Thomas Stroman

Software engineer (@hirevue), PhD cosmic-ray astrophysicist, choral musician, bug nerd, big nerd.

[Thomas Stroman @StarsMathMan]

@ZachWeiner The first couple months of the 2020s

[Thomas Stroman @StarsMathMan]

#Eclipse2024 - I have been waiting seven years to have a better chance at getting a totality image in focus and the clouds cleared *just* in time.

[Thomas Stroman @StarsMathMan]

The 2023-10-14 annular eclipse as seen at University of Utah / Telescope Array Cosmic Ray Center in Delta, Utah.

[Thomas Stroman @StarsMathMan]

@ThisIsTheFatRat Pretty sure this is the first time in all your music I've had to sit down with a piano and a pause button to map out the chord progression. (Why yes, that *is* a fully diminished seventh!) Thanks for what might be my new favorite of yours!

[Thomas Stroman @StarsMathMan]

Aha, it's not that the content has changed. It's that retweets are no longer labeled as such, and just show up as out-of-sequence tweets by not-followed accounts, without attribution. https://t.co/Y9t0jDHGpw

[Thomas Stroman @StarsMathMan]

OK, so even the "Following" tab no longer includes only accounts I follow, and is no longer chronological? That's the only way I'm interested in using this (Twitter on desktop) ... am I missing an option someplace?

[Thomas Stroman @StarsMathMan]

@youtah In home theater with the volume up? No subtitles (they contain spoilers). But watching with limited volume or in a noisy environment? Too easy to miss quiet dialog without them.

[Thomas Stroman @StarsMathMan]

@youtah I'm impressed that you get that much cloud movement without visible star trails. Windy night? Also chuckling because the convenient gap in the clouds over Orion reminds me of https://t.co/Txdi8IdZTe

[Thomas Stroman @StarsMathMan]

Disappointed that @NPR missed a great opportunity to promote ISO 8601 (YYYY-MM-DD) as the true cross-cultural date format. Happy 2020-02-02!

[NPR @NPR]

The date 02-02-2020 is the only eight-digit palindrome of the century. It works in the cross-cultural formats of MM-DD-YYYY and DD-MM-YYYY.

The last time we had such a date was 908 years ago on 11-11-1111. https://t.co/Bamhz9tX3i

[Thomas Stroman @StarsMathMan]

@tadousay @SlackHQ @discordapp My team (software eng) uses Slack. Most members are clustered in two TZs 9 hours apart, so lots of asynchronous comms. Customizable notification preferences and visibility = no (unwanted) midnight pings, and easy to get caught up.

[Thomas Stroman @StarsMathMan]

Looks like @wunderground has pulled the plug on the API that supported outdated app versions (5.x) on Android. New app (6.x) is still terrible. Welcome to 2020.

[Thomas Stroman @StarsMathMan]

"Alexa, spell 'medicine.'"

[Thomas Stroman @StarsMathMan]

Hey @twitter, you forced me onto the "new" Twitter just now, and it sounds like you're not going to permanently respect my preference for a purely chronological feed. Fix that serious lapse in judgment, please.

[Thomas Stroman @StarsMathMan]

I was wondering -- and Googling -- this over the weekend, so I'm pleased to see such an official answer confirming my suspicions!

[National Institute of Standards and Technology @NIST]

Were #StrangerThings characters ahead of their time with Planck's constant (h)?

2018: h=6.62607015 x 10^-34 J s

2014: h=6.62607004 x 10^-34 J s

1985: [SPOILER] tells the party that h=6.62607004 x 10^-34 J s, when the accepted value was still 6.626176 x 10^-34 J s that year.

[Thomas Stroman @StarsMathMan]

@youtah Meanwhile: https://t.co/f73d35xg7u

[Thomas Stroman @StarsMathMan]

@mdekstrand I'm a proponent of the subwoofer route if you listen to a wide variety of content. Tabletop devices like smart speakers are physically incapable of reproducing the deepest bass notes to my satisfaction, though some sound impressive for their size.

[Thomas Stroman @StarsMathMan]

@drskyskull "Race you to the top," my friend said when my choir stopped there on tour in 2006. To this day I don't know how I managed not to puke over the edge.

[Thomas Stroman @StarsMathMan]

@FiveThirtyEight Methodology question: does the calculation weight precincts by vote count? https://t.co/00w5HtaoMg says bright-red WVC020 had Trump beat Clinton 2 votes to 0. What's SLC segregation number w/o WVC020?

[Thomas Stroman @StarsMathMan]

@mdekstrand It doesn't take much of a departure delay to make that unworkable. How much worse is the next best option?

[Thomas Stroman @StarsMathMan]

@djsmith42 Interesting comparison. These abbreviations (could) communicate "I know a little Latin!" Just like single-letter variables might say "I know a little FORTRAN."