Kenny (all opinions my own)

Interests, unordered:

Boardgames (heavy, 18xx, RPGs), Philosophy (ethics, mind), Math (combinatorics, teaching), BLM, Justice.

I'm Biologically Fabulous!

[Kenny (all opinions my own) @PlayerToTheLeft]

The future is a William Gibson novel, except most of the technology doesn't work very well. Like, not just the scrappy runners' rigs, but the mega-corps spend millions of neo-yen trying to put AI on the blockchain. Well, at least until the future becomes The Parable of the Sower.

[Kenny (all opinions my own) @PlayerToTheLeft]

@cenobyte3 @Mrs_Meowmerz If say an array is a matrix, but the distinction may be academic since a matrix is a vector of vectors.

PS: I'm back here to find out that the series I'm reading is not done. Leaving again now. Keep up the good math!

[Kenny (all opinions my own) @PlayerToTheLeft]

I'm closing my Twitter tabs and can be found on Twitter 2.0 going forward. If nothing serious changes here, the next time I post it will be because my account is hacked and I am a bot (or the singularity has come and I am, literally, a bot).

[Kenny (all opinions my own) @PlayerToTheLeft]

@ElieNYC @RachelBitecofer Genuine (albeit rhetorical) question, if the filibuster were dead, do you think the Democrats would continue to observe it, as a polite social convention, when they have a majority? (More pointedly, would some Democrats force the party as a whole to observe it?)

[Kenny (all opinions my own) @PlayerToTheLeft]

@msaristotle @DominickCooper @realDonaldTrump @KariLake Considering what Once-and-Future President Trump has said about John McCain, I wouldn't be surprised if McCain admirers snubbed both of them.

[Kenny (all opinions my own) @PlayerToTheLeft]

@kareem_carr Come to think of it, this is basically the plot of God Emperor of Dune.

[Kenny (all opinions my own) @PlayerToTheLeft]

@kareem_carr Heck, as humans (the species making the largest changes to the environment) make more and more of our decisions using data, there may become an evolutionary advantage to being hard to predict from past data...

[Kenny (all opinions my own) @PlayerToTheLeft]

@jennalaib I really like Hazel's thought process (explicit and implicit). I think what knocks me off my feet is how she breaks a problem that seems daunting to her into pieces that seem more approachable, then keeps track of her sub-tasks so well that she can stitch them all back together!

[Kenny (all opinions my own) @PlayerToTheLeft]

* To be clear, I think nuance dying on Twitter is not exclusively "Twitter being Twitter," although that is likely a part. I think another important part is Twitter reflecting a larger pattern in society of wanting simple answers. Yes, I understand the irony of clarifying this.

[Kenny (all opinions my own) @PlayerToTheLeft]

Twitter is a tough place to hold a serious conversation with people of differing views, because it seems to be where nuance has gone to die*. This makes it a tough place for academics for a two-fold reason. First, often we try to communicate nuance. Second, we are not immune.

[Kenny (all opinions my own) @PlayerToTheLeft]

@DrBritWilliams To those on the job market:

May the odds be ever in your favor!

[Kenny (all opinions my own) @PlayerToTheLeft]

@DrBritWilliams I applied across 7 different cycles.

When my mental health was good, I put in 20-30 in a cycle. When it was bad (or I was okay with my position) I put in 2-5.

To date I have received one TT offer, but I held four temporary positions along the way.

[Kenny (all opinions my own) @PlayerToTheLeft]

@evanewashington I suspect you could also get this in his book. Because *he also has a book on this*!!! Maybe it wouldn't have such S-tier zingers like: "A material universe made of inert atoms is for midwits only." (I actually agree with the sentiment, because evidence of wave/particle duality.)

[Kenny (all opinions my own) @PlayerToTheLeft]

And, of course, now I am on Twitter telling you about my lapse in attention... Wish me luck folks!

On the plus side, the thread button is now working again 🤷‍♀️

[Kenny (all opinions my own) @PlayerToTheLeft]

I turned off the audio book I was listening to while doing "rote administrative maintenance" on my courses in order to focus on... something important. I just realized I was commenting on Facebook, I no longer remember what the important thing is/was or whether I did it.

[Kenny (all opinions my own) @PlayerToTheLeft]

@hankgreen Solipsism, because I believe external reality is a deeply powerful human construction. (I kid. I kid!)

Ich will die ding an sich wissen!

[Kenny (all opinions my own) @PlayerToTheLeft]

I'll post about board games later I guess...

[Kenny (all opinions my own) @PlayerToTheLeft]

PSA: my "create thread" button seems to be broken. Instead of adding a tweet to my thread, it obliterated the full tweet I had composed and started me anew. Thanks Musk!

[Kenny (all opinions my own) @PlayerToTheLeft]

We should encourage students at institutions of higher ed in the US to do less. That way we can encourage them to do more things. (The irony is apparent to me.)

[Kenny (all opinions my own) @PlayerToTheLeft]

@Helenreflects Makes more sense than the time he conspired with Satan to murder the family of then torture a godly man. I mean... "the Lord works in mysterious ways..."?

[Kenny (all opinions my own) @PlayerToTheLeft]

@2Philosophical_ @BMcGrewvy Even then, I might want to poke the stigmata a time or two, metaphorically speaking.

[Kenny (all opinions my own) @PlayerToTheLeft]

@2Philosophical_ @BMcGrewvy While I try to keep my skepticism strictly between 0 and 100%, this one is edging close to 0% belief. Thus, what good would reading the book do? I would only look for reasons to discount the story. I would need to see levitating monks myself to even crack the disbelief.