Peter Keep
@mathprofpeter.bsky.social
Community College math professor interested in math and stats education and also finding and following all of the other CC faculty on this app. I also post about basketball (Toronto Raptors and Chicago Sky) and other things. He/him
Happy first day of "Fake first day of Spring," Chicago! We have about 14 more of these kinds of days before we actually get to spring, but we can enjoy the sun and warmth today still!
December 23, 2025 at 7:53 PM
Happy first day of "Fake first day of Spring," Chicago! We have about 14 more of these kinds of days before we actually get to spring, but we can enjoy the sun and warmth today still!
(5 years late) Wait, is Jingle Jangle a math movie?
December 23, 2025 at 4:41 AM
(5 years late) Wait, is Jingle Jangle a math movie?
Present wrapping night, so it's also crack open the new bottle of bourbon night. Festive feelings to everyone, even in the face of all of this
December 23, 2025 at 2:11 AM
Present wrapping night, so it's also crack open the new bottle of bourbon night. Festive feelings to everyone, even in the face of all of this
If you're not seeing this same scheme employed at your own institution, don't get too comfortable...you will! Your school is not too big/small/private/conservative/progressive for this to happen there. Start planning to keep your college community safe from conservative attacks and spineless admin!
congrats everyone who took the time to nitpick the grading while a trans woman had her career ruined, your continued existence is useful
December 23, 2025 at 12:35 AM
If you're not seeing this same scheme employed at your own institution, don't get too comfortable...you will! Your school is not too big/small/private/conservative/progressive for this to happen there. Start planning to keep your college community safe from conservative attacks and spineless admin!
Reposted by Peter Keep
congrats everyone who took the time to nitpick the grading while a trans woman had her career ruined, your continued existence is useful
![i'm not typing all this out, but the key sentence is
The graduate teaching assistant will no longer have instructional duties at the University [sic].](https://cdn.bsky.app/img/feed_thumbnail/plain/did:plc:73hkwya2rrrfg26vdcwnmo6p/bafkreicyodv32sorwrj3j6cqxijbodoiil7cww4q2izle7rofbur55p254@jpeg)
December 22, 2025 at 11:54 PM
congrats everyone who took the time to nitpick the grading while a trans woman had her career ruined, your continued existence is useful
"Admin sacrificing academic freedom instead of supporting faculty in the face of any hardship whatsoever? On my campus?"
It's more likely than you think!
It's more likely than you think!
December 22, 2025 at 4:51 PM
"Admin sacrificing academic freedom instead of supporting faculty in the face of any hardship whatsoever? On my campus?"
It's more likely than you think!
It's more likely than you think!
Recent developments have moved these conversations to phone calls, a sure sign that the college is handling things in the worst way possible
Love to get through the semester and then have a big administrative decision to light the faculty group chats back up.
December 22, 2025 at 4:29 PM
Recent developments have moved these conversations to phone calls, a sure sign that the college is handling things in the worst way possible
Sober me will thank me for deleting those posts before posting those posts.
December 22, 2025 at 3:48 AM
Sober me will thank me for deleting those posts before posting those posts.
This morning on MathSky:
December 21, 2025 at 6:32 PM
This morning on MathSky:
It's funny to me that Bad and Not Good mean different things, like a joke post by a journalist can be both Bad (problematic take!) and also Not Good (it's a shit joke anyways!), but they're out here posting away anyways
December 21, 2025 at 6:07 PM
It's funny to me that Bad and Not Good mean different things, like a joke post by a journalist can be both Bad (problematic take!) and also Not Good (it's a shit joke anyways!), but they're out here posting away anyways
Kids are keeping themselves occupied nicely so I'm sneaking in some tea time and rest. Very happy to bring my office tea setup home for the break.
December 20, 2025 at 8:28 PM
Kids are keeping themselves occupied nicely so I'm sneaking in some tea time and rest. Very happy to bring my office tea setup home for the break.
Reposted by Peter Keep
A daring escape past y^2=x^3+x+3 over F14641
I was sent a lovely little paper last June about visualizing elliptic curves over finite fields and you just know I had to draw about it. Anyway now it’s space and piracy is involved!
I was sent a lovely little paper last June about visualizing elliptic curves over finite fields and you just know I had to draw about it. Anyway now it’s space and piracy is involved!
December 19, 2025 at 11:30 PM
A daring escape past y^2=x^3+x+3 over F14641
I was sent a lovely little paper last June about visualizing elliptic curves over finite fields and you just know I had to draw about it. Anyway now it’s space and piracy is involved!
I was sent a lovely little paper last June about visualizing elliptic curves over finite fields and you just know I had to draw about it. Anyway now it’s space and piracy is involved!
It is frustrating that the clear way forward here is to host all of the course materials ourselves and only engage with the college-licensed LMS products minimally.
We could have had a useful ecosystem of educational technology that was supported by our institutions, but here we are instead.
We could have had a useful ecosystem of educational technology that was supported by our institutions, but here we are instead.
I've already been hearing faculty discussion adapting to this policy by basically writing stripped down syllabi that include *only* the required boilerplate and nothing else, with things like course themes, reading schedules and such kept in separate documents to avoid the university owning them.
The UNC system just released its final policy on mandatory syllabi disclosure, stating that syllabi are university (not faculty) IP and certain course info must be posted on new, publicly searchable databases before every semester.
A thread about what's changed from the draft I reported on earlier:
A thread about what's changed from the draft I reported on earlier:
December 20, 2025 at 4:47 PM
It is frustrating that the clear way forward here is to host all of the course materials ourselves and only engage with the college-licensed LMS products minimally.
We could have had a useful ecosystem of educational technology that was supported by our institutions, but here we are instead.
We could have had a useful ecosystem of educational technology that was supported by our institutions, but here we are instead.
Love to get through the semester and then have a big administrative decision to light the faculty group chats back up.
December 20, 2025 at 12:16 AM
Love to get through the semester and then have a big administrative decision to light the faculty group chats back up.
You've heard of elf on a blah blah blah make your choice
December 18, 2025 at 10:25 PM
You've heard of elf on a blah blah blah make your choice
My less-than-a-day impression is that it is good and fun to get an old Windows tablet and put Ubuntu on it. I have never had this kind of middle-small size screen before but I see the appeal
Talk to me about the linux tablet project you are doing bc this may be relevant to my interests
December 18, 2025 at 3:47 PM
My less-than-a-day impression is that it is good and fun to get an old Windows tablet and put Ubuntu on it. I have never had this kind of middle-small size screen before but I see the appeal
I was a student in the days of Very Early Twitter, and my summer job boss left a printout of my Twitter profile on my desk one morning. I had tweeted about being bored with my job, but otherwise it was very mundane. I thought it was weird behavior to look that up, but I'd react a lot differently now
at my last job, one of my coworkers walked into my office and showed me one of my own tweets and said "is this you?" and it was like the worst thing that's ever happened to me
December 17, 2025 at 5:09 PM
I was a student in the days of Very Early Twitter, and my summer job boss left a printout of my Twitter profile on my desk one morning. I had tweeted about being bored with my job, but otherwise it was very mundane. I thought it was weird behavior to look that up, but I'd react a lot differently now
I have my last mandated training video for the year running muted on my second monitor. Just glanced over and damn, is there an academy award category for these, because the actor in this hostile work environment scenario is killing it
December 17, 2025 at 4:41 PM
I have my last mandated training video for the year running muted on my second monitor. Just glanced over and damn, is there an academy award category for these, because the actor in this hostile work environment scenario is killing it
once again
My beautiful son, OG Anunoby
December 17, 2025 at 2:43 AM
once again
I am writing something where I listed a bunch of things and then referred to a group of them as the "non-first" things, I think this is a sign that I need to take a nap.
December 16, 2025 at 4:51 PM
I am writing something where I listed a bunch of things and then referred to a group of them as the "non-first" things, I think this is a sign that I need to take a nap.
Reposted by Peter Keep
Vox: *fires all the creative people*
Also Vox: oh no where did all our ideas go
Also Vox: oh no where did all our ideas go
December 16, 2025 at 4:08 PM
Vox: *fires all the creative people*
Also Vox: oh no where did all our ideas go
Also Vox: oh no where did all our ideas go
Does anyone have a links to good writing on what "trivial" means in mathematics? How we might define that type of thing?
I get why people don't like the term, I want to help students seek out trivial examples/results as a way of getting familiar with whatever property we're working with.
#MathSky
I get why people don't like the term, I want to help students seek out trivial examples/results as a way of getting familiar with whatever property we're working with.
#MathSky
December 16, 2025 at 3:40 PM
Does anyone have a links to good writing on what "trivial" means in mathematics? How we might define that type of thing?
I get why people don't like the term, I want to help students seek out trivial examples/results as a way of getting familiar with whatever property we're working with.
#MathSky
I get why people don't like the term, I want to help students seek out trivial examples/results as a way of getting familiar with whatever property we're working with.
#MathSky
Things aren't perfect but the oolong has helped.
December 16, 2025 at 2:58 PM
Things aren't perfect but the oolong has helped.
I am working from bed this morning due to a mixture of "feeling slightly sick" and "just look around, of COURSE I'm working from bed today why wouldn't I?!"
December 16, 2025 at 2:19 PM
I am working from bed this morning due to a mixture of "feeling slightly sick" and "just look around, of COURSE I'm working from bed today why wouldn't I?!"
I have been sifting through the tcolorbox manual all afternoon and my big conclusion was that instead of fixing the broken thing, I just have to change the broken thing to some other thing that's not broken.
Very proud of myself for not fixating on this for more than 3.5 hours.
Very proud of myself for not fixating on this for more than 3.5 hours.
December 15, 2025 at 8:59 PM
I have been sifting through the tcolorbox manual all afternoon and my big conclusion was that instead of fixing the broken thing, I just have to change the broken thing to some other thing that's not broken.
Very proud of myself for not fixating on this for more than 3.5 hours.
Very proud of myself for not fixating on this for more than 3.5 hours.