so!” is compelling, but shallow.

“it can only be divided by 1 distinct number” is contrived.

1 “feels” prime— it has the fewest factors. (Primeness being about NOT having factors) ruling it out for having too few? eh.

“it’s the zero of multiplication” is better… thoughts?

IngaLovinde,
@IngaLovinde@embracing.space avatar

@futurebird one more way to thing about it: imagine a half-line of points / vectors with non-negative integer coordinates. There is a zero, and there is a "smallest" (cannot be represented as sum of two others) vector, 1.
Now imagine a quarter-plane, there will be two "smallest" vectors besides zero. They're interesting because we can represent any other vector in our quarter-plane as a sum of these "smallest" vectors (and not just sum but an unique sum). Of course we're interested in smallest non-zero vectors, otherwise zero vector would be the only smallest one. What we're interested in are "generating" vectors, those that define a shape of that quarter-plane and its content, and zero vector doesn't define anything.
We can then do the same exercise with 1/8th of 3-dimensional space, etc.
Now extend this to the space with countably many dimensions (and vectors with finite number of non-zero coordinates). And define the mapping between this space and positive integers: vector with a_i coordinate at ith place is converted to the product of ith prime numbers to the a_ith degree. Then vector addition turns into integer multiplication, "smallest" vectors turn into their respective primes, and origin / zero vector is converted to 1.
1 is a prime in the same sense as zero is the smallest vectors, but this doesn't get is anywhere, we're interested in smallest non-zero vectors, those that generate everything else.

jbqueru,
@jbqueru@fosstodon.org avatar

@winter @glitzersachen @futurebird Yeah, the definition of "only divisible by 1 and itself" is only valid for natural numbers, but gets weird in larger sets. E.g. if you include negative numbers, 2 is still a prime, but it is divisible by 2, -2, 1 and -1.

(and, weirdly, 2 is not a prime in gaussian integers, since it is (1+i)*(1-i))

futurebird, (edited ) to random
@futurebird@sauropods.win avatar

The bald eagle could have easily gone extinct. But we did all sorts of "woke" things protecting it legally, ran conservation and study programs, banned DDT (that was good for other reasons too) and in 2007 they were removed from the endangered species list.

Likewise pine forests could be dead from acid rain.

The ozone could have a huge hole.

We CAN take care of nature when we want to. And the successes have been worth it.

I feel like we forget this, you know?

mister914,
@mister914@masto.ai avatar

@futurebird The endangered species act was passed 92-0 in the senate, 390-12 in the house and signed by Nixon. The ban of DDT was by the EPA under Nixon and EPA administrator Ruckelshaus, a Republican. The Montreal Protocol banned CFCs in 1989. It was widely supported as it has been ratified by every country in the UN.

It is inspiring to see that people do come together when motivated.

enog, to wildlife
@enog@masto.ai avatar

Baby Robins, almost ready to take off from our porch 🥳
Sorry, just one picture, and I won’t bother you anymore.
Last year, we had Mourning doves, this year, Robins 😊

#Robin #Wildlife #Birds

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