Linkage

Pentagon tiler Marjorie Rice dies. Sadly, she wasn’t able to find out about Rao’s new solution to the pentagon tiling problem.

Female CS pioneers, described at a level suitable for freshman computer scientists.

Images that trick automated image classifiers, even when transformed, via BB). Generated by hill-climbing with an evaluation function that tests the misclassification rate of an array of transformed classifiers.

Fair Open Access principles for open-access journals: transparent ownership, author retains copyright, explicit open licensing, publication not conditional on fees or membership, and fees are low and transparent (G+). They mostly look reasonable, but the ownership requirement may create a problematic barrier to entry.

Brilliant geometry, Matt Parker’s video of Henry Segerman’s exhibit (G+). What stereographic projection from the fourth dimension means, and how it gives us a distorted picture of four-dimensional shapes.

How the design trend towards gray-on-gray text is making web pages harder to read (G+). Also text-editing apps. If you want to avoid this problem, use an online tool for checking that your color combination has enough contrast.

Why you shouldn’t worry when your Google Scholar h-index drops a little sometimes instead of staying monotonic.

Geometry of a triple bubble, one of Crockett Johnson’s mathematically inspired paintings, via MF).

The travel ban: affected mathematicians tell their stories. From the latest Notices of the American Mathematical Society and including also official statements from the AMS in opposition to Trump’s travel ban.

Balanced ternary in 1544. From Michael Stifel’s Arithmetica Integra, via Jeff Erickson on mathstodon.

Hinged polyomino dissection vacuum cleaner video. I’m not sure how this is better than completely separated subunits, but it’s fun to see something I worked on turn into something more practical.

Fast complex-number arithmetic (G+), and how the choice of compiler optimization flags can make a big difference in speed.