Elidia Tafoya, MPH

Truth is independent of facts always! Higher education. Dog lover. Public Health supporter. Bay Area tourist guide. Wife. Profesh Mother @Stanford. My opinions

[All Fútbol MX 🇲🇽 @AllFutbolMX]

An emotional video featuring every Mexico player who participated at the 2026 World Cup thanking the fans for all their love and support during the tournament. ❤️‍🩹🥺🏆

[NextMex @NextMexOficial]

🇺🇸🏀 A HISTORIC DAY FOR MEXICO! 🇲🇽

Karim López has made history by becoming the first Mexico-born player ever selected in an NBA Draft

🏀 The Mexican star was selected with the No. 21 overall pick in the first round by the Detroit Pistons, but will join the Memphis Grizzlies following a pre-arranged trade

👏 A historic moment for Mexican basketball and an inspiration for future generations.

👏 Mexico celebrates with you, Karim! Congratulations and welcome to the next chapter of your journey

[All Fútbol MX 🇲🇽 @AllFutbolMX]

THE MEXICAN NATIONAL ANTHEM OFFICIALLY ECHOES AT THE ESTADIO AKRON FOR THE FIRST TIME EVER AT A FIFA WORLD CUP! 🏟️

GOOSEBUMPS. ❤️🏆

[Elidia Tafoya, MPH @LidiaLunaC]

I’m enrolled in Motion's Creative Strategy Summit 🌱 by @motionapp_

Wanna join? Register for free here: https://t.co/aFwukQ09qw

[The Associated Press @AP]

Mexico is embracing its ancient ballgame, ulama, as it prepares to co-host the 2026 FIFA World Cup. This 3,400-year-old sport, nearly erased during the Spanish conquest, is gaining attention alongside international soccer.

[CA State Parks @CAStateParks]

Have you seen this blue voyager along California beaches? The colorful & mysterious Valella valella, known by many as by-the-wind sailors, are propelled by shifting currents & winds. Seen at Carlsbad State Beach, look down as they can deliver a sting (not dangerous to human).

[Yasir Ai @AiwithYasir]

PAPER:
https://t.co/AkgzBxi7jX

[Ihtesham Ali @ihteshamali]

An MIT professor taught the same math course for 62 years, and the day he retired, students from every country on earth showed up online to watch him give his final lecture.

I opened the playlist at 2am and ended up watching three of them back to back.

His name is Gilbert Strang. The course is MIT 18.06 Linear Algebra.

Every machine learning engineer, every data scientist, every quant, every self-taught programmer who actually understands how AI works learned the math from this one man. Most of them never set foot on MIT's campus. They just opened a free playlist on YouTube and let him teach.

Here's the story almost nobody tells you.

Strang joined the MIT math faculty in 1962. He retired in 2023. That is 61 years of standing at the same chalkboard teaching the same subject to 18-year-olds.

The interesting part is what he did when MIT launched OpenCourseWare in 2002. Most professors were skeptical. They worried that putting their lectures online would make their classrooms irrelevant. Strang did not hesitate. He said his life's mission was to open mathematics to students everywhere. He filmed every lecture and gave it away.

The decision quietly changed how the world learns math.

For decades linear algebra was taught the wrong way. Professors started with abstract vector spaces and proofs about field axioms. Students drowned in the abstraction. Most never recovered. They walked out believing they were bad at math when they had simply been taught in an order that nobody's brain is built to absorb.

Strang inverted the entire curriculum.

He started with matrix multiplication. Something you can write down on paper. Something you can compute by hand. Something you can see. Then he showed his students that everything else in linear algebra eigenvectors, singular value decomposition, orthogonality, the four fundamental subspaces was just a different lens for understanding what the matrix was actually doing under the hood.

His rule was strict. If a student could not explain a concept using a concrete 3 by 3 example, that student did not actually understand the concept yet. The abstraction was supposed to come last, not first. The intuition was the foundation. The proofs were just confirmation that the intuition was correct.

The second thing Strang changed was the classroom itself. He said please and thank you to his students. Every single lecture. He paused mid-derivation to ask "am I OK?" to check if anyone was lost. He never used the word "obviously" or "trivially" because he knew exactly what those words do to a student who is one step behind. He treated 19-year-olds learning math for the first time the way he treated his own colleagues. With patience. With respect. With the assumption that they belonged in the room.

For 62 years.

The result is something that has never happened in the history of education. A single math professor became the default teacher of his subject for the entire planet.

Universities in India, China, Brazil, Nigeria, every country with a computer science department, started telling their own students to just watch Strang's lectures. The University of Illinois revised its linear algebra course to do almost no in-person lecturing. The reason was honest. The professor said they could not compete with the videos.

His final lecture was in May 2023.

The auditorium was packed with students who had never met him before. He walked to the chalkboard, taught for an hour, and at the end the entire room stood and applauded. He looked confused for a moment, like he genuinely did not understand why they were cheering. Then he smiled and waved them off and walked out.

His written comment under the YouTube video of that final lecture was four sentences long. He said teaching had been a wonderful life. He said he was grateful to everyone who saw the importance of linear algebra. He said the movement of teaching it well would continue because it was right.

That was it. No book promotion. No farewell speech. No legacy management.

The man whose teaching is the foundation of modern AI just thanked the audience and went home.

20 million views. Zero ego. The entire engine of the AI revolution sits on top of math that millions of people learned for free from one quiet professor in Cambridge.

The course is still on MIT OpenCourseWare. Every lecture, every problem set, every exam, every solution. Free.

The most important math course of the 21st century is sitting one click away from you. Most people will never open it.

[The Hollywood Reporter @THR]

Eva Longoria, John Leguizamo and Xochitl Gomez are among a group of over 100 Latino actors, artists and storytellers who have signed an open letter urging Hollywood to increase Latino voices across all avenues of the entertainment industry. https://t.co/WGVlFFvXgE

[NFL @NFL]

Mike Tomlin stepping down as head coach of Steelers after 19 seasons.

[Elidia Tafoya, MPH @LidiaLunaC]

El Choli

[Elidia Tafoya, MPH @LidiaLunaC]

I just googled JetBlue issues, and delays are notorious enough that @USDOT filed a lawsuit and fined @jetblue how ridiculous

[Elidia Tafoya, MPH @LidiaLunaC]

@Jetblue had a glitch on our flight from La Guardia airport. First, family priority is not suitable for families without strollers or car seats (make it universal policy), then, check in bags was another missed communication, and now back to the gate for inspection we go.

[FOX Soccer @FOXSoccer]

THE 2025 GOLD CUP FINAL IS SET 🏆🇺🇸🇲🇽

Who is coming out on top, the @USMNT or Mexico?

[Elidia Tafoya, MPH @LidiaLunaC]

We are heartbroken by the sudden loss of Ana. She touched so many lives with her kindness and love. Please consider helping us honor her memory. Every little bit counts. 💔🙏 Share & donate! https://t.co/csYoNv493L

[Elidia Tafoya, MPH @LidiaLunaC]

Hiking Coyote Hills, Fremont!

[𖣂Prince𖣂 @OS3992]

Motivational video for the day

"Life is short so live it to your fullest and be grateful for every breath you take ❤️‍🩹"

(21/365)

[Benny Johnson @bennyjohnson]

Miracles Witnessed While Filming of The Passion of the Christ: ✝️

No Hollywood studio would agree to make The Passion of the Christ, so Mel Gibson decided to create his own production company and fund the entire film himself.

While casting the role of Jesus, Mel Gibson warned Jim Caviezel:

"Playing Christ will be incredibly difficult. If you do this, you'll likely be rejected by Hollywood."

Jim took a day to pray. Then he told Mel:

"We have to make it, even if it is difficult. My initials are J.C., and I am 33 years old. The same age as Christ. I didn't realize that until now."

Mel paused: "You're really scaring me, you know." And hung up the phone.

What followed was the most brutal movie role in Hollywood history.

– Caviezel lost 45 pounds
– Was struck by lightning twice
– Whipped accidentally, leaving a 14-inch scar
– Dislocated his shoulder
– Suffered pneumonia & hypothermia after hanging the cross for hours in only a loincloth
– Filming the crucifixion took 5 weeks
– Later required TWO open-heart surgeries due to stress from the role

And still, his purpose was clear:
"I didn’t want people to see me. I just want them to see Jesus. Conversions will happen through that.”

And they did:

- Pedro Sarubbi, the actor who played Barabbas, said of Cavezel: “His eyes had no hatred... only mercy and love.” He later converted to Christianity.
- Luca Lionello (Judas): Former atheist, converted to Christianity after the film & baptized his children
- A Muslim technician on the movie converted to Christianity after the film.
Countless millions around the world were converted to Christianity through the film.

It grossed $611 million worldwide, becoming the most successful R-rated film in history.

But more than that—it changed hearts around the world showing the true pain of Christ’s suffering.

Jim Caviezel now proclaims Christ boldly:
A role that nearly destroyed him became the one that saved countless others.

[Elidia Tafoya, MPH @LidiaLunaC]

Congratulations, Stanford dermatology, on this new discovery that could finally put the spotlight on the severe effects of glucose on the body from a cellular level! https://t.co/KR1SktnulS

[Elidia Tafoya, MPH @LidiaLunaC]

It’s my husband’s birthday, and @Starbucks Eden Shores random cup messages just made his day! #simplejoys