Tom Duff, deipnosophist

Retired computer graphics researcher
Grandparent
Musical Tinkerer
Pen plotter enthusiast
#plottertwitter
@[email protected]
@tomduff.bsky.social

[Tom Duff, deipnosophist @TomDuff]

Today, I'm retiring from Pixar, 40+ years after I first started. It's been a great run. Keep making the world's best movies #pixar

[Tom Duff, deipnosophist @TomDuff]

@furan https://t.co/YMCuzOlqT9

[Tom Duff, deipnosophist @TomDuff]

@yiningkarlli Oldham, not Oldman.

[Tom Duff, deipnosophist @TomDuff]

@yiningkarlli Most Americans don’t know about Thalidomide because the FDA never approved it, due to Francis Oldman Kelly’s heroic refusal to bend to drug company pressure. OTOH, I knew a Thalidomide victim who lived across the street from us in Toronto.

[Tom Duff, deipnosophist @TomDuff]

@yiningkarlli https://t.co/Tqlsv6uwUm

[Tom Duff, deipnosophist @TomDuff]

@robinhouston LLMs are famously unable to count.

[Tom Duff, deipnosophist @TomDuff]

@DonaldPMitchell @3Dmattias An archivist showed us reel 2 (?), which contains the transition from b&w to color. It was gorgeous — stunningly rich colors, which made the transition glorious. Sadly, I don’t believe there is a surviving imbibition print of the whole movie.

[Tom Duff, deipnosophist @TomDuff]

@PowerupTips @TomDuff will not be there. Most likely you mean @duffbert.

[Tom Duff, deipnosophist @TomDuff]

@howie_hua 25x36=25x4x9=100x9=900, so 25x35=875

[Tom Duff, deipnosophist @TomDuff]

Stunning Dodgers 2-1 win of Phillies last night. Bottom of the ninth, one out and the winning run on second, double play ends the game. It was a double TOOTBLAN: Crawford caught in a rundown, Realmuto tagged retreating (needlessly) to second.

[Tom Duff, deipnosophist @TomDuff]

@joshu Mine are parallel. Three pins for switches, 4 for two quadrature encoders.

[Tom Duff, deipnosophist @TomDuff]

@joshu I have a supply of these Depraz mice hidden somewhere. What, if anything, do you do to interface them to modern systems?

[Tom Duff, deipnosophist @TomDuff]

@MeditateColor @Pixel0Symphony https://t.co/7hFFYedBvQ

[Tom Duff, deipnosophist @TomDuff]

@lukeleisher Puny compared to the Stratos AI data center in Box Elder County Utah, which is 62 sq mi (but 3/4 of the area will be initially undeveloped).

[Tom Duff, deipnosophist @TomDuff]

@furan As Ken Thompson once said “If you want to get somewhere, goto is the best way to get there.”

[Tom Duff, deipnosophist @TomDuff]

@redwyrmofficial A good DM doesn’t need any system. My youngest used to play what they called “D&D” on the school bus without any dice or maps or anything, just a DM setting the scene, players saying what they wanted to do & the DM relaying how it all worked out. They always had a great time.

[Tom Duff, deipnosophist @TomDuff]

@DJSnM I probably have a finite Bacon-Erdos-Sabbath number. Erdos number is 2, Bacon number is 2 and I played Emperor Norton on Gino Robair's recording of his opera "I, Norton." Gino has played on several Tom Waits albums, and I'm pretty sure Waits' Sabbath number is finite.

[Tom Duff, deipnosophist @TomDuff]

*Son* Tim.

[Tom Duff, deipnosophist @TomDuff]

Som Tim and I are driving to LA for Tuesday’s Dodgers/Giants game. We’ll be in Section 10RS Row O Seats 22,23.

[Tom Duff, deipnosophist @TomDuff]

@yiningkarlli Leonid Levin did something similar around the same time, but it was unknown in the West until many years later.

[Tom Duff, deipnosophist @TomDuff]

@yiningkarlli Right. It was a real marvel, coding up an arbitrary NP Turing machine execution as a SAT instance and proving that the coding can be done in polynomial time. The other half, showing that SAT is in NP, is pretty easy.