It's Vacuously True!

Anything is possible when the premise is false... Lee(mur). '98. She/He. Queer. Lutheran. UTC-5, American Midwest. Vaguely math/STEM/academia/study oriented blog. Most of my posts come off my long and regularly shuffled queue. My avatar is me in front of the May 10, 2024 aurora borealis lighting up the SOUTHERN sky near Minneapolis. My header is my own art. Here, you will find elements of the set of things about which I am unironically passionate: {math, art, nature, science, dance, social justice, puns, theology, space, photography, language, typography, storytelling, political science, psychology, astronomy, philosophy, comedy, literature, cats, music}

[vacuously-true]

🧮 𝟚𝟘𝟚𝟞 𝕄𝔸𝕋ℍ𝔹𝕃ℝ ℝ𝕆𝕃𝕃 ℂ𝔸𝕃𝕃 🧮

Behold! My approximately annual (depending on my executive function) mathblr roll call! Reblog/reply if you are mathblr or adjacent. And tag the other (at least semi active) mathblrs & adjacents you know of!

"What counts as mathblr?" Math shitposters! Math academia aesthetic blogs! Math studyblrs! Math related gimmick blogs! Unthemed blogs owned by people who happen to be math fans! CS, stats, physics, and other math-adjacent folks are welcome too! I'll even accept engineers if they behave! "Do I count?" If you want to!

Bonus: LCM- Least Common Mathblr discord server. Come hang out!

Check out the Least Common Mathblr (LCM) community on Discord - hang out with 682 other members and enjoy free voice and text chat.

[vacuously-true]

Some highlights from the LCM:

Lots of cat pictures (mine are the best tho)

Channel for announcing new false numbers

Regular co-working voice channel activity (make us do our homework and we'll make you do yours)

Math help forum

Excessive use of TeXit's rotate feature (quarantined to the botspam channel or I swear to God the mods will mute you)

[twistcmyk]

[sunvaulter82]

Chat is this anything?

[vacuously-true]

Why do gendered single stall restrooms even exist. Why are we doing this. There's a little 🚺 or 🚹 on the door but you open it and find a single toilet next to a single sink. The toilet is not even stalled separate from the sink. The room itself locks. This room does not need to be gendered. Just put a little 🚾 or 🚽 on the door and let anyone use it. It is inherently a single gender restroom because it is single occupancy, you don't have to enforce that. It will always inherently be single gender, specifically the gender of whoever is in it at any given time. There's someone in the 🚺 single occupancy restroom but the 🚹 single occupancy restroom is open and I need to pee. Who came up with this. I don't think regular large public restrooms need to be gendered either but people have good faith arguments for why they should be. I have never heard a good faith argument for gendered single occupancy restrooms. Cooties? Is it cooties you are afraid of? Cooties that persist on surfaces long after the person who deposited them has left? Grow upppp

[vacuously-true]

Shout out to the large public high school I sub at that replaced the large & gendered student restrooms with sort of open wall-less ungendered restrooms that have a row of sinks closer to the hallway, and a row of ungendered floor-to-ceiling stalls. This completely solves any gendered issues, it honestly provides nicer facilities with better privacy, and it helps mitigate the problem of students ditching class to hang out with their friends in the restroom.

Side eye to the large public high school I sub at that has regular large gendered restrooms for students but also genders their single occupancy staff restrooms for adult humans who should know that cooties aren't real.

[vacuously-true]

Oh good I'm glad the school district has their own video and page up about this so I don't have to take and post my own photos of the most beautiful restrooms I've ever seen because that does feel like weirdo behavior

SPPS I love you. Your new restrooms have changed me. Specifically, they have made me really really cranky every time I use any more traditional public restroom because I have seen a better way. A better way to piss. Together.

[librarycard]

the ship of theseus wikipedia article in 2003. 20 years later, after 1792 total edits, 0% of its original phrasing remains. (x)

[ospreyonthemoon]

And yet it's still the same article, the article designated to be about theseus' ship. Debate solved i guess

[creepymutelilbugger]

easy as fuck . were they stupid?

[nemfrog]

"Transverse section of a cat's whisker." The cat : an introduction to the study of backboned animals, especially mammals. 1881.

Biodiversity Heritage Library

[rosieandthemoon]

Hotel Landa, Burgos, Spain

[vacuously-true]

hi im a new follower and terrible with math, id genuinely love to hear your art inspiration and thought process for your header image if you'd be willing to share :)

Alas it is not that deep but I am happy to share haha. My full name is a different spelling of the plant holly. I drew a little holly freshman year of college (oh God that was ten years ago oh God?) and that's what the plant in the background is. When I needed a header image here I just took that old holly drawing and tiled it. The text on the image is the statement of a vacuous truth.

[vacuously-true]

Sorry I misread, you said you're terrible with math so I should explain what vacuous truth is.

The statement "if p then q" can only be false if p is true and q is false. That means that if p is false, the statement "if p then q" is true no matter what q is. So the statement "if the moon is a pickle then I am an alien" is true, since the moon is not a pickle.

In mathematical logic you can use 𝔽 to mean "a false statement," 𝕋 to mean "a true statement," ≡ to mean equality regardless of what the variables in the statement are, and "p -> q" to mean if p then q.

So "𝔽 -> q = 𝕋" means: the statement "if (false statement) then q" is always true no matter what q is. "𝔽 -> q" is always a truth, but, it is a vacuous truth.

[kingcatnine]

don't shave your legs this summer HOLD THE FUCKING LINE

[cosmonautroger]

Gizem Akdag

[cryptotheism]

[charaznablescanontoyota]

words of wisdom from wikipedia this evening

[ryannorth]

much to consider

[tieflingkisser]

[pardalote]

Mine was buried even deeper, under Devices -> Typing -> How AI has helped you.

(Spoiler: it hadn't helped me. But it was on by default.)

[piles-of-numbers]

Friends. It’s spellcheck. The same stuff you have on your phone that learns what you are more likely to type and predict things.

Obviously feel free to turn it off, but this is one of the oldest AI methods that we’ve been using for years, much much before LLMs and generative “art” AI.

No data is leaving your laptop, it’s a local model.

Always be wary of AI models! But don’t look and see “AI” and freak out (again, so much AI techniques that are good and useful and have been used for a long time)

Instead ask yourself:

How was the model trained?

Who owns the data used to train it?

Who should own the data used?

Who benefits from using this model?

Who profits from using this model?

Where does the data of your usage go?

[dandelionsresilience]

Dandelion News - June 1-7

If you like these weekly compilations, please consider tipping me at $kaybarr1735 or check out my Dandelion Doodles!

1. Trust celebrates birth of rare lemur quadruplets

“The trust said red ruffed lemurs were only found in a small area of the northeast of Madagascar and were "critically endangered". It said the birth of quadruplets was incredibly rare, occurring in fewer than 6% of births worldwide. [...] It added alongside being part of the breeding programme, Shaldon Wildlife Trust directly supported the protection of the animals in the wild through their field conservation partner, the Lemur Conservation Association.”

2. Colorado Gov. Polis Signs New Conversion Therapy Ban, Defying Supreme Court

“The bill [...] allows survivors to sue the practitioners who subjected them to [conversion therapy], using a private right of action—notably, the same legal mechanism first pioneered by Republicans to get around Roe v. Wade in Texas. [...] Once it takes effect, it should immediately make conversion therapy financially prohibitive in the state, as any practitioner who engages in it faces unlimited civil liability with no statute of limitations on claims.”

3. A ‘Reforestation Pipeline’ in New Mexico Trains Seedlings to Survive in Burn Scars

“[First, researchers] find seeds from trees of various species that have already survived drought, wildfire or temperature extremes. [… Then, the nursery] toughens seedlings up so that they’re better prepared for the extreme conditions they’ll face outside[….] Toca and his team are exposing seedlings to controlled drought, which causes them to create a larger root system that can absorb more underground moisture[….]”

4. 8 crested ibises released in Japanese town decades after extinction in Japan

“The eight birds have been raised at a conservation center on Sado Island in the neighboring prefecture of Niigata following a successful captive-breeding program. Ten more birds are waiting to be released. [...] The birds went extinct on the Honshu main island in the 1970s[....] In 1999, artificial breeding by a pair donated from China successfully led to the first Japanese crested ibis chick born in captivity[....]”

5. Thanks to two new laws, more Virginians can save with community solar

“The legislation expands subscription-based solar farms from 250 to 875 megawatts[….] “You can tuck this [solar array] in a farmer’s back 40 where it can’t be seen from a road[….” and the income enables the farmers] to retire comfortably. […] The measures include allowing plug-in balcony solar units, reining in local restrictions on large solar farms, and pushing for better utilization of the state’s existing network of poles and wires.”

May 22-28 news here | (all credit for images and written material can be found at the source linked; I don’t claim credit for anything but curating.)

[vacuously-true]

Technically, seven hours faster than biking. Way slower and more expensive than Amtrak tho.

My friend enjoyed the process video and said I should add it to the post so here it is:

[mousegirlheart]

um actually there's nothing wrong with letting cats be outdoor pets. your cat is depressed locked inside forever. it's animal abuse. let it outside. more cats should be let outside more often. especially overnight.

[divinum-pacis]

“We cannot pray to You, O God, to banish war, for You have filled the world with paths to peace, if only we would take them. We cannot pray to You to end starvation, for there is food enough for all, if only we would share it. We cannot merely pray for prejudice to cease, for we might see the good in all that lies before our eyes, if only we would use them. We cannot merely pray “Root out despair,” for the spark of hope already waits within the human heart, for us to fan it into flame. We must not ask of You, O God, to take the task that You have given us. We cannot shirk, we cannot flee away, Avoiding obligation for ever. Therefore we pray, O God, for wisdom and will, for courage to do and to become, not only to look on with helpless yearning as though we had no strength. For Your sake and ours speedily and soon, let it be: that our land may be safe, that our lives may be blessed”

— Rabbi Jack Riemer (We Cannot Pray to You)