aaaah! thank you! this paper was half in my memory for some stuff i have been doing, but too hazy to even be able to search for it :)

…the writing be a dull slog that simply copies an “academic” style seen in too many past papers. If your math actually needs to be super rigorous, so be it, but don’t try to just give the illusion of rigour with pedantic text obfuscating the plain ideas.

What I AM saying is write clearly. Get the critical insights and intuition you gained through arduous research across in a clear memorable way, maybe tied to a concise phrase or a demonstrative image or perfect “toy” problem that encapsulates it all. Even if the details are a slog, don’t let all…

But I guess the real lesson I wanted to say here is that quality writing matters, even in highly technical math/engineering/science/computer papers!

I am NOT saying to choose a cute title: that can work (like this one) but is besides the point, and can backfire and cause eye rolls if badly done.

…for what is happening (say in a linearized toy problem) in Fourier space, and in particular: are there high frequencies in what you are attempting to solve that you can’t actually represent, and if so are they going to be filtered out in a way you understand or will they alias?

…it is really important to make sure that you actually understand the nature of the approximations, what the errors you will be making “mean”, what is actually justifiably negligible and what is actually important.

And to be honest, often a lot of this just comes down to getting a gut feeling …

And while the paper focuses only on finite element methods, this actually leads to a bigger picture insight about numerically discretizing differential equations — and even modelling as a step before that. Before jumping to a method that offers some nice qualities you associate with true solutions,

The paper in question: www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...

I sometimes feel like I belabour the point (“always work out 1D or 2D first!”) but goodness me, it’s not just my own experience, I have seen so many projects through the cg industry where going straight to 3D (often forced by the 3D-only platforms we’re working in) caused unnecessary roadblocks

and yet I have only ever gotten to a 3D solution faster and with more confidence through starting with 1D and 2D models. Or turning things around, so many times I have been able to efficiently figure out what was going wrong in a 3D code by reduction to lower dimensional toy problems

even if it’s just to quickly rule out approaches which by dint of failing in 2D will definitely not work in 3D, or simply gaining more insight inti how to think about the problem space.

Much more common I think is curse of dimensionality stuff, where 3D is exponentially, combinatorially harder

It’s an interesting point — I have hit a few things where 3D is fundamentally just different, with simplex-mesh-related spatial tilings and subdivision coming to mind in particular. However I think even then it’s always been the case that I benefit from looking at the 2D version in depth first,

...and sure enough it was a mistake. I got stuck in the 3D derivation, started the 2D, and almost immediately realized some simplifications I had missed when overwhelmed with the 3D expressions, and it's all so much simpler and quicker now!

transness is a gift. i need every trans woman to understand that by nature of their existence they have been blessed with the ability to pluck the strands of fate with their hands if they choose to. it is not always easy and it is not without hardship but every trans woman is capable of greatness.

tbh i know very little about unity and what the available options would be here, sorry!

Whoa, congrats!!

I've read such good things about weight training in general (for everyone) and deadlifts in particular. But so far I've only done body weight stuff :)

it feels like a personality disorder / complex and regular trauma like I suffer, with chronic dissociation and suicidality, unpredictable emotional flashbacks, occasional psychotic delusional episodes, and seemingly unrelenting challenges just to live an ordinary life… this isn’t easy to talk about.

At better times I have had the strength to publicly push against continuing stigmas around serious mental illness, but the past year has been too much for me. While I think society has become so much more accepting of anxiety and depression mood disorders (if they don’t go Too Far at least),