Kieron Drake

CS/Maths etc. Done things, some useful, a book too. Ex-academic,, CTO & more. Likes eigen-systems & FPGAs.
@[email protected]
@kieron-drake.bsky.social

[Tara Blume @tcblume]

Science gasps for breath. They are removing all the ocean monitors to understand changes in currents and climate, and the excuse is a master class in obfuscation & double speak . (1/2) https://t.co/vs782YbcI3

[Antonio Lupetti @antoniolupetti]

Algebrica is increasingly becoming an open mathematical knowledge base.

The content has progressively transitioned to static Markdown files rendered into HTML pages. The Markdown source is synchronised with a GitHub repository, and I have now implemented an Obsidian vault that updates both the website and GitHub simultaneously from a single source of truth.

Paragraphs are also being progressively indexed and identified using hash-based references, making the structure more granular, portable, and easier to discuss or revise.

In the next few days, users will also be able to propose supervised real-time edits directly on the site, alongside comments and integrations.

Another step forward toward making Algebrica more global, open, collaborative, and accurate.

https://t.co/U81GCKIxcV

[Kieron Drake @kierondrake]

@bryanstrummer @jdpoc Functioning logistics? Now that the straight is closed and the port vulnerable? Really?
25.3bn is nothing compared to UK-EU 812bn (2024 numbers, 41% of UK exports, 51% of UK imports).
Sure, UAE valuable but easing trade w/ largest mkt by far is priority. Especially now with gulf.

[Gandalv @Microinteracti1]

The countries MAGA describes as collapsing and joyless hold positions 1 through 6 in the global happiness rankings.
They have held them for years.
The continent exists with a certain quiet indifference to being misrepresented.
Which is perhaps the most European thing about it.*

https://t.co/XO1YNz4GFH

[James Martin, SJ @JamesMartinSJ]

I doubt Pope Leo XIV will lose any sleep over this, before he begins his pilgrimage to Africa tomorrow. But the rest of us should. Because it is unhinged, uncharitable and unchristian. Is there no bottom to this moral squalor?

[Antonio Lupetti @antoniolupetti]

This is Algebrica. A mathematical knowledge base I’ve been building for 2.5 years.

215+ entries, carefully written and structured.

400k+ views over this time. Not much in absolute terms, but meaningful to me.

No ads.
No courses to sell.
No gamification.
No distractions.

Just essential pages, aiming to explain mathematics as clearly as possible, for a university-level audience.

Built simply for the pleasure of sharing knowledge.

Content licensed under Creative Commons (BY-NC).

Best experienced on desktop.

If it helps even a few people understand something better, it’s worth it.

[Chris Williams @Astro_ChrisW]

Our crew on the @Space_Station caught a glimpse of the @NASAArtemis II crew as they re-entered the atmosphere from their journey to the Moon! We first saw a bright light and a trail as the service module burned up. We didn’t see the Orion capsule itself as it re-entered, but we saw the wispy trail it left behind in the upper atmosphere. Overjoyed that our friends are safely back on Earth after their awe-inspiring mission!

[European Space Agency @esa]

✅ #Artemis II splashdown at 01:07 BST/02:07 CEST!

[Kieron Drake @kierondrake]

@boblake33 @FinnAndreen @Harrisbro777 This has happened for years, but in a small way. EUR oil and product trades are about 15-20% of total with <5% in non-EUR/non-USD (USD ~80%). Pricing and trade finance/clearing/settlement remain biggest USD "moat".
Clearly there will be more EUR etc. trading.
Takes time...

[Andrew Curran @AndrewCurran_]

Scott Aaronson on his blog talking about Shor's, quantum, and crypto:

'When I got an early heads-up about these results—especially the Google team’s choice to "publish" via a zero-knowledge proof—I thought of Frisch and Peierls, calculating how much U-235 was needed for a chain reaction in 1940, but not publishing it, even though the latest results on nuclear fission had been openly published just the year prior. Will we, in quantum computing, also soon cross that threshold? But I got strong pushback on that analogy from the cryptography and cybersecurity people who I most respect. They said: we have decades of experience with this, and the answer is that you publish. And, they said, if publishing causes people still using quantum-vulnerable systems to crap their pants … well, maybe that’s what needs to happen right now.'

[David Henig 🇺🇦 @DavidHenigUK]

A challenging feat but I think he's done it! Andrew Griffith MP has written the most inaccurate paragraph on trade since 2016. Where "great many" = 3, "Many" = 1, CPTPP did not open new markets, the EU doesn't want to join, and Aus / NZ FTAs did not significantly open up trade

[Judit Polgar @GMJuditPolgar]

COME ON‼ I am super excited!🤗#QueenOfChess, Rory Kennedy’s new #documentary about my story is available on @netflix ‼
👇 Movie link in the comments - or check the Bio 👆

#ChessConnectsUs #TrueStories #IndieFilm #MoxiePictures #Honored #HumanStory #Socialimpact #InspiringStories #chess #DocumentaryFilm

[Kieron Drake @kierondrake]

@vivamjm It may be frustrating... but you are doing good work. Keep chipping away: amongst the bots and shills you may reach a few real people and raise doubts and counter disinformation. Your trade experience matters.
BTW I follow you on BlueSky too. :)

[Kieron Drake @kierondrake]

@RupertMyers How so? They warned, but were ignored/overridden. What do you expect: they send in 007?
The fault lies with their political masters and their decisions, surely?
Similar happened with May and RU interference wrt Brexit ref.
UK has politicians in charge. If they ignore blame them?

[Brian Krassenstein @krassenstein]

BREAKING: Music legend Bruce Springsteen just released this incredible song that will be sure to piss Trump off beyond belief.

“Streets of Minneapolis”.

He wrote this song about Alex Pretti and Renée Good Saturday and recorded it yesterday.

Share it far and wide and play it as loud as you can

[Nick Bryant @NickBryantNY]

Sorry to hear about the death of Mark Tully. Anyone who worked in India for the BBC instantly became the beneficiary of his wisdom, kindness, humour and, above all, reputation. In India Mark Tully was the BBC. An absolute giant.

[Jonathan Gorard @getjonwithit]

Like @davidbessis and others, I think that Hinton is wrong. To explain why, let me tell you a brief story.

About a decade ago, in 2017, I developed an automated theorem-proving framework that was ultimately integrated into Mathematica (see: https://t.co/nGCIUk44TP) (1/15)

[Markos Mom @Markos_mom]

The Station Nightclub fire happened in 2003. No smartphones. No Instagram.

100 people still died because they stood watching the flames, thinking it was part of the show.

I've retrofitted fire safety for some of the largest property portfolios in the UK post-grenfell.

You are confusing stupidity with biology, physics, and catastrophic design failures.

Here is the actual science of what you are watching:

1. When the music keeps playing and staff don't panic, the human brain overrides flight instincts to fit the threat into a normal context. This is called normalcy bias. These kids froze to process conflicting social cues, not to post for likes. They were likely already filming. They were also likely drunk.

2. We explicitly design buildings to account for this hesitation (pre-movement time). Fire safety codes assume people will wait before running. In a compliant building, you can assume up to a minute or two before egress commences. Sprinklers and detection systems are designed specifically to buy that time.

3. The reason the time buffer didn't exist here is the material. That ceiling is polyurethane foam. It doesn't burn linearly; it hits flashover (1,100°F) in under 90 seconds. It's essentially solid gasoline. The room would have exploded for all intents and purposes. Way before anyone could reasonably evacuate.

4. We calculate exit widths based on how many people can physically pass through a door per minute (flow rate) versus how fast a fire spreads. With foam fires, the available safe egress time drops to almost zero. Even if they had reacted instantly, the crowd density would have choked the exits before the room cleared.

5. In any normal building fire, especially one that starts off small, you expect a responsible adult to put it out, or sprinklers to do the same. When there's a pan fire in a restaurant, you don't run out in case the entire building suddenly explodes. No reasonable person should have expected this unless they were the owner and knew how the building was designed.

Those poor teenagers likely passed out from smoke inhalation soon after this video. If they didn't, they would have been caught in a catastrophic explosion as they crammed into the single tiny exit.

They didn't die because of Instagram.

They died because the physics of the fire moved faster than human bodies can physically squeeze through a door, and a catastrophic disregard of safe design principles meant they never stood a chance.

[Tal Hagin @talhagin]

What I find most repulsive is not confusion, fear, or people asking the wrong questions in the aftermath of violence. That is human. What is repulsive are the ones who currently exist without any consequences on this platform: Propagandists.

These people do not wait for facts because facts are irrelevant to them. They do not care who was hurt, who died, or who will be falsely accused tomorrow. A crisis is simply raw material, something to mine for attention, validation, ideological leverage, or profit.

They are united not by politics, religion, or ideology, but by method.

By speed over accuracy.

By certainty without evidence.

By narratives built first and justified later.

And by a complete indifference to the collateral damage their claims cause.

What makes this especially grotesque is that their work depends on real suffering. Victims become props. Innocent people become targets. Entire communities become disposable, all so a storyline can be pushed before the truth has time to breathe.

And when the damage is done, there is never accountability, only escalation. The lie mutates, the goalposts move, and responsibility is dissolved into claims of censorship, cover-ups, or persecution.

That is who this is about.

At the same time, it is important to understand why they succeed after every crisis. After each one, especially those caught on camera, people online are desperate for answers. They want to know what is happening right now, but also the bigger questions: Why did this happen? What do we do next?

Those questions create a vacuum, and propagandists rush to fill it. They provide names, backgrounds, and agendas before facts are available. They offer neat, packaged explanations that fit pre-existing narratives, often accompanied by memes, images, AI-generated photos, misused LLMs, and unverified "reports".

This flood of information is designed to persuade and manipulate. If one piece of evidence is debunked, it does not matter. Another dramatic claim will replace it, and when falsified evidence begins to crumble, propagandists pivot and claim the truth is being covered up. They cast themselves as humble truth-seekers, while an unnamed enemy tries to stop you from seeing reality.

We have seen this pattern across the political spectrum. Do not make the mistake of thinking it only belongs to the "other side" of you.

It happened after the 2024 Southport and the Bondi stabbing attacks, when innocent Muslims and Jews were falsely accused of responsibility. The consequences were real: a riot outside a mosque, and an innocent Jewish man was harassed online. But for the propagandists? Almost all came out unscathed.

Now, with Bondi (again), the cycle continues. Innocent people who happened to share the name of the perpetrator had their photos plastered across social media. AI-generated posts and images were used to entrench fabricated narratives.

It always follows the same formula. I see it unfold, predictably, after every crisis.

This will not change unless we, as viewers, demand credible sources for the claims we encounter and do not simply accept anything that fits our pre-existing biases. Social media platforms, governments, and the victims of these attacks must also seek real consequences for propagandists. There should be a price to pay for this type of malice, which disrespects the dead and further harms the survivors.

[Kieron Drake @kierondrake]

@DavidJReed100 @SophieP25397 Others have added to the list of "bad things back then": it's almost superfluous to add more... but I think it is worth examining this "good old days" crap. Mostly it's a yearning for remembered youth & the promises that came with that.
I remember London from '77: better now.