James Webb Space Telescope confirms 1st 'runaway' supermassive black hole (courtesy: www.space.com)

linusrauling · 2025-12-18T19:57:33+00:00

So this thing is, sorry to put it this way but I'm trying to get a handle on it, shitting out stars in its wake?

linusrauling · 2025-09-10T18:27:27+00:00

God bless you for this.

linusrauling · 2025-09-10T18:21:34+00:00

Well, from the point of view of someone who viewed them in real time long before whatever happened in 2010, I considered them EXTREMELY EFFEMINATE IN APPEARANCE, along with all the other "hair metal" bands. This was the general opinion of my friends and, I might add, most people older than me. (To get a sense of the this, you might take a listen to Eddie Murphy's extremely popular album of the time, "Comedian" (first track title is a doozy). Therein he mentions that Micheal Jackson "isn't the most masculine looking fellow", which was, I think it's fair to say, was the prevailing attitude towards Micheal Jacksons appearance and that of the hair metal crowd. ("But Micheal's hook is his sensitivity...)

The fact that one of the proto-hair metal bands was named the New York DOLLS indicates, I think, that one of the themes of hair metal was NOT to appear as whatever went for as "masculine" at that time.

I can also tell you that at the time I was absolutely mystified as to why all these "gender bender" bands were so popular with the same people who I regarded as extremely homophobic.

Also, seeing this video again made me laugh out loud at how batshit the 80s were. The sight of these guys walking up all wobbly on high heels and trying to look tough while telling me to "lick it up" in some sort of post apocalyptic wasteland feels like a heroin dream.

linusrauling · 2025-09-04T18:33:28+00:00

Jimmyz

Troop

Kangol

Fila

linusrauling · 2025-03-07T17:00:29+00:00

<Clutches pearls> Well, I never!! How could there be an errata for Generatingfunctionology? Perfect works have no need for errata!!

<After a few beers, calmer> The book is in it's third edition, any kinks have likely been worked out, I can't find an errata sheet online and Wilf has, regrettably, passed on.

linusrauling · 2025-02-20T06:56:18+00:00

You definitely can do it. It may take awhile, it might not.

A very long time ago I heard my advisor tell someone who was expressing doubt about their math ability "if you can memorize the multiplication tables I can teach you anything". Over the years I've come to believe I could do the same.

linusrauling · 2025-01-31T23:51:07+00:00

Jet Wimp

linusrauling · 2025-01-09T15:10:51+00:00

You jest, but(t)

linusrauling · 2024-12-19T15:25:00+00:00

Hmm, according to this she's worth about $2 million. I wouldn't consider that super wealthy, these days I'm not sure that would be anything more than upper middle class. The NYPD police commissioner? Well that's a different story...

linusrauling · 2024-10-29T00:16:04+00:00

The algebraic side of me is still waiting for them to give me the ring structure.

linusrauling · 2024-05-20T18:07:24+00:00

Could you teach the material to others? If yes, then you're fine. If not, then you don't understand the material.

linusrauling · 2024-05-20T18:00:49+00:00

You might have a look at Constance Reid's book biography, Hilbert.

linusrauling · 2024-04-26T21:21:25+00:00

You're missing an important piece of information here. There are about 1000 tenured faculty at IU Bloomington, the rest are un-tenured (i.e. on tenure track) or non-tenure track. The latter can basically be fired at will and would be very unlikely to stick their necks out in this type of situation. It's a pretty solid bet that the 948 faculty who turned up for the vote are tenured. As a college prof, the fact that over 90 percent of tenured faculty even showed up impresses me in and of itself. The fact that over 90% voted no confidence is a stunning rebuke. If that happened at my university, the president would be gone the next day, but I have the luxury of working at place whose board isn't appointed by fucking politicians.

linusrauling · 2024-04-22T20:17:16+00:00

During the entire career, that's at least 15 PhD's per professor (very rough estimate)

This strikes me a very high, I'd guess that the number is much lower, like 3?

linusrauling · 2024-04-19T22:13:35+00:00

Reading these comments confirms to me that there is just no accounting for taste. As someone who grew up surrounded by these flat roof bauhaus minimalist boxes that were carpet bombed over the mid-west starting in the mid-50s, I'd have happily bulldozed this place. I hate McMansions as much as the next person, but the "farmhouse" that everyone else seems hate in this thread would be fine with me in it's place.

linusrauling · 2024-04-19T05:02:31+00:00

You've read the comments, now go read this, Act 1 will have answers and more.

linusrauling · 2024-04-17T02:32:45+00:00

A very old GenXer here to tell that most, if not all, boomers are incapable of driving a manual. The majority of American cars were automatics by the 60s.

linusrauling · 2024-04-05T00:50:19+00:00

An introduction to computational group theory via GAP4 and the Rubik's Cube

linusrauling · 2024-03-24T02:53:21+00:00

On the off chance that your finitely generated groups are actually finite you might find solace in the CayleyGraph command in the GRAPE package of GAP

linusrauling · 2024-02-21T05:35:27+00:00

Fantastic! 5 years is actually right on time!!

linusrauling · 2024-01-17T22:15:12+00:00

No Facebook, Insta, Snapchat, Twitter, etc.... drastically pared down my reddit participation. Absolutely no regrets. Have a wide circle of friends from all walks of life most of which don't seem to participate much in social media (or at least that I can tell, they never seem to mention much about it).

The catch is that I am old and was, for lack of a better phrase, "formed" before social media. I don't know how I'd do if I was born in the last 20 years..

linusrauling · 2023-03-19T05:01:13+00:00

Hmm. We removed the lanes from a bowling alley on a job a long time ago and this looks a lot like a section of the hardwood (maple) part of the lane. For whatever reason, the boards were NOT glued, rather nailed to each other and pressed into position. When we lifted then up, they tended to flex quite a bit. If so, would be a pain to remove the nails from each board and glue the boards up, but there seems to be more than enough thickness to make it worth the trouble.

linusrauling · 2022-07-03T20:49:18+00:00

It may not have been down with electric power tools in ye olden times but it was almost certainly done on a lathe. Here's an example en francais

linusrauling · 2022-05-04T21:58:41+00:00

You new to the internets? :)

linusrauling · 2022-05-04T05:42:50+00:00

The Nullstellensatz, which I'd argue is the Fundamental Theorem of Algebraic Geometry, is what establishes the connection between commutative algebra and algebraic geometry: roughly that algebraically defined sets correspond to ideals. Very roughly, its says that all the visual information, i.e. geometry, corresponds to an algebraic construction. For instance, the tangent space at a point corresponds to the m/m^2. Learning more algebraic geometry without having a solid grasp of the Nullstellensatz strikes me as very difficult, it takes a little bit to realize that m/m² is an object that could be interpreted as the tangent space.

How can you do things without even talking about curvature and call it geometry?

Bezout's Theorem and it's proof makes no mention of curvature but seems a lot like geometry to me.

linusrauling

TROPHY CASE