Zach Weinersmith

Bonus panel here: http://www.smbc-comics.com/comic/easier #smbc #math

Startling end to comic available here: http://www.smbc-comics.com/comic/witch-2 #smbc #comics #fables

RE: @ZachWeinersmith@mastodon.social

icymi

I've decided it's time to just read straight through a linear algebra textbook. Is Strang still the standard?

Kinda funny, I was thinking about the idea of explaining imaginary numbers to high school students by saying "actually, there's no magic. You can do the whole thing using only reals." But then basically you have to be like "x^2+1=0" doesn't appear to have a solution until POOF, a rotation matrix appears. Which is maybe more confusing?

Bonus panel here: http://www.smbc-comics.com/comic/log #smbc #religion #comics

This is kinda neat: https://www.reddit.com/r/Old_Recipes/comments/1shj9mp/from_the_1939_worlds_fair_cookbook/

I have a few old cookbooks, and one of the amazing things is how much they assume you just know how to do. Like I have a nice recipe for chocolate meringue pie and one of the steps is just "make a meringue."

Clearly home cooks used to have a bit more knowhow about the basics, but the other thing for those of us who cook for our families is details don't matter if you're gonna do the recipe 400 times. You'll adapt it, so specifics aren't useful.

Getting a lot of traffic to my own site for a comic that is deeply non-functional on social media is giving me some weird nostalgia.

Update: sorry for the server bugs, but I added something I forgot, which is that the bonus panel now contains... a CHALLENGE. (the challenge is also in the sub-comic blog) https://www.smbc-comics.com/comic/spheres-part-1

So this happened
https://www.smbc-comics.com/comic/spheres-part-1

#smbc #comics #math

RE: @jpshoer@mastodon.social

Yes! It's a great story, even with context, but the missing context does change it quite a bit. Most importantly, Dr. Rhea Seddon worked on the women's kit, and was at that time the only astronaut/physician/vagina-haver on planet Earth.

Mary
Bonus panel here: http://www.smbc-comics.com/comic/mary #smbc #comics

Hey cybersecurity geeks-- so it seems like anthropic now has really good exploit detection ability. Do you think this makes offense or defense harder? Like, seems like everyone might have to go through a battery of automated checks before deploying stuff into the world.

Bonus panel here: http://www.smbc-comics.com/comic/will-2 #smbc #comics #webcomics

Trying to become more unrelatable with this punchline.

So as my hobby/exercise I've been planting a large amount of fruit trees. I am weirdly excited about making ciders and wines, but I... don't actually like drinking. I occasionally have a weak cider for a celebration and usually don't finish. But the chemistry is interesting.

So, two things I really value are free trade and open immigration. On reflection, weirdly, it's somewhat easier to make the open borders case to people, even though it's less popular overall. Why? Because to make a case for free trade, you have to argue the period from the mid 70s to Trump, where trade was getting more and more free, was broadly a good time. But that's not people's intuition, and in my experience, people don't usually accept macro stats.

(possibly this is specific to my bubble)

Bonus panel here: http://www.smbc-comics.com/comic/hi #smbc #comics

Kinda funny: I was reading Zeno's lesser-known "stadium paradox." Read it in a book, maybe 3 times and it just wouldn't click. Finally, I go to Stanford's encyclopedia of philosophy and it appears the consensus is that Zeno was just being an idiot on that one. https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/paradox-zeno/#Stad

You know my favorite thing about living in a rural area? I used to have formal gym-style exercise, and though I didn't hate it I never liked it. Now that I'm trying to plant an orchard I get excellent exercise pushing a wheelbarrow of wood chips all over the place. And I never get tired because I'm accomplishing something.

Only downside is that natural exercise tends to not make sexy muscles large. I feel like I'm just getting scrawny, but I swear I can lift heavier stuff now!

Something I have trouble explaining about space travel. Like, if you've read my book, you know I think human space faring is probably not economically valuable. It's not a good use of science dollars compared to other areas. I'm even skeptical of the case for inspiration (it doesn't seem to causally related to more aerospace degrees).

But it's also just really cool. Why don't I feel this way about Antarctica or Seabed exploration?

RE: @heathborders@hachyderm.io

I should probably mention this more, but the book is designed for reluctant readers. Meaning, it has lots of illustrations, short chapters, jokes, BUT on the sly it slips in an unusually complex plot and a number of literary references.

Guess we get an uptick in sales of A City on Mars (a) when Elon Musk runs his mouth, and (b) when inspirational astronaut crews go on daring voyages to deep space.

Nice to have variety!

Bonus panel here: http://www.smbc-comics.com/comic/super-3 #smbc #comics

Consider the witch

Bonus panel here: http://www.smbc-comics.com/comic/bad-4 #smbc #comics

Have I mentioned here that I have a new book coming out in June? You can see a pretty substantial excerpt here: https://us.macmillan.com/books/9780374393496/sawyerleeandthequesttojuststayhome/

I guarantee at least three laughs, even if you are not in the target audience of young people.

Hey geeks! We're ordering extra blank mugs for the upcoming Mother's Day, but if you want one of our statistical parent mugs, please get your order in. https://smbc-store.myshopify.com/products/good-parent-mug

So, for all of my books I have a celebration song that ties to themes in the book. For Sawyer Lee it's this one: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_YZtjgFF39g

I am playing it today for REASONS.

Book available here: https://us.macmillan.com/books/9780374393496/sawyerleeandthequesttojuststayhome/

Two more Erdos problems automatically solved https://arxiv.org/pdf/2603.29961

Often when this happens it's later discovered that there was already a proof in the lit somewhere, though in several cases the proofs were shown to be novel. I find math the most interesting use for modern AI, because it's the one area of human endeavor where the computer can automatically perform verification.

As promised, here's the episode where my wife ruins bats AND giraffes. (sandwiched between Daniel describing the physics of fog and a particular type of singularity) https://www.iheart.com/podcast/105-daniel-and-kellys-extraord-29862087/episode/listener-questions-34-328566856

One of the weirdest things to me about the tech scene for AI is you regularly hear variants on "Super-human intelligence is coming next year and will permanently alter life as we know it. Prepare your business and finances accordingly." Setting aside what you think about the first half, how does the second half make any sense? Like... what would you do differently, other than move to the woods?

Bonus panel here, which contains the scientific explanation: http://www.smbc-comics.com/comic/up-4 #smbc #comics

I just don't have the time right now, but doing an explainer comic strip about weird plant science would be really fun. I'm working on a large (for a private property anyway) orchard and have been trying to get textbooks on the science and there is just so much strangeness, so many mysteries. There's also a lot of what I think of as "lore" e.g. "this plant is referenced once in 1943, but may be lost, except for a single garden in the mountains of West Virginia..."

Since Mastodon is for nerds, I'm here to share a nerd thing. I'm interested in rose breeding, and one thing you have to account for there is ploidy, which can determine whether species can cross. There's a type of rose called dogroses (Rosa canina), often used in cooking, which has its own, unique and bizarre, pentaploid meiosis.

28 mom chromosomes, 7 dad chomosomes. The dad part is shuffled like normal. The mom part is only partially shuffled.

https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-025-09171-z

Dunno if I've mentioned I here, but my wife Kelly does a podcast with our friend Daniel Whiteson. One of my favorite running themes is Kelly Ruins Cool Science Facts. In the middle segment of this one, there's a really good bit about the widely repeated idea that giraffes and bats have special blood valves. https://omny.fm/shows/daniel-and-kellys-extraordinary-universe/listener-questions-34

Oh the humanities...
Full comic here: https://www.smbc-comics.com/comic/humanities-2

Something I love about engineering/physics/CS culture is that almost every intellectual resource is available for free. There's a real presumption of non-gatekeeping that is, in my experience, not present in other fields.

Found this on my todo list. Not sure what it meant but it seems like a good task.

@forse@kolektiva.social It's the standard term in international law, just referring to the idea that there's no overarching authority over nations.

I've been reading a decent amount of history lately, and it's interesting the extent to which a lot of Trump's behavior feels like a throwback to the colonial era. Not because of colonialism exactly, but just, going to a word that's less liberal international, more quid-pro-quo anarchy. Like if it's 1930, forcing a teetering Republic to give up mineral resources for protection probably doesn't feel so weird. It's just the business of the state.

OK, I'm setting up bridgy by request. Should eventually pop up under @zachweinersmith.bsky.social

Hey all, I have enjoyed mastodon but after a lot of thought I've decided to centralize my twitter-style stuff on bluesky: https://bsky.app/profile/zachweinersmith.bsky.social

It seems to have the best combination of non-evil and user-friendly for the moment.

Anyone else get unreasonably annoyed that literally everyone's point of reference for everything is WWII? Every authoritarian movement is 1930s fascism, bad leaders are Hitler, the use of "concentration camps" for places where nobody is being killed, etc.

I find it especially irksome when I agree with the person making the argument!

What was the standard reference before WWII?