Matt Mack
@matthras.bsky.social
Hard-of-hearing + mild AuDHD mathematician, cellist, anime+manga+VTuber fan with a giant backlog of games and books to get through. Chronically online: matthras@aus.social, matthras@x.com, matthras.com
Pinned
Matt Mack
@matthras.bsky.social
· Oct 23
Howdy! I'm currently a PhD student #mathbio but have an eclectic mix of interests/specialties including:
🧶knitting/crochet/cross-stitch
🦻accessibility esp. in maths
👨🏫maths education
🧮operations research
🎵classical music
And am always groaning about how little time there is to learn everything!
🧶knitting/crochet/cross-stitch
🦻accessibility esp. in maths
👨🏫maths education
🧮operations research
🎵classical music
And am always groaning about how little time there is to learn everything!
I'm noticing that discussions at a high/policy/leadership level using generalised terms run into disagreements purely because different people work off different assumptions underlying said generalised terms and it's really annoying me 💢
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November 12, 2025 at 10:42 PM
I'm noticing that discussions at a high/policy/leadership level using generalised terms run into disagreements purely because different people work off different assumptions underlying said generalised terms and it's really annoying me 💢
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Reposted by Matt Mack
UK Maths students - interested in doing a cross-disciplinary PhD in biofilms and doing part of your studies in Australia? This could be your chance!
ima.org.uk/27939/compet...
ima.org.uk/27939/compet...
Competition funded PhD position in Mathematical modelling of biofilms
ima.org.uk
November 11, 2025 at 10:47 PM
UK Maths students - interested in doing a cross-disciplinary PhD in biofilms and doing part of your studies in Australia? This could be your chance!
ima.org.uk/27939/compet...
ima.org.uk/27939/compet...
First time coming into work and seeing two fire engines right outside my building 😳.
Thankfully the building affected was the one on the opposite side of the walk way 😅
That'll be one heck of a hump day for the week!
Thankfully the building affected was the one on the opposite side of the walk way 😅
That'll be one heck of a hump day for the week!
November 11, 2025 at 11:24 PM
First time coming into work and seeing two fire engines right outside my building 😳.
Thankfully the building affected was the one on the opposite side of the walk way 😅
That'll be one heck of a hump day for the week!
Thankfully the building affected was the one on the opposite side of the walk way 😅
That'll be one heck of a hump day for the week!
I'm really appreciating that I'm learning data cleaning + stats + machine learning stuff through my PhD by analysing clinical data but it's also really affirming my "I really couldn't be a generic data scientist unless the data is relevant to something I care about" 😅
November 11, 2025 at 10:07 AM
I'm really appreciating that I'm learning data cleaning + stats + machine learning stuff through my PhD by analysing clinical data but it's also really affirming my "I really couldn't be a generic data scientist unless the data is relevant to something I care about" 😅
Interesting paper: Researchers wondered if it's possible to predict "Eureka!" moments based on observable behaviour (on a blackboard), so they recorded mathematicians working on Putnam problems. tl;dr: Definitely some hints!
www.pnas.org/doi/10....
www.pnas.org/doi/10....
November 10, 2025 at 9:52 PM
Interesting paper: Researchers wondered if it's possible to predict "Eureka!" moments based on observable behaviour (on a blackboard), so they recorded mathematicians working on Putnam problems. tl;dr: Definitely some hints!
www.pnas.org/doi/10....
www.pnas.org/doi/10....
Reposted by Matt Mack
I'd appreciate help circulating this survey, part of our overall work on neurodivergence.
This one is on behalf of the graduate deans, to develop better supervision guidelines.
You can help by boosting and circulating the link in your various networks 🙏 redcap.unisq.edu.au/surveys/?s=D...
This one is on behalf of the graduate deans, to develop better supervision guidelines.
You can help by boosting and circulating the link in your various networks 🙏 redcap.unisq.edu.au/surveys/?s=D...
Developing guidelines for supervising Neurodivergent HDR students
redcap.unisq.edu.au
November 10, 2025 at 9:15 PM
I'd appreciate help circulating this survey, part of our overall work on neurodivergence.
This one is on behalf of the graduate deans, to develop better supervision guidelines.
You can help by boosting and circulating the link in your various networks 🙏 redcap.unisq.edu.au/surveys/?s=D...
This one is on behalf of the graduate deans, to develop better supervision guidelines.
You can help by boosting and circulating the link in your various networks 🙏 redcap.unisq.edu.au/surveys/?s=D...
Today I fell down the rabbit hole of data imputation and got annoyed at "just wanting to replace missing values but the guides/tutorials seem to be doing a whole lot more that I probably should care about but don't" grrrrrr.
Definitely a me problem, I imagine!
Definitely a me problem, I imagine!
November 10, 2025 at 7:10 AM
Today I fell down the rabbit hole of data imputation and got annoyed at "just wanting to replace missing values but the guides/tutorials seem to be doing a whole lot more that I probably should care about but don't" grrrrrr.
Definitely a me problem, I imagine!
Definitely a me problem, I imagine!
Feeling really grateful to know people that I can talk to about ill-defined oddly specific hangups and my niche areas and they so willingly engage with the topic. Life really has gotten better since I started this PhD, the amount of life stuff I'm figuring out has really expanded. 😊
November 8, 2025 at 8:33 AM
Feeling really grateful to know people that I can talk to about ill-defined oddly specific hangups and my niche areas and they so willingly engage with the topic. Life really has gotten better since I started this PhD, the amount of life stuff I'm figuring out has really expanded. 😊
Well reading this and the replies made my brain perk up this morning. Fascinating! 😁
Science Bluesky, I need a question answered that is not yielding to Google!
Can you carbon-14 date an alien?
Because I know it requires nitrogen-14 in the upper atmosphere and if the alien homeworld doesn’t have the same nitrogen content…?
Can you carbon-14 date an alien?
Because I know it requires nitrogen-14 in the upper atmosphere and if the alien homeworld doesn’t have the same nitrogen content…?
November 6, 2025 at 11:18 PM
Well reading this and the replies made my brain perk up this morning. Fascinating! 😁
Today I drove to work because I wanted to drop by an electronics store a suburb away to grab a couple of things.
Then I walked home because I wanted to do a bit of shopping on the way back.
/facepalm
Thankfully it's only a 10 minute walk.
Then I walked home because I wanted to do a bit of shopping on the way back.
/facepalm
Thankfully it's only a 10 minute walk.
November 6, 2025 at 11:23 AM
Today I drove to work because I wanted to drop by an electronics store a suburb away to grab a couple of things.
Then I walked home because I wanted to do a bit of shopping on the way back.
/facepalm
Thankfully it's only a 10 minute walk.
Then I walked home because I wanted to do a bit of shopping on the way back.
/facepalm
Thankfully it's only a 10 minute walk.
I'm enjoying the biostats stuff but I'm so annoyed at how my brain goes blank in terms of figuring out what's useful for my biology supervisors. I don't know /how/ to think about what's useful for them, how they interpret charts/graphs, and I feel so stuuuuuuupid about it /flails
November 5, 2025 at 6:09 AM
I'm enjoying the biostats stuff but I'm so annoyed at how my brain goes blank in terms of figuring out what's useful for my biology supervisors. I don't know /how/ to think about what's useful for them, how they interpret charts/graphs, and I feel so stuuuuuuupid about it /flails
Mathematicians' discussion at the communal lunch table today started with baseball then drifted onto bowling and it turns out we were all wondering at some point how the scoring system worked and how we were trying to optimize our bowling technique 😂
November 5, 2025 at 1:57 AM
Mathematicians' discussion at the communal lunch table today started with baseball then drifted onto bowling and it turns out we were all wondering at some point how the scoring system worked and how we were trying to optimize our bowling technique 😂
Third bread loaf in a row.
This is the second bread loaf in a row where after consistently using an even number of slices I've once again ended up with a single slice left remaining in the bread bag.
This is a conspiracy 🙃
This is a conspiracy 🙃
November 4, 2025 at 10:36 PM
Third bread loaf in a row.
I'm trying to understand how the generalised linear model lends itself to ANOVA (and t-tests by extension) and I'm running up against the same frustration: majority of explanations on the internet are terrible, arrrrrrrrrgh.
But I did find one good one!
But I did find one good one!
November 4, 2025 at 12:17 PM
I'm trying to understand how the generalised linear model lends itself to ANOVA (and t-tests by extension) and I'm running up against the same frustration: majority of explanations on the internet are terrible, arrrrrrrrrgh.
But I did find one good one!
But I did find one good one!
Reposted by Matt Mack
once again seeking others' opinions to guide my life choices: of those who dropped out of a PhD or converted to Masters, did anyone subsequently complete a PhD with a different topic and supervisors? thoughts for or against this path?
November 3, 2025 at 3:54 AM
once again seeking others' opinions to guide my life choices: of those who dropped out of a PhD or converted to Masters, did anyone subsequently complete a PhD with a different topic and supervisors? thoughts for or against this path?
Landlady is babysitting a friend's two dogs for the week and after interacting with them last night it's like "Shit I really need to get a pet if I ever end up living alone again."
The uptick in happiness cannot be underrated.
The uptick in happiness cannot be underrated.
November 2, 2025 at 8:47 PM
Landlady is babysitting a friend's two dogs for the week and after interacting with them last night it's like "Shit I really need to get a pet if I ever end up living alone again."
The uptick in happiness cannot be underrated.
The uptick in happiness cannot be underrated.
My brain is having the weirdest twitches to having to use a university-supplied template for this upcoming presentation. It's like "RAAARGH. MUST NOT CONFORM. WILL NOT CONFORM. NEED BIGGER CANVAS FOR EXPRESSIVITY."
/flails
/flails
November 2, 2025 at 2:44 AM
My brain is having the weirdest twitches to having to use a university-supplied template for this upcoming presentation. It's like "RAAARGH. MUST NOT CONFORM. WILL NOT CONFORM. NEED BIGGER CANVAS FOR EXPRESSIVITY."
/flails
/flails
Was doing up stuff in (the now free!) Affinity for a friend, forgot to save to a separate working file, figured out how to sketch out a gearwheel vector, but something went weird with the color picker so I had to force-close and lost all of my effort 😢😭
It's VERY good, though!
It's VERY good, though!
November 1, 2025 at 7:24 AM
Was doing up stuff in (the now free!) Affinity for a friend, forgot to save to a separate working file, figured out how to sketch out a gearwheel vector, but something went weird with the color picker so I had to force-close and lost all of my effort 😢😭
It's VERY good, though!
It's VERY good, though!
Giving talks at conferences is basically the adult version of Show & Tell /facepalm
November 1, 2025 at 4:56 AM
Giving talks at conferences is basically the adult version of Show & Tell /facepalm
I'm now at a point where I have enough multiple things going on for my PhD and it only just occurred to me last week (this is already after a year into my PhD) to have a separate to-do list file in Obsidian for each project. Dismayed it didn't occur to me earlier /facepalm
October 31, 2025 at 8:42 PM
I'm now at a point where I have enough multiple things going on for my PhD and it only just occurred to me last week (this is already after a year into my PhD) to have a separate to-do list file in Obsidian for each project. Dismayed it didn't occur to me earlier /facepalm
Post-conference exhaustion is finally setting in 🫠
Will be interesting to take note of how many days it takes me to recover fully. Last conference was a week long, I was 80% back to normal after a week, two weeks before back to full form. Expecting similar ratios.
Will be interesting to take note of how many days it takes me to recover fully. Last conference was a week long, I was 80% back to normal after a week, two weeks before back to full form. Expecting similar ratios.
October 31, 2025 at 10:11 AM
Post-conference exhaustion is finally setting in 🫠
Will be interesting to take note of how many days it takes me to recover fully. Last conference was a week long, I was 80% back to normal after a week, two weeks before back to full form. Expecting similar ratios.
Will be interesting to take note of how many days it takes me to recover fully. Last conference was a week long, I was 80% back to normal after a week, two weeks before back to full form. Expecting similar ratios.
Reposted by Matt Mack
This is a real sign from a real deli near the Wesleyan math department, and they put it up because the mathematicians were too engrossed in their mathematics discussions to efficiently order sandwiches. www.cbc.ca/radio/asitha...
October 29, 2025 at 8:21 PM
This is a real sign from a real deli near the Wesleyan math department, and they put it up because the mathematicians were too engrossed in their mathematics discussions to efficiently order sandwiches. www.cbc.ca/radio/asitha...
Man. Giving a conference talk reminds me of the general frustration of trying to communicate complex multilayered concepts through a one-dimensional medium (i.e. one's mouth; speech).
Wish I could just set up a virtual world and allow people to explore. 🙄
Wish I could just set up a virtual world and allow people to explore. 🙄
October 29, 2025 at 9:56 AM
Man. Giving a conference talk reminds me of the general frustration of trying to communicate complex multilayered concepts through a one-dimensional medium (i.e. one's mouth; speech).
Wish I could just set up a virtual world and allow people to explore. 🙄
Wish I could just set up a virtual world and allow people to explore. 🙄
Sarah Pulis (director and cofounder of Intopia, that's where I remembered her from!) talks about how to think about maturity of accessibility services in how an organization and it's people address accessibility, and the different dimensions that one can measure it by.
#A11yCamp2025
#A11yCamp2025
October 29, 2025 at 2:42 AM
Sarah Pulis (director and cofounder of Intopia, that's where I remembered her from!) talks about how to think about maturity of accessibility services in how an organization and it's people address accessibility, and the different dimensions that one can measure it by.
#A11yCamp2025
#A11yCamp2025
Reposted by Matt Mack
Yay @matthras.bsky.social is on now at #A11yCamp2025 - he’s sharing how maths sounds in a screen reader. It’s difficult enough for humans to describe an equation out loud, and screen readers do their best, but there’s a significant difference between what is wanted and what is needed.
October 29, 2025 at 1:04 AM
Yay @matthras.bsky.social is on now at #A11yCamp2025 - he’s sharing how maths sounds in a screen reader. It’s difficult enough for humans to describe an equation out loud, and screen readers do their best, but there’s a significant difference between what is wanted and what is needed.