Chebucto Regional Softball Club

@julesh Do they have lasers? and mirrors?

@IcooIey @Anke “somewhere between brilliant and total malarkey” this is the perfect description!

@Tak @Anke

Yes! Let the calculus flow through you!

@leon_p_smith @shapr

The photons may go in your eye holes, oh they may tickle your brain a little but, more often than we’d like to admit there the process terminates. Nothing much is really “seen” at all.

And there is something adaptive about this. To not disregard most of what we see would be paralyzing— but I like to be aware, at least, that this is happening. And I want to make other people aware as well.

@leon_p_smith @shapr

“looking” and “seeing” aren’t the same things. And, in light of a recent discussion about writing #alttext it is more clear than ever that having sight is just one possible path to seeing. Sighted people can easily fail to see the things we look at and we’d do well to remember this.

@leon_p_smith @shapr

I may well ask my geometry students to draw a bicycle! It is an excellent example of how it is possible to look at something all the time but never really see the geometry. And how, if you have had to think about the design of a bike, if you have taken one apart, you develop a more refined model— I should check out this source you suggested— but the connection between the amusement one can have asking people to draw bikes and math is exciting.

@muellerwhh

"Daskeyboard"

*hipster sniff*

I couldn't possibly consider something I didn't solider myself. I suppose something like that might be OK for a keyboard casual.

(Daskeyboards are fine. I am working on being less of a snob about these kinds of things. Not doing the best job.)

@datarama

I will not hesitate. Those of us with these tiny keyboards just like how cute they look. There is nothing wrong with that.

It's also amusing to watch other people be horrified and flummoxed when they try to use it. It's a simple life pleasure and the small keyboard crowd just needs to come clean about it IMO.

@Anke

I used to teach at a Steiner school. They have a lot of strange ideas (some are very questionable) but one of their notions is that "mathematics lives in the limbs and fingers" (they were always saying this kind of new-age sounding stuff which I found fascinating and troubling.)

But, I think there may be a drop of truth in this notion. A part of math is a lot like muscle memory, not language based, but kinetic. Beyond words. Or maybe before words.

@cachondo

Same! I always delete the whole word and just "make it again" like doing a bat swing or something. It's hard to break the action of typing a word into parts.

@jannem

Ah yes. The vaunted "reasons" ...

@Anke

You'd think. But I do think there is something like a spatial memory involved in solving algebra. A sense of what can and cannot be done, like it's a board game.

@muellerwhh

Everyone will just love Calculus but in roman numerals. Is that what you're suggesting?

When you are typing, if you touch type, do you think about individual letters at all?

Or are you only actively thinking about the the words? Suddenly really curious about how this skill is even possible at all.

It'd be interesting to ask people to try to draw a keyboard from memory. I think it would be easy to show that frequently expert touch typists *cannot* do this accurately.

Knowing what to do with your hand to find a letter, or sequences of letters isn't the same thing as knowing where each letter is located.

Much like I have many students who have memorized all of the formulas and theorems but cannot use them correctly. There is something to remember about learning in this.

Having numbers on a separate level is such a bad idea if you are typing math in LaTeX. Everyone who said this is "more efficient" is lying.

But, again, this keyboard *is* really really really cute and good looking.

I cleaned my keyboard and accidentally swapped the B and V keycaps.

This has caused me to discover that for writing words I touch type as I have no problem using the board like this... but when I try to copy and paste text? I *do* look at the keys and the swap fools me every time.

Experimental design!

I use a 40% keyboard with three layers at home. I do not know why I bother to do this it's very annoying but the keyboard is so handsome looking...

Maybe this is a sign to move on.

@daniel

And it's nice to finally have the experience of being impressed by something AI generated. I was starting to wonder if I really did have some bias, or if everyone else was crazy in some way I'd never noticed because I couldn't understand how they could look at the output and go "wow this is just what I wanted"

And this meant that I felt like I was missing some key experience needed to understand how this tech should be used and understood.

@daniel

If my theory that gen AI will upset people who have a lot of experience with what it's trying to imitate is true, someone who knows a lot about electronic funk music should get sea-sick from listening to this.

Maybe people with lots of experience with the source material, and experience thinking about and analyzing creative works in the category feel themselves being tugged and pulled in subtile different directions and this is what causes the problem.

@daniel

I'm kind of glad this happened because I've been trying to understand how people aren't more ... disturbed by AI images and text. And I've been going in circles with a few friends who think I'm just prejudiced against computers or something (this is a hilarious theory on multiple levels)

But, with the music? I can't spot these fakes at all. Maybe from the fade outs you mention, but even then. Nice to be on the other side of this for once.