@matthewconroy@mathstodon.xyz
@matthewconroy@mathstodon.xyz avatar

matthewconroy

@matthewconroy@mathstodon.xyz

I'm a mathematics teaching professor in Seattle. I taught discrete modeling for a bunch of years, but I'm back teaching calculus currently. I spend a lot of time making sound and visual art, often algorithmically.

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bit101, to random
@bit101@mstdn.social avatar

Through a comedy of errors while walking my dog through a field today, I wound up falling flat on my back. It didn't help my torn rotator cuff any.

I'm glad nobody else was around because A. it must have looked pretty damn ridiculous, and B. I swore a lot, and loudly.

matthewconroy,
@matthewconroy@mathstodon.xyz avatar

@bit101 I'm sorry to hear that. I fell on my back (butt, really) a few months ago, and I found it very shocking. I hope you don't feel too much worse than you already were!

matthewconroy, (edited ) to random
@matthewconroy@mathstodon.xyz avatar

Grading exams: it pains me to see some of my Calc II students using the quadratic formula to solve (b^2-3b=0).

matthewconroy,
@matthewconroy@mathstodon.xyz avatar

@lulu_powerful More prone to error - yes!

12pt9, to movies
@12pt9@horrorhub.club avatar

I just logged Altered States, 1980 - ★★★½ Watched on Saturday May 18, 2024. (Tags in link may contain spoilers and artwork may be NSFW) https://letterboxd.com/12pt9/film/altered-states/1/

matthewconroy,
@matthewconroy@mathstodon.xyz avatar

@12pt9 I watched this again in January for the first time in decades; I've done a lot of floating (though never with hallucinogens), and wanted to see how it was represented. I gave it ★ 1/2.

AlgoCompSynth, to ExperimentalMusic
@AlgoCompSynth@toplap.org avatar

RIP Larry Polansky

https://slippedisc.com/2024/05/death-of-a-us-composer-69/

#ExperimentalMusic

matthewconroy, (edited )
@matthewconroy@mathstodon.xyz avatar

@AlgoCompSynth This saddens me. I knew Larry for a short while back in the late 90s. He let me sit in on his graduate seminar on timbre, and I learned a lot from him, and he seemed a very nice person.

zebulonmysterioso, to random
@zebulonmysterioso@mas.to avatar

How come we have machines that can gut, fillet and completely debone 99% of fish but it's still impossible to remove the stalks from a bag of kale or greens?

matthewconroy,
@matthewconroy@mathstodon.xyz avatar

@zebulonmysterioso There is this: https://www.kronen.eu/en/solutions/grape-destemming-machine-gdm-35

Skepticat, to random
@Skepticat@mstdn.social avatar

King Charles reveals his official portrait.

It's kind of wild.

https://www.bbc.com/news/entertainment-arts-68981200

matthewconroy,
@matthewconroy@mathstodon.xyz avatar

@Skepticat That is...surprising.

paul_griffin, to random
@paul_griffin@mastodon.online avatar

Doing some test printing of a couple blocks from my current project today. A bit disappointed in how transparent the yellow is, so I may need to try a different ink. Putting yellow over black is a pretty tall order.

My blocks were out of alignment on initial test prints, but it looks like the solution I ginned up has solved that, which is the main thing this test run was for.

Still so much to do, but getting there!

matthewconroy,
@matthewconroy@mathstodon.xyz avatar

@paul_griffin Awesome!

matthewconroy, to Sleeping
@matthewconroy@mathstodon.xyz avatar

In a dream last night, John Cage told me I should shorten my CV.

18+ garland, to random
@garland@social.seattle.wa.us avatar

Platelet donation day.

matthewconroy,
@matthewconroy@mathstodon.xyz avatar

@garland Thank you!

cian, to stackoverflow
@cian@post.lurk.org avatar

Setting up multiple accounts on StackOverflow. Going to flood it with stupid questions and even stupider answers.

matthewconroy,
@matthewconroy@mathstodon.xyz avatar

@cian Why?

matthewconroy,
@matthewconroy@mathstodon.xyz avatar

@cian Ah, I see. Yeah, that sucks.

WillardHerman, to random
@WillardHerman@mastodon.social avatar

I’ve been making music as a form of expression, since the very first of my albums.

After drawn by today, I realized that there isn’t enough music I really like listening to while I draw.

Maybe I should make my music, FOR ME to listen to while I draw?

It seems to me to be an odd idea.

matthewconroy,
@matthewconroy@mathstodon.xyz avatar

@WillardHerman I think this is a great idea!

autumn, to cycling
@autumn@triangletoot.party avatar

new handlebar tape day! only took me five zillion rewraps to get the figure 8 right.

matthewconroy,
@matthewconroy@mathstodon.xyz avatar

@autumn Nice work! I've recently rewrapped my bars, and I'm going to be redoing the left side for the third time soon! I'll get it right yet! Cheers!

zebulonmysterioso, to random
@zebulonmysterioso@mas.to avatar

Ah, no, not Steve Albini.

matthewconroy,
@matthewconroy@mathstodon.xyz avatar

@zebulonmysterioso This sucks.

WillardHerman, to philosophy
@WillardHerman@mastodon.social avatar

The world Philipp Mainländer describes in “The Philosophy of Redemption” is the world I know.

I see myself as a adherent of Mainländer.

Mainländer described the world that I experienced for most of my life. There are several ideas and images of his which were part of my inner world. Before, I had no way of seeing them clearly.

matthewconroy,
@matthewconroy@mathstodon.xyz avatar

@WillardHerman I've not heard of this work before. Sounds interesting.

paul_griffin, to random
@paul_griffin@mastodon.online avatar

Genuinely impressed at how many things have gone wrong in the last 4 weeks. I know no one needs to hear all this, but I just need to scream it into the void for a moment:

  • blown out tire
  • cat was injured by an unknown animal
  • stove died
  • house's main water line burst
  • house's a/c condenser unit died
  • sudden toothache that will require a root canal
  • leak in ceiling

And just when I thought I had my head around everything that needs attention, the washing machine died this evening 🫠

matthewconroy,
@matthewconroy@mathstodon.xyz avatar

@paul_griffin Wow, that's a terrible list! I hope things get better for you soon.

zebulonmysterioso, to random
@zebulonmysterioso@mas.to avatar

I was wondering who John Mulaney is and came across this dubious entry on his Wikipedia. I didn't realise Conan O'Brien's show was an open mic.

matthewconroy,
@matthewconroy@mathstodon.xyz avatar

@zebulonmysterioso I just edited the page and removed that.

eeen, to photography
@eeen@mastodon.social avatar

monochrome flower, 1 of 6

#Photography #BlackAndWhite #BlackAndWhitePhotography #Monochrome #minimalism #abstractphotography #abstract #bloomscrolling

matthewconroy,
@matthewconroy@mathstodon.xyz avatar

@eeen Beautiful.

GillesLeCorre2, to random French
@GillesLeCorre2@toot.aquilenet.fr avatar

Je vais me raser, Cat est déjà dans la salle de bain…

👋 🤗 👋 🤗 👋 🤗

matthewconroy,
@matthewconroy@mathstodon.xyz avatar

@GillesLeCorre2 Je ne savais pas qu'on pouvait raser nos chats !

WillardHerman, to random
@WillardHerman@mastodon.social avatar

Skill in art is overrated.

matthewconroy,
@matthewconroy@mathstodon.xyz avatar

@WillardHerman I see. I thought your statement would be a good conversation starter, with both "art" and "skills" (and maybe "overrated", too) being rather difficult terms to define in satisfying ways. Cheers!

matthewconroy,
@matthewconroy@mathstodon.xyz avatar

@WillardHerman The question "What is art?" has been written about extensively for a very long time. This article has some interesting things, for example: https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/art-definition/ Skill in this context I think is difficult to define as a result of the difficulty of defining art: we might say skill is the ability to do something "well": but it is not at all clear what "well" means in art, since, just as art itself is difficult to define, what constitutes "good art" is even harder.

I'm not sure what your original statement meant. I can see at least two interpretations: (1) acquiring skills is not as helpful in the creation of art as some suppose, so building up skill is "overrated" as a path toward being a good artist, and (2) people judge art too heavily from the point of view of whether or not they think that the artist had "skill": as though starting from the axiom that only skilled artists can make art. Is either of these interpretations close to what you had in mind? You wrote "skill gets the way of what is said"; is that because people judge the art by thinking about much skill the artist had rather than what the art "says" (so kind of like my (2))? Or is it that artists worry about looking skillful and that gets in the way of saying meaningful things?

Cheers!

matthewconroy,
@matthewconroy@mathstodon.xyz avatar

@WillardHerman Cy Twombly said something similar about "having an experience":In the only written statement Mr. Twombly ever made about his work, a short essay in an Italian art journal in 1957, he tried to make clear that his intentions were not subversive but elementally human. Each line he made, he said, was "the actual experience" of making the line, adding: "It does not illustrate. It is the sensation of its own realization." Years later, he described this more plainly. "It's more like I'm having an experience than making a picture," he said." https://www.askart.com/artist/Cy_Edwin_Parker_Jr_Twombly/30112/Cy_Edwin_Parker_Jr_Twombly.aspx I definitely feel something similar, on a good drawing day, at least in terms of what I value: I value the experience of having drawn, and seen, more than the thing I made on paper.

matthewconroy, to random
@matthewconroy@mathstodon.xyz avatar

My first linocut print in years. 4x5 inch block on 8x10 inch paper. January 2024. Let me know if you want one!

Several linocut prints with the words "you like art with words on it" in black.

matthewconroy,
@matthewconroy@mathstodon.xyz avatar

@WillardHerman What kind of prints did you make? Why'd you stop?

matthewconroy,
@matthewconroy@mathstodon.xyz avatar

@WillardHerman Thank you for relating your story. Health problems suck. I'm glad that you are drawing.

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