Joshua Bowman

@thalesdisciple.bsky.social

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Associate professor of mathematics. Hymn aficionado.

Resist simple narratives.
Cultivate an abolitionist imagination.

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Joshua Bowman

The way forward is mutual aid. Feel lost, lonely, scared? There is a free fridge project or pantry near you. Make some sandwiches. I am absolutely not kidding about this. “Not Knowing What Else To Do, Woman Bakes American-Flag Cake” is not terrible advice if you give it away.

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Joshua Bowman

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Joshua Bowman

You’re hired!* *two weeks before teaching four new preps, please upload your syllabi by 5 PM

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Joshua Bowman

required reading for self-professed allies. the whole thread.

Organizations use marginalized folks, and their work, to provide cover for their shitty practices all the time. In some fields, it's almost a condition of employment. For example, in higher education, I had to offer up the "gift" of my Blackness to the institution as a condition of employment.

Coming this fall to your favorite streaming service: The Adjunct

New academia reality tv show in which hundreds of highly trained candidates get winnowed down to one champion, who is awarded the opportunity to teach intro classes outside their speciality with no research support!

Back from two weeks of visiting my family in Tennessee. Here’s a photo of the Mississippi River.

I momentarily thought this was quoting Billy Crystal’s monologue in The Princess Bride when he praises the MLT

HEY YOU KNOW WHAT IS A GOOD SANDWICH IS A BLT WHO ELSE LIKES A BLT? YOU KNOW WE'RE GETTING ON TOWARDS HIGH TOMATO SEASON AND YOU ASK ME THE TOMATO IS REALLY THE KEY I MEAN YOU WANT REALLY GOOD BACON, A LITTLE THICK BUT STILL CRISPY, AND OF COURSE GREAT BREAD AND VERY FRESH LETTUCE B

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Joshua Bowman

New post: Can Bots Teach Math? Where I add to Dan Meyer's response to Sal Khan's latest. blog.mathed.page/2024/07/10/c... #mtbos #iteachmath #mathed

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Joshua Bowman

Apropos of nothing, we need fun facts that are actually fun.

I recently learned—and used in a paper!—the residue method for partial fractions with simple roots. If a is a simple root of g(x) and deg(f)

I am once again wondering: partial fractions — how do they work? What are your favorite algebraic and analytic theorems and methods related to partial fractions? And *why* are PFDs so effective? 🧮

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Joshua Bowman

Reply to

χle Ormsby — π₃(🪩) ≅ ℤ era

Definitely generating function expansions. It is easy to expand 1/(1-rx) but not 1/(1-ax-bx^2). Recovering Binet's formula from expanding 1/(1-x-x^2) is magical.

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Joshua Bowman

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Joshua Bowman

Y'all is great and I use it whenever I can

i think people are too critical of the spread of "y'all." it's a useful word that fills an actual gap in the language. who cares if you're not from the south? but once i heard an australian say it, and i found that very challenging

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Joshua Bowman

We've been pressed into using GPT and imitaters more at work, and as a senior writer asked to review a lot of this work, I 100% resent being asked to edit its garbage output. It's not only generic, it's chockful of filler words and plagued by superfluous use of adverbs and prepositional phrases.

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Joshua Bowman

If you're hearing the news about mathematicians proving BB(5) for the first time, but don't know what it's about Scott Aaronson's essay on the Busy Beaver problem is very readable and fascinating -- possibly some of the best writing about math ever www.scottaaronson.com/writings/big...

Who Can Name the Bigger Number?www.scottaaronson.com

Spent some time in a garden today. Recommend for all, weather permitting.

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Joshua Bowman

i want to add: if you’ve stopped masking for whatever reason, you can start again. it makes spaces more accessible, it helps preserve your health and the health of the people around you. it’s a tiny action you can take to make the world safer.

"If only I could do something that would have a positive impact on the world-" You can. Mask up.

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Joshua Bowman

Today on Grading for Growth, updating an alternative grading system after 6 years off. A lot has changed! gradingforgrowth.com/p/updating-m...

Updating an alternative grading system after a 6 year breakgradingforgrowth.com What's changed, and why I'm changing it

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Joshua Bowman

As an academic who gets "summers off" (no teaching), July 1 offers the following glass-half-full-empty dilemma: "Wow, I have 6 full weeks before going back to teaching!" "Oh no, I only have 6 weeks before going back to teaching!" My sympathies to all other academics facing this dichotomy today.

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Joshua Bowman

Reply to

Hypervisible

www.laschoolreport.com/future-of-la...

Future of LAUSD’s AI student chatbot in doubt 3 months after launch as ed-tech firm furloughs staff | LA School Reportwww.laschoolreport.com The future of LA Unified’s heavily-hyped $6 million Artificial Intelligence chatbot was uncertain after the tech firm the district hired to build the tool shed most of its employees and its founder le...

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Joshua Bowman

TIRED: “It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a single man in possession of a good fortune, must be in want of a wife.” WIRED: “No cap, rizz kings want to put a ring on it.”

I can’t think of a clever caption for this. It just breaks my fucking heart.

People like to travel in the spring when the weather is nice. Canterbury is an especially popular destination.

I can’t think of a clever caption for this. It just breaks my fucking heart.

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Joshua Bowman

There are infinitely many prime numbers, because otherwise 3 would be the largest prime number. 🧮

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Joshua Bowman

Jailing people for being homeless is a classic American policy: stupid, brutal, and very expensive.

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Joshua Bowman

Reply to

s. e. smith

A note that in addition to being dehumanizing and grotesque for unhoused people, sit/lie laws are also incredibly disablist.

SCOTUS rules the command to “love your neighbor” doesn’t apply to people who don’t have homes, because only people with a place to live can be neighbors.

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Joshua Bowman

Right now I’m full of conflicted feelings. More to come in days to come. #gc81

I want to write more once we see how this shakes out in the HoB, but I’ll say now that there are things I’m really pleased about in the substitute D034 that just passed the HoD — particularly as a theological starting point for education and conversation — and also really serious concerns I have.

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Joshua Bowman

WRITERS: DOWNLOAD PDFs OF YOUR CLIPS CREATORS: OWN COPIES OF YOUR WORK

2002: "Careful, kids, the Internet is forever!" 2024: "Oh, hey, all the work you did for a decade of your life was just deleted from the Internet for Business Reasons." latenighter.com/news/paramou...

Paramount Axes Comedy Central Site, 25+ Years of Daily Show Clips Gonelatenighter.com One of the richest repositories of late-night videos—including 25 years of clips from 'The Daily Show' and the entire run of 'The Colbert Report'—is no longer.

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Joshua Bowman

This is why mask bans are suddenly being proposed. If you’re in a place where that’s happening and you think we should prioritize public and personal health and freedom over expanding the powers of the police state then please do let your representatives know why the freedom to mask matters to you

Cops don’t like them; makes it harder to use surveillance footage and facial recognition to arrest people (especially at protests).

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Joshua Bowman

Reply to

Katie Mack

Criminalizing a simple, easy, personal tool for public health is absurd and incredibly harmful. Masking whenever, wherever, for whatever reason, should be a completely normal and accepted part of life in a society.

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Joshua Bowman

Mask bans are evil and dystopian and I am appalled that they’re even being proposed. Wearing masks to protect your health and the health of others needs to be recognized as a right for all and an absolutely essential protection for those who would otherwise be unable to participate in society

Where are we on mask bans? www.patreon.com/posts/mask-b...

Mask Bans | Matthew Cortlandwww.patreon.com Get more from Matthew Cortland on Patreon