Paul Wintz
paulwintz.com
Paul Wintz
@paulwintz.com
After my computer crashed shortly before my PhD defense, I decided I needed a better system to make sure that all my Git repos were backed up. Here is a walk-through of my solution: paulwintz.com/git-check-al...

(Suggestions are welcome!)
#git
How to Check All Your Git Repositories for Uncommitted Changes
Avoid losing work: How to check the status of all Git repositories in bulk.
paulwintz.com
November 3, 2025 at 12:01 AM
I would frame it differently. It’s important that scientists consistently and impartially seek Truth via reliable methods and disseminate claims they believe to be true regardless of whether it aligns with a particular political ideology. In normal times, this look apolitical, but not currently.
It's really important that there be some obviously apolitical scientists. Folks that the government can call on and have everyone agree "yep, their testimony was as factual as possible." I always wanted to be one of those! But it just doesn't seem tenable anymore.
September 7, 2025 at 7:36 AM
Filing this away for whenever I give up on Windows.
Did you know your MacBook has a sensor that knows the exact angle of the screen hinge?

It’s not exposed as a public API, but I figured out a way to read it and make it sound like an old wooden door.
September 7, 2025 at 7:22 AM
Reposted by Paul Wintz
Polynomial roots in loop!
Made with #python #numpy #sympy #matplotlib
August 31, 2025 at 7:10 PM
Reposted by Paul Wintz
An abbreviation (ABB) in a journal article (JA) or Grant Application (GA) is rarely worth the words it saves. Every ABB requires cognitive resources (CR) and at my age by the time I'm halfway through a JA or GA I no longer have the CR to remember what your ABB stood for.
August 15, 2025 at 9:39 AM
Just discovered (by chance) a handy new shortcut in Windows. "⊞ Win + T" puts a selector in the task bar that lets you select items using the arrow keys. Left and right arrows moves between items. The up arrow can be used to move into a group of Windows for an item. ENTER selects the Window.
August 13, 2025 at 9:15 PM
Reposted by Paul Wintz
Watch Out!
August 11, 2025 at 4:38 AM
@sconradi.bsky.social I just found your blog. Your math/physics-based art is super cool! It reminds me of an old art project I developed:
www.tumblr.com/spiromaniac
@spiromaniac · Spiromaniac
Spirotechnics are created by Paul Wintz, a graduate student in the Department of Applied Mathematics at the University of California, Santa Cruz. The animations are generated by a program written in...
www.tumblr.com
August 10, 2025 at 8:57 PM
Pigeons are 100% underrated.
Stunning! A pigeon doing backflips.
August 9, 2025 at 11:19 PM
Reposted by Paul Wintz
yeah ur rights it’s not all bad
July 22, 2025 at 6:18 PM
Reposted by Paul Wintz
A useful epistemic heuristic: bexoming more suspicious of something the more exciting it is. Catches scientific bugs, prevents yourself getting fooled by fake news, etc.
For real though, it catches so many scientific errors.
July 12, 2025 at 12:34 AM
Reposted by Paul Wintz
Orwell wanted to create an all-knowing governmental presence in everyone's lives by showing the terrors of having an ever-listening piece of technology in their home, never truly escaping surveillance. At least, that's what Alexa told me.
July 4, 2025 at 10:31 PM
Reposted by Paul Wintz
This is what happens if you map the latitude of European cities onto North America & vice versa.

Some realizations:
Most European cities are north of the US-Canadian border.
London shares latitudes with an Alaskan island chain.
Houston is further south than Cairo.

(🧑‍🎨: 7LeagueBoots)
June 18, 2025 at 9:43 PM
The #NoKings rally in #SantaCruz, CA! I tried to record the scale of the protest via hyperlapses.
June 14, 2025 at 8:24 PM
Reposted by Paul Wintz
#Elephants with jobs: Life guard
June 6, 2025 at 9:40 AM
Getting to watch a live feed of elephants on the other side of the world is such a treat.
explore.org/livecams/cur...
June 6, 2025 at 9:32 AM
Reposted by Paul Wintz
Tuberculosis (TB) was once a leading killer in rich countries, but it’s now rare in those places.

But TB still kills almost 1.3 million people every year, making it the world’s deadliest infectious disease.
June 2, 2025 at 11:29 AM
Becoming increasingly disillusioned with Google, I am gradually replacing their products. I like DuckDuckGo for web searches but struggled to find a satisfactory maps app. I recently found Organic Maps, an open-source, privacy-focused, on- and offline maps app. I see no downsides!
organicmaps.app
June 2, 2025 at 8:15 AM
@merriam-webster.com, why are the pronunciations for "facie" different between "ex facie" and "prima facie"?
April 30, 2025 at 3:36 AM
Reposted by Paul Wintz
"On Tyranny" is a #1 NYT bestseller again. I wish the moment were different. But I’m glad the book is useful. And grateful for all the kind words about putting the 20 lessons to work.
snyder.substack.com/p/twenty-les...
Twenty Lessons, read by John Lithgow
Key selections from On Tyranny, for viewing and sharing
snyder.substack.com
April 12, 2025 at 5:33 PM
Reposted by Paul Wintz
Proudly presenting the (for now) final version of "Why experiments work." To share the materials in a slightly more professional manner, I added a "Resources" page to my website: juliarohrer.com/resources/.

That was long overdue anyway; now there's also a curated list of my papers and blog posts.
April 12, 2025 at 8:21 AM
This is what happens when galaxies collide; a billion year gravitational waltz.

This supercomputer simulation includes images from Hubble of actual galactic collisions at different stages.

Credit: NASA, ESA, and F. Summers
April 8, 2025 at 3:09 AM
My latest version of the Dryer Lint extension adds
- Rule sets that allow for linting rules to be selectively applied based on file language, glob patterns, and inline comments.
- "Dryer Lint: Fix All" command to fix all rules in a file.

marketplace.visualstudio.com/items?itemNa...

#vscode #latex
April 7, 2025 at 10:09 PM
"Look... highways are organic animals and you never know what the reaction is going to be. One thing I can tell you is can tell you is I have been very impressed with our highway infrastructure. We had a record volume of cars delivered smoothly to the hundred-car pileup..."
WELKER: The markets lost more than $6 trillion in value. Was this disruption always part of the plan?

BESSENT: We had record volume on Friday and everything is working very smoothly. So the American people can take great comfort in that.
April 6, 2025 at 9:07 PM