The Jacobian conjecture was "solved". Turns out it's true.
There is no paper showing it, just a tweet, all lower case, no punctuation. You can't get cooler than this.
#math #mathematicshttps://xcancel.com/__alpoge__/status/2079028340955197566
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Neiman
@neiman@social.hastily.cc
mastodon 4.5.3A professional hobbyist; math background.
Interests: privacy, autonomously, books and art.
Currently working on:
- Researching zk-snarks,
- Rust 2D game development with WGPU,
- Creating music with Ardour
I have a vision for a democratic web: a web that is governed in a democratic way like a country: https://neimanslab.org/2024-08-21/democratic_web_manifest.html
Check out my tool for writing Mastodon threads: https://splinter.hastily.cc/
215 Followers
198 Following
27 Posts
Joined November 28, 2024
Would a world without advertisement be a better one or a worse one?
It's a thought experiment, not a suggestion.
Advertisement: any paid action to bring attention to a something.
On the one hand, as a person, I can't stand advertising. It's a waste of my time; it's noise. I don't need it.
On the other hand, I do understand why people need a way to make others aware of what they do. I also understand it's a crucial drive of our economy.
Replying to
There were other issues mentioned. Like creating a new foundation, "The Document Collective", and using funds from "The Document Foundation" as seed funds. But I won't get into that.
The TDF vs TDC situation reminds me of "People's Front of Judea vs the Judean People's Front". (3/6)
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Current situation:
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LibreOffice legal issues were (maybe) solved - but it has now lost most of its main contributors.
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Collabora is hurt and wants to replace LibreOffice. But that's easier said than done.
The FOSS community needs its own Office suite. I need it for some of the stuff I do. I hope the sides will be able to sort things out.
For further reading: https://www.reddit.com/r/libreoffice/comments/1sbdy4b/opinion_about_the_latest_dispute_between/
E2EE encrypted messages coming to ActivityPub, and hopefully also Mastodon, soon:
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Will it become a trend? God, I hope not. This is terrible for innovation, this is terrible for the academy. It gives big tech yet another advantage over individuals like us.
Google can't be prevented from doing it without social pressure. I think that researchers who are asked to publish their research that way should refuse on ethical grounds. I think others should criticize them if they do. (5/5)
If you'll read one thing about AI today, let it be the thread of Gili Bar-Halel on Bluesky.
She focuses on the literature world, since she owns a small children's book publishing house. But really she focuses on the human aspect of it.
https://bsky.app/profile/gilibug.bsky.social/post/3mh5whev3222a
@eladhen@tooot.im I meant "persons", as in "legal person" (which does include corporation).
But I do think in general that the law and legal system should be asymmetric such that it favors human people over corporations. Right now I feel it's the opposite.
I encourage everyone to read Matthew Green (relatively) new post about "Anonymous credentials: an illustrated primer". It is fan-tas-tic!
Smart, enlightening - and yes - even funny.
https://blog.cryptographyengineering.com/2026/03/02/anonymous-credentials-an-illustrated-primer/
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It's a new tool, so there is a small gallery so far. But what people did already is "Oh my god".
What I did, however, was in my regular style, "weird as duck". It's easy to guess which of the attached pieces is mine and which is of a talented person. (3/4)
Jack Dorsey fired around 50% of the people in Block and announced it on Twitter? Why o Why?! Didn't he founded BlueSky to avoid Twitter?
While he does try to justify it, mostly with AI reasoning, and he does try to be fair to the people who were let to go - I still have hard to to think it's an ethic act.
Dorsey tried to label himself as a different kind of CEO; He even wanted to speak in Fosdem last year. But I don't think he can help himself; he just doesn't know any better.
MOSS is a web pixel paint app where every brush is a program.
It's a stunning project. They put care and attention into small details in every aspect of it. This includes the onboard process!
I geniouly envy Brainfruit Studio for creating such a magnificent tool. (1/4)
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I don't know how MOSS was built. How much AI code? How much is a human touch?
My guess? MOSS programming involved a huge amount of human coding. AI doesn't create a product so polished & originall AI doesn't show this care for the small details.
The brushes, however, might be done with AI; I can imagine how, once you define the scripting language, you prompt which brush you want, and the AI sketches it. IF that's the case - that's ok. That's how a good usage of AI should look, (4/4)
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With this done, I can finally focus on adding new features. The most immediate ones:
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Minimize dependence on the server. The authorization token should be saved on the user's browser.
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Two-column edit mode for Desktop. Show the preview on the side of the editor.
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Show the character count for each post in the thread. (2/2)
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LibreOffice might lose its non-profit status due to its relationship with Collabora:
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LibreOffice allowed Collabora to use its trademark for free. But Collabora is for-profit & is part of LibreOffice decision making! This looks like using the non-profit body to make a profit.
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LibreOffice paid Collabora for code contributions. Again, there's a conflict of interest here since Collabora is for-profit and was part of the decision to pay itself.
Sounds reasonable, right? (2/6)
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The most interesting part for me was how Google published its new algorithm. They didn't. Instead, they published a zero-knowledge proof that such an algorithm exists.
When was the last time someone published a proof of their knowledge of math instead of the math itself? Maybe in 1675 when Hooke published an anagram of his famous law instead of the law itself.
https://quantumfrontiers.com/2015/08/31/the-enigma-of-robert-hooke/
Why did Google do that? Is it a good idea? Is it the beginning of a trend of a new closed math? (2/5)
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LibreOffice didn't manage to solve the legal problems with its internal governance process.
Instead, it passed a new "bylaw" stating that people in a possible legal conflict with the organization need to be kicked out. So basically, everyone associated with Collabora got kicked out.
It includes many of the current active developers. (4/6)
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Collabora, on its side, is not bothered (it seems) by the conflict of interest issues. They are bothered by how removing them from LibreOffice was done. It seems there was a lot of insensitivity involved. (5/6)
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What does Google claim?
Google claims it's done to disclose the technology without enabling attackers. Attackers on fictional quantum computers that don't exist yet and may never exist. Weird.
There is no way that till (and if) QC will exist, the algorithm will not either leak or be discovered by someone else. People will look for it more now. The authors, famous researchers, are bound to use similar techniques in their future research. (3/5)
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Other people, however, suspect this is a new method to keep technology closed-source while still getting all the glory. Who knows.
I personally suspect that it's done just because it's cool. Like, no one did it before, it was a neat idea someone came up with - and others were like: yeah, sure, why not? I'm just guessing, of course. (4/5)
@lcamtuf@infosec.exchange I agree, and this disagrees. Like yes, many math names are "creative" instead of informative - terrible.
As a student, these terms scared me; made it difficult to discuss math (my memory for random names is bad).
As a lecturer, I encouraged students to avoid using names of theorems; instead use a descriptive name.
However, as someone who wrote math, it's hard to write clearly & avoid using obtuse terminology. You find yourself defining so many things that it happens naturally..
@jik@federate.social Hi! Thanks! I wanted to revisit the image attachment system anyway, but you motivated me to do that sooner. I'll look into it in the upcoming days.
Is it ok if I DM you for questions?
@ligasser@social.epfl.ch Probably the best context ever to apply this quote! 😅