taylorjsmith.bsky.social - Profile | ThreadSky | a Reddit-style client for Bluesky

I think it would be a good time to reinstantiate the mirror network for the # arXiv. It’s an essential piece of the global research community in math, physics, computer-science and adjacent fields. Under the current circumstances it should not only be hosted in the US. #quantum #math #physics #cs

submitted 13 days ago • 5 comments

I just learned today that the guy who wrote Charlotte's Web and Stuart Little also co-authored The Elements of Style.

submitted 1 day ago • 0 comments

Nova Scotia has proposed legislation increasing political interference in universities. Political interference in education isn’t just an American phenomenon. It’s alive and well in Canada too. Politicians should not dictate the priorities of universities.

submitted 3 days ago • 2 comments

They already tried, with MOOCs. We were told we'd need only like 5 universities to produce "the best" content, the rest could shut down and everyone could learn from MOOCs instead. Which showed exactly how much they understood about education, learning, humans, and other things not measured in bits.

submitted 3 days ago • 5 comments

What an amazing new result! Looking forward to digging deeper into this paper and, more generally, seeing where all of this tree evaluation work takes complexity theory in the future.

submitted 6 days ago • 1 comment

Yesterday, I helped run a programming activity with a group of young students using @meetedison.bsky.social robots. I have so much respect for grade school teachers for doing their job day after day. I once thought of becoming a grade school teacher, but those kids wiped me out after 2 hours.

submitted 7 days ago • 0 comments

YOUR #4NATIONS FACE-OFF CHAMPIONS 🇨🇦

submitted 7 days ago • 0 comments

heraldic blazon is an english DSL send tweet

submitted 8 days ago • 2 comments

It is Saturday Night Live's 50th birthday, so enjoy my thread from last month that looked at the many Canadians who helped bring SNL to life in 1975! #SNL50

submitted 11 days ago • 1 comment

Happy 60th birthday to one of the most beautiful flags in the world!

submitted 13 days ago • 0 comments

Fully agreed! I'll never understand the researcher who views teaching as a burden or a chore. How could someone not feel inspiration from explaining a concept in exactly the right way and seeing the spark in a student's eye when they finally "get it"?

submitted 14 days ago • 0 comments

BREAKING: Trump signs executive order rescinding the undecidability of the Halting Problem, claiming it holds back American progress. All major chip manufacturers immediately slave through the night to add HALTP to their instruction sets in compliance.

submitted 17 days ago • 3 comments

Canada hearing that the United States is going to get rid of the penny: (We did it 13 years ago)

submitted 18 days ago • 19 comments

I’m the kind of guy who goes to the used bookstore and takes home a dictionary. Why buy any of the other books when this book has all the same words but in a different order?

submitted 19 days ago • 2 comments

Fact that it's been like 5y since lockdowns and nobody can still use zoom/teams/etc & every other group call is constantly interrupted by the "you're muted" "where's this button" "we can't hear you" ...is in a way kinda beautiful. Clearly man was not meant to communicate in such grotesque fashion.

submitted 25 days ago • 1 comment

It’s easy to buy Canadian when pretty much all of our products are nicer/healthier/better tasting than the US alternative. Even buying with Canadian dollars is more fun—our money looks so much better than the USD!

submitted 26 days ago • 0 comments

The Copyright Office just dropped its report on AI output copyrightability, as if this week wasn't busy enough already. www.copyright.gov/ai/Copyright...

submitted 30 days ago • 1 comment

OpenAI shocked and appalled that an AI company would steal intellectual property www.404media.co/openai-furio...

submitted 30 days ago • 127 comments

I'm truly saddened to hear of the passing of Arto Salomaa, a giant in formal languages and automata theory. I was a student of his son, Kai, and I was honoured to co-author a recent paper with the two Salomaas. Arto formed the foundations of our field and his work influences mine every day.

submitted 31 days ago • 0 comments

How it feels to get an extra $7000/year added to my NSERC Discovery grant, thanks to Canada's 2024 budget:

submitted 36 days ago • 1 comment

Contrapositives are for cowards. Behold.

submitted 37 days ago • 6 comments

As a Canadian watching all the pomp going on down south (among other things), one thing I keep noticing is just how many flags the US has. There's a flag for every person, office, department. Americans may have forsworn heraldry when they divorced the British, but they love their flags.

submitted 37 days ago • 0 comments

a lot of postdocs don't know this, but professors really like it when you call them 'bossman'

submitted 38 days ago • 7 comments

I read this book for the first time in early 2020. I might as well keep it handy on my shelf—I feel like it’ll be relevant again at some point in the next four years.

submitted 38 days ago • 1 comment

In grad school, I TAed a 2nd-year theory course many times that devoted about half the term to teaching specifications and invariants. Students always asked me why they were learning this. I told them to wait until they got to 3rd-year algorithms, then they'd see.

submitted 40 days ago • 1 comment

A pet peeve: A speaker who cites their own work using only their initial instead of their name. Maybe it was meant to show modesty but instead has the opposite effect, making the initial stand out.

submitted 46 days ago • 2 comments

I won

submitted 47 days ago • 4 comments

I found an old, old sheet of letterhead in a supply closet and it made me nostalgic for an era in which I never lived. Imagine setting up a typewriter and typing a reference letter on this page. You can feel a sense of authority and gravitas just holding this paper in your hands. Down with PDFs!

submitted 51 days ago • 1 comment

Happy 1³ + 2³ + 3³ + 4³ + 5³ + 6³ + 7³ + 8³ + 9³ = (20+25)², everyone! As if this year wasn't power-ful enough already, I'll also be turning 2⁵ in '25.

submitted 58 days ago • 0 comments

Happy 25th Anniversary to those who remember...

submitted 59 days ago • 390 comments

I saw a post by @slim.bsky.social about flights in 2024, and got nerdsniped into logging each of my own. Turns out I had a rather uneventful year in the air: shuttling back and forth between where I live and where my family lives, with a detour to Ottawa for an awards ceremony.

submitted 59 days ago • 1 comment

KICK OFF THE NEW YEAR WITH THE INTERNET ARCHIVE! 🍾 Starting at 12:01am ET, we'll be revealing the creative works from 1929 and sound recordings from 1924 that are entering the public domain in the US. Learn how you can celebrate throughout January: blog.archive.org/2024/12/26/c...

submitted 59 days ago • 12 comments

It's already 25 years since Y2K. And only 13 years until this: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Year_20...

submitted 61 days ago • 1 comment

Merry Christmas to everyone, from myself and from the whole Smith family! (Including the cats, who are currently sleeping.)

submitted 65 days ago • 0 comments

I’m having a conversation with my mom about something I want for Christmas and a week later Santa gives it to me. When will we pass privacy regulations

submitted 65 days ago • 128 comments

be advised: these men ARE NOT plumbing or flood control specialists. if seen in your neighborhood, please do not approach the vehicle. contact us immediately.

submitted 66 days ago • 13 comments

This year, I took up 10m air pistol shooting because I saw it on the Olympics and it looked fun. In the four months’ difference between my first shots and my most recent practice, I’m definitely making progress. Looking forward to getting better in 2025!

submitted 70 days ago • 0 comments