Jay Daigle
@profjaydaigle.bsky.social
Mathematician at GWU. I write about teaching, epistemology, math, and metascience, and how hidden assumptions shape our decisions and beliefs. I write at https://jaydaigle.net/blog
On some level this explains the last time; best numbers I can find are something like 35 over 60 when he left office in 2021.
Enough to "be disgraced" but not enough to be abnormal; comparable to W Bush.
(Data includes pre-Jan 6 polling but not a lot www.presidency.ucsb.edu/statistics/d...)
Enough to "be disgraced" but not enough to be abnormal; comparable to W Bush.
(Data includes pre-Jan 6 polling but not a lot www.presidency.ucsb.edu/statistics/d...)
Final Presidential Job Approval Ratings | The American Presidency Project
www.presidency.ucsb.edu
November 25, 2025 at 6:03 PM
On some level this explains the last time; best numbers I can find are something like 35 over 60 when he left office in 2021.
Enough to "be disgraced" but not enough to be abnormal; comparable to W Bush.
(Data includes pre-Jan 6 polling but not a lot www.presidency.ucsb.edu/statistics/d...)
Enough to "be disgraced" but not enough to be abnormal; comparable to W Bush.
(Data includes pre-Jan 6 polling but not a lot www.presidency.ucsb.edu/statistics/d...)
I studied Latin for five years in high school, and while that knowledge has definitely attenuated, I regularly find my brain wanting to revert to Latin grammar.
This comes up most often with English nouns ending in -a. For instance, yesterday I saw a display of Santae in the CVS window.
This comes up most often with English nouns ending in -a. For instance, yesterday I saw a display of Santae in the CVS window.
November 22, 2025 at 6:03 PM
I studied Latin for five years in high school, and while that knowledge has definitely attenuated, I regularly find my brain wanting to revert to Latin grammar.
This comes up most often with English nouns ending in -a. For instance, yesterday I saw a display of Santae in the CVS window.
This comes up most often with English nouns ending in -a. For instance, yesterday I saw a display of Santae in the CVS window.
Reposted by Jay Daigle
I am stealing “Elephants are big!” “No they’re not, they’re grey!”, thank you very much.
November 19, 2025 at 6:36 PM
I am stealing “Elephants are big!” “No they’re not, they’re grey!”, thank you very much.
I have a deep aversion to algorithmic feeds in general; reading a post that was suggested by the algorithm feels viscerally bad.
Sometimes I catch myself thinking "I wish I could read that story but it comes from an algorithmic feed so I can't." Silly—but a good antibody maybe?
Sometimes I catch myself thinking "I wish I could read that story but it comes from an algorithmic feed so I can't." Silly—but a good antibody maybe?
October 27, 2025 at 9:54 PM
I have a deep aversion to algorithmic feeds in general; reading a post that was suggested by the algorithm feels viscerally bad.
Sometimes I catch myself thinking "I wish I could read that story but it comes from an algorithmic feed so I can't." Silly—but a good antibody maybe?
Sometimes I catch myself thinking "I wish I could read that story but it comes from an algorithmic feed so I can't." Silly—but a good antibody maybe?
I think it's one of those phrases that has so many plausible interpretations that everyone can find _an_ interpretation they agree with.
But by that token it doesn't communicate very much.
(In context, of course, it does.)
But by that token it doesn't communicate very much.
(In context, of course, it does.)
October 6, 2025 at 9:24 PM
I think it's one of those phrases that has so many plausible interpretations that everyone can find _an_ interpretation they agree with.
But by that token it doesn't communicate very much.
(In context, of course, it does.)
But by that token it doesn't communicate very much.
(In context, of course, it does.)
Further evidence for my theory that math teaching is closely linked to language teaching.
September 24, 2025 at 9:20 PM
Further evidence for my theory that math teaching is closely linked to language teaching.
They seem to be defining hallucinations as "overconfident, plausible falsehoods". They argue that the RL training will cause the model to output errors even if the underlying pretrained model has zero errors, which it obviously won't.
But they seem most interested in the overconfidence bit.
But they seem most interested in the overconfidence bit.
September 21, 2025 at 5:49 PM
They seem to be defining hallucinations as "overconfident, plausible falsehoods". They argue that the RL training will cause the model to output errors even if the underlying pretrained model has zero errors, which it obviously won't.
But they seem most interested in the overconfidence bit.
But they seem most interested in the overconfidence bit.
Claim: the way they do reinforcement learning prioritizes guessing when uncertain rather than expressing the uncertainty, in much the same way that guessing on most tests is a better strategy than leaving answers blank. We need to change benchmarks and RL standards to reward expressing uncertainty.
September 21, 2025 at 5:44 PM
Claim: the way they do reinforcement learning prioritizes guessing when uncertain rather than expressing the uncertainty, in much the same way that guessing on most tests is a better strategy than leaving answers blank. We need to change benchmarks and RL standards to reward expressing uncertainty.
This is one of the ways I think teaching math and languages has a lot of overlap.
(Another is that you get students coming to the department with wildly different backgrounds--there's more skipping of calc 1 or French 1 than of the American History survey.)
(Another is that you get students coming to the department with wildly different backgrounds--there's more skipping of calc 1 or French 1 than of the American History survey.)
September 8, 2025 at 9:50 PM
This is one of the ways I think teaching math and languages has a lot of overlap.
(Another is that you get students coming to the department with wildly different backgrounds--there's more skipping of calc 1 or French 1 than of the American History survey.)
(Another is that you get students coming to the department with wildly different backgrounds--there's more skipping of calc 1 or French 1 than of the American History survey.)
Honestly I prefer that. Irregular schedules make it so much harder to actually lay out the schedule; it's really nice when I have a Tuesday-Thursday schedule and every week works the same.
September 1, 2025 at 3:23 PM
Honestly I prefer that. Irregular schedules make it so much harder to actually lay out the schedule; it's really nice when I have a Tuesday-Thursday schedule and every week works the same.
We even see this in STEM. Math majors have good outcomes, but it's not because they go on to work "as professional mathematicians"; and students always want to know what "jobs for math majors" are.
Some engineering degrees really are job credentials, but that's very specific!
Some engineering degrees really are job credentials, but that's very specific!
August 8, 2025 at 10:26 PM
We even see this in STEM. Math majors have good outcomes, but it's not because they go on to work "as professional mathematicians"; and students always want to know what "jobs for math majors" are.
Some engineering degrees really are job credentials, but that's very specific!
Some engineering degrees really are job credentials, but that's very specific!
I've seen some people advise one should maintain a personal professional email and keep everything not directly related to your university job in that account. But on reflection you definitely want at least first contacts from .edu.
(But surely here you could email the chair from another account?)
(But surely here you could email the chair from another account?)
July 29, 2025 at 7:58 PM
I've seen some people advise one should maintain a personal professional email and keep everything not directly related to your university job in that account. But on reflection you definitely want at least first contacts from .edu.
(But surely here you could email the chair from another account?)
(But surely here you could email the chair from another account?)
I find the disciplinary variety on this issue fascinating. I like author-date, but the accepted standard in math is either [BD25] or [6]. Which is extremely compact but conveys nearly no information to the reader.
(I assume this is partly because we use references very differently.)
(I assume this is partly because we use references very differently.)
July 28, 2025 at 6:33 PM
I find the disciplinary variety on this issue fascinating. I like author-date, but the accepted standard in math is either [BD25] or [6]. Which is extremely compact but conveys nearly no information to the reader.
(I assume this is partly because we use references very differently.)
(I assume this is partly because we use references very differently.)
Also the argument generally relies on the interest in general welfare--it's rational from a utilitarian perspective because the impact of a candidate scales up as the impact of your vote scales down.
None of that affects the lives experience of the impacts on your personal life.
None of that affects the lives experience of the impacts on your personal life.
July 25, 2025 at 3:09 PM
Also the argument generally relies on the interest in general welfare--it's rational from a utilitarian perspective because the impact of a candidate scales up as the impact of your vote scales down.
None of that affects the lives experience of the impacts on your personal life.
None of that affects the lives experience of the impacts on your personal life.
I had to have a months-long argument to get them to let me hook my personal Linux box up to the ethernet in my office. They generally don't let personal devices connect to the ethernet, for security reasons.
July 24, 2025 at 9:16 PM
I had to have a months-long argument to get them to let me hook my personal Linux box up to the ethernet in my office. They generally don't let personal devices connect to the ethernet, for security reasons.
I also don't have admin access, which really limits what I can install. I'm figuring out the limits of running userspace programs today. So far not a ton of huge obstacles, although my "replace capslock with ctrl key" solution spawns a persistently open window which sucks.
July 24, 2025 at 9:10 PM
I also don't have admin access, which really limits what I can install. I'm figuring out the limits of running userspace programs today. So far not a ton of huge obstacles, although my "replace capslock with ctrl key" solution spawns a persistently open window which sucks.
It's bios locked so I probably can't. I'm gonna try but I think getting around a locked bios is actually pretty difficult!
It's very much a Work Computer where the login is through my work email and I'm automatically on the work VPN, etc.
It's very much a Work Computer where the login is through my work email and I'm automatically on the work VPN, etc.
July 24, 2025 at 9:08 PM
It's bios locked so I probably can't. I'm gonna try but I think getting around a locked bios is actually pretty difficult!
It's very much a Work Computer where the login is through my work email and I'm automatically on the work VPN, etc.
It's very much a Work Computer where the login is through my work email and I'm automatically on the work VPN, etc.
I haven't seriously used a Windows computer in like a decade, but my personal laptop died and my employer gives me a free work laptop, but won't install Linux on it. So I'm seeing if I can make this whole Windows thing work.
July 24, 2025 at 8:55 PM
I haven't seriously used a Windows computer in like a decade, but my personal laptop died and my employer gives me a free work laptop, but won't install Linux on it. So I'm seeing if I can make this whole Windows thing work.
It seems like conscription is just so profoundly, directly evil that it can't possibly be justified outside of immediate existential danger and possibly not even then.
July 15, 2025 at 10:01 PM
It seems like conscription is just so profoundly, directly evil that it can't possibly be justified outside of immediate existential danger and possibly not even then.
Reposted by Jay Daigle
Our SPS group circulated this:
June 26, 2025 at 6:33 PM
Our SPS group circulated this:
How much time did it take to orally examine 75 students? That seems like a ton of time.
(Also not great for the courses that are more focused on, like, mechanical calculation skills, which is most of what I teach these days. Not all of it, though!)
(Also not great for the courses that are more focused on, like, mechanical calculation skills, which is most of what I teach these days. Not all of it, though!)
June 17, 2025 at 1:13 AM
How much time did it take to orally examine 75 students? That seems like a ton of time.
(Also not great for the courses that are more focused on, like, mechanical calculation skills, which is most of what I teach these days. Not all of it, though!)
(Also not great for the courses that are more focused on, like, mechanical calculation skills, which is most of what I teach these days. Not all of it, though!)
I have seen discussion of oral exams as an option too.
(The problem of course is that oral exams are pretty unworkable for large courses, which are also where I'm most concerned about potential cheating.)
(The problem of course is that oral exams are pretty unworkable for large courses, which are also where I'm most concerned about potential cheating.)
June 16, 2025 at 11:59 PM
I have seen discussion of oral exams as an option too.
(The problem of course is that oral exams are pretty unworkable for large courses, which are also where I'm most concerned about potential cheating.)
(The problem of course is that oral exams are pretty unworkable for large courses, which are also where I'm most concerned about potential cheating.)