David Petersen
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calcdave.bsky.social
David Petersen
@calcdave.bsky.social
A fisher of minds in central Ohio
Reposted by David Petersen
In her #NWAV53 plenary, King discusses an example of a juror being dismissed from the pool due to forestressing in the word police (so PO-lice), because the prosecutor claimed that the pronunciation showed animus towards law enforcement. And this is exactly why I study prosody!
November 6, 2025 at 4:27 PM
Reposted by David Petersen
Valuable info about the Physics Nobel Prize today from Prof. Joseph Barranco at SFSU on Martinis and Devoret being a grad student and postdoc in Clarke's lab at UC Berkeley & Clark and Devoret being immigrants. "California *public* education made this happen. Immigration made this happen." ⚛️
October 7, 2025 at 5:53 PM
@alliegoertz.bsky.social Matt Groening gave you a quick mention on today's WTF interview about how you were his first podcast even though he'd promised Maron. But, your interview was better
October 6, 2025 at 4:46 PM
Reposted by David Petersen
The distance between Neptune and the Sun correlates with Burglary rates in the US (r=0.969)
September 27, 2025 at 1:33 PM
Reposted by David Petersen
The gap between teacher pay and other college graduates’ pay is the highest it’s been in over four decades.

Is there a “teacher shortage,” or a shortage of jobs that treat educators with the pay, dignity, and support they deserve?
September 24, 2025 at 11:00 PM
Reposted by David Petersen
A key difference here is that while either can be incorrect, the structure of Wikipedia *creates context* and the structure of LLMs *destroys context*

Wikipedia has linked sources and an edit history showing where information came from and who added it when

An LLM just generates text
Some of the anti-AI stuff feels a bit like when people would say "don't use Wikipedia as a source." It's just like anything else, a piece of information that you weigh against multiple sources and your own understanding of its likely failure modes
April 26, 2025 at 6:39 PM
Reposted by David Petersen
1. "'Trusting the experts is not a feature of either a science or democracy," Kennedy said."

It's literally a vital feature of both science and of representative democracy.

I've written a fair bit about trust in expertise as a vital mechanism in the collective epistemology of science.
RFK Jr. in interview with Scripps News: ‘Trusting the experts is not science’
HHS Secretary RFK Jr. sat down with Scripps News for a wide-ranging interview, discussing mRNA vaccine funding policy changes and a recent shooting at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
www.scrippsnews.com
August 12, 2025 at 4:48 AM
August 8, 2025 at 7:36 PM
If we could just believe women, we wouldn't need the files released.
August 6, 2025 at 7:16 PM
If you finish a video or some social media and you are left feeling angry or smug, make sure you analyze your reasons and question the media you just consumed. -- @escapethispodcast.bsky.social
July 23, 2025 at 9:34 PM
Entering a bank with a Victoria's Secret bag and shouting it's a C cup.
Entering a bank saying "it is what it is" announcing it's a sic up.
Entering a bank with a ballpoint pen and announcing it's a BIC up.
July 2, 2025 at 4:34 PM
@triangleman.bsky.social Message from my wife while I work this morning.
June 23, 2025 at 12:29 PM
@rhettallain.bsky.social Hi, Rhett! Do you (or the physics community) have a standard example of what 1 Newton feels like? Like Wikipedia has that the force of gravity on an apple is about 2N, but that's still not too intuitive to me. So maybe how hard you'd have to push something common?
June 12, 2025 at 9:32 PM
Usually it's the first 2 panels that make a good business card, but in today's comic it's the last panel that I want.
this is also why i play my least-favourite song during sex. for science

www.qwantz.com/index.php?co...
June 9, 2025 at 12:34 PM
Free jeans?!
May 23, 2025 at 1:34 AM
@ifycomedy.com You are very right about the "don't you dare close your eyes" line from Aladdin. Dial it down, bud!
May 7, 2025 at 12:11 AM
Reposted by David Petersen
🔑🚪It’s time to escape! Check out the newest Desmos escape room!

To play yourself: student.desmos.com/join/3jjxj9
(no need to log in but it will save your progress if you do)

Here’s the teacher link to run it with a class:
teacher.desmos.com/activitybuil...

Have fun!
May 2, 2025 at 7:06 PM
I'll be there!
“21st century mathematics”: a free month-long online enrichment program for math teachers.

Info + register: bit.ly/21math2025

Video part 1:
April 23, 2025 at 11:10 PM
To really make money on the stock market you don't actually want it to just go up. You want 2 things:
1. Volatility (goes up and down a lot)
2. Predictability

Then, if you have the TIME and MONEY you can ride those waves to fortune. That's why he's doing it. #RichGetRicher
April 9, 2025 at 8:33 PM
@schviftyfive.tv How's the coding going? I'm really proud of you taking the time to learn more!
April 8, 2025 at 11:41 AM
@zachweinersmith.bsky.social The college where my wife is a professor is putting on a play of Beowulf this weekend. So, my son is reading your book to prepare for understanding what's going on.
March 31, 2025 at 10:06 PM
Reposted by David Petersen
USAspending.gov has some days explorations and a great API for my quant-minded friends who want to see what trillions of dollars of federal grants and loans pay for.
USAspending.gov
USAspending.gov
January 28, 2025 at 6:22 PM
Reposted by David Petersen
January 9, 2025 at 4:18 PM
Tossing it out that someone could use Balatro to teach about operations and why order matters (for the jokers, put +mult before x mult)
January 5, 2025 at 3:45 PM
Now that's what I call a reflexive property!
December 24, 2024 at 8:37 PM