( \(2^{nd}\) announcement)
The #Springer Problem Book for the Indiana College Mathematics Competition (2001-2023) is now available in a (slightly less expensive) softcover format! This book, edited by me, J. Gash, R. Gillman, and @JohnRickert , can be used by students and coaches in a problem solving class, and would also make a great gift or library order! Purchases through the publisher web site generate royalties that support student activities in the #Indiana Section of the #MAA .
Occam’s Razor: Why the Simplest Answer is Often the Best
https://wp.me/p84YjG-5Jd
#OccamsRazor #Simplicity #CriticalThinking #ProblemSolving #DecisionMaking #Philosophy #LifeSkills #ThinkingSkills #Mindset #Wisdom #zsoltzsemba
Here’s a biter: The thing about #dichotomy, if you know, you know it’s pretty frustrating. The key to unlock it is this: The reason #dichotomy is frustrating is because we’re making the #circumstances the deciding factor for the solution. Hence, a solution at one event is the problem at another.
#MindsetShift #Perspective #ProblemSolving #Philosophy #LifeLessons #DeepThoughts #Balance #Solution #PersonalGrowth #InnerPeace #Wisdom #Clarity #ChallengeYourself #MindfulLiving #Insights #LifeHacks
Should we add "#SkinJobs" and "#Toasters" and "#GoRustYourself" to this list?
How ‘#Clanker’ Became the Internet’s New Favorite Slur
New derogatory phrases are popping up online, thanks to a cultural pushback against #AI
by CT Jones, August 6, 2025
"Clanker. #Wireback. #Cogsucker. People are feeling the inescapable inevitability of AI developments, the encroaching of the digital into everything from entertainment to work. And their answer? Slurs.
"AI is everywhere — on Google summarizing search results and siphoning web traffic from digital publishers, on social media platforms like Instagram, X, and Facebook, adding misleading context to viral posts, or even powering #NaziChatbots. #GenerativeAI and #LargeLanguageModels — AI trained on huge datasets — are being used as therapists, consulted for medical advice, fueling spiritual psychosis, directing self-driving cars, and churning out everything from college essays to cover letters to breakup messages.
"Alongside this deluge is a growing sense of discontent from people fearful of artificial intelligence stealing their jobs, and worried what effect it may have on future generations — losing important skills like media #literacy, #ProblemSolving, and #CognitiveFunction. This is the world where the popularity of AI and robot slurs has skyrocketed, being thrown at everything from ChatGPT servers to delivery drones to automated customer service representatives. Rolling Stone spoke with two language experts who say the rise in robot and AI slurs does come from a kind of cultural pushback against AI development, but what’s most interesting about the trend is that it uses one of the only tools AI can’t create: slang
" '#Slang is moving so fast now that an #LLM trained on everything that happened before it is not going to have immediate access to how people are using a particular word now,' says Nicole Holliday, associate professor of linguistics at UC Berkeley. 'Humans [on] #UrbanDictionary are always going to win.' "
Archived version:
https://archive.ph/ku2Uw
A quotation from Franklin Roosevelt
The country needs and, unless I mistake its temper, the country demands bold, persistent experimentation. It is common sense to take a method and try it: If it fails, admit it frankly and try another. But above all, try something.
Franklin Delano Roosevelt (1882-1945) American lawyer, politician, statesman, US President (1933-1945)
Speech (1932-05-22), Commencement, Oglethorpe University, Atlanta, Georgia
Sourcing, notes: __________
“I don’t see much sense in that,” said Rabbit.
“No,” said Pooh humbly, “there isn’t. But there was going to be when I began it. It’s just that something happened to it on the way.”
A. A. Milne (1882-1956) English poet and playwright [Alan Alexander Milne]
House at Pooh Corner, ch. 7 “Tigger Is Unbounced” (1928)
Sourcing, notes: wist.info/milne-a-a/78220/
Specialists #Specialists offer in-depth knowledge, driving #innovation and #problemsolving in areas beyond current AI’s reach.
Generalists #Generalists on the other hand #connect the dots between #disciplines, foster #collaboration, and creatively use AI tools to tackle broader challenges.
AI With rapid learning and scalability, AI blurs boundaries, performing repetitive specialist tasks while supporting generalists in connecting knowledge.
A quotation from La Rochefoucauld
Our minds are better employed in bearing the misfortunes that do befall us than in foreseeing those that may.
[Il vaut mieux employer notre esprit à supporter les infortunes qui nous arrivent qu’à prévoir celles qui nous peuvent arriver.]
François VI, duc de La Rochefoucauld (1613-1680) French epigrammatist, memoirist, noble
Réflexions ou sentences et maximes morales [Reflections; or Sentences and Moral Maxims], ¶174 (1665-1678) [tr. Tancock (1959)]
Sourcing, notes, other translations: wist.info/la-rochefoucauld-fra…
The War on Drugs is the perfect substitute for the Cold War. We can continue to pursue policies that don’t work on the cheerful assumption that if we just do more of what doesn’t work, it will solve the problem.
Molly Ivins (1944-2007) American writer, political columnist [Mary Tyler Ivins]
Essay (1990-02), “The Czar is Hooked,” The Progressive
Sourcing, notes: wist.info/ivins-molly/78096/
WhatsApp Rolls Out AI Chatbot for Instant In-App Support
#artificialintelligence #problemsolving #support #whatsapp
https://blazetrends.com/whatsapp-rolls-out-ai-chatbot-for-instant-in-app-support/?fsp_sid=72261
https://www.europesays.com/us/74532/ Turns out quantum secrets can’t be cracked by humans or AI alone #ai #MachineLearning #Physics #ProblemSolving #QuantumPhysics #Science #UnitedStates #UnitedStates #US
Hack, Hacky, Hacker
A few days ago I wrote about the beauty of great documentation; this is the evil twin post.
The spectrum of meaning across the words hack, hacky, and hacker form a horseshoe when thinking about postures toward life. On either ends are the most difficult options. Being either a hack or a hacker requires dedication and both approaches narrow your world. Being hacky, taking imperfect shortcuts, in the world is immensely satisfying. It is play disguised as problem solving.
Fox by Arnold Peter Weisz Kubincan. Original public domain image from Web umeniaA successful hack takes tremendous effort and dedication just to pretend to be great at something. Humans are great at spotting and discarding hacks. It takes a true master to fool a large enough population and build financial columns under the smoke. Being a hack is constant desperation, there is no play. It is no way to live.
On the other end of the same horseshoe as the hack, is hacking. Here, you are actually achieving something difficult enough to require mastery. “Playfully doing something difficult, whether useful or not, that is hacking.” says Richard Stallman. Now, I’m all for the playful, the difficult, and the useful, but not the “or not”. At minimum hacking should be in service of a prank. Doing things just because is like felling a tree in a forest when no one is around. At least a jump scare is a sine qua non (the dictionary is working :P).
Most systems, especially computers are designed by people for people like you and me who are neither very bright nor very invested in the thing. We want to not have the problem. You can always walk away but that is neither fun, nor useful, and certainly not hard. My favored way is to take the Nakatomi Tunnel through problems. Be hacky. Try enough approaches, push buttons that may do the thing you want until the alignment is just so and you slip through. Effectiveness here = solving many real-world problems quickly while preserving playful momentum.
I want to draw a distinction here from the oversubscribed idea of jugaad. Jugaad was once framed as creative improvisation. It is not. I do not care for jugaad. To make something substandard and expect people to accept it is no way to be in the world. Build good stuff, be hacky route through the small issues.
A hacky mindset is a foxy mindset and not just in the Hendrix way. The Hedgehog and the Fox is a great essay by Isaiah Berlin where he talks about the two kinds of people in the world. Hedgehogs, are great at one big thing. Foxes are mediocre at many things. Foxes thrive on lateral moves and opportunistic shortcuts, you know, hackiness. The hacky, foxy approach to life is more my style.
Breadth, speed, and joy beat fakery and fixation every time
https://www.europesays.com/uk/270788/ Turns out quantum secrets can’t be cracked by humans or AI alone #AI #MachineLearning #Physics #ProblemSolving #QuantumPhysics #Science #UK #UnitedKingdom
A quotation from Bertrand Russell
The wise man thinks about his troubles only when there is some purpose in doing so; at other times he thinks about other things, or, if it is night, about nothing at all.
Bertrand Russell (1872-1970) English mathematician and philosopher
Conquest of Happiness, Part 1, ch. 5 “Fatigue” (1930)
Sourcing, notes: wist.info/russell-bertrand/777…