Owen Biesel

Tuesday's Most Read # 3 - Why Deadly, Illegal E-Motos Are On The Rise – And Why E-Bikes Are Being Blamed When They Crash link.theoverheadwire.com/bdr8h Streetsblog USA @keawilson.bsky.social

@reubenmargolin introduces us to this caterpillar clock: #AGoodPlace

Made this last year and put it in the middle of the road on our street - at the bottom of a hill that intersects with a quiet street (with above avg. volume of kids). Drivers are weirded out by what is making the flashing light in the middle of the road and slow down. The light is a bike headlight.

I just analyzed 1.9M recipes and can now report that the yummy simplicial complex is arguably *not* flag. The following flavor trios have far fewer recipes containing all three ingredients than the recipes with pairs of ingredients would predict.

Matrix or treat. 🦇 #mathsky #iteachmath #spooky

Can we stop calling them "prediction markets" and call them what they are, which is betting/gambling platforms? My teeth itch every time someone says they're "trading" on one of those things. Betting. What you're doing is called betting or gambling, Kevin.

I really think everyone needs to pay attention to this coordinated campaign to delegitimize Muslim Americans - not just as citizens but as humans. These increasingly hysterical attacks are a prelude to Republicans bringing us to a very, very dark place after the election.

I am SO SO SO excited (okay and a bit behind on noticing lol) but my work is cited in a NIST cryptographic standard!!! I helped!!!!! Don't let people tell you that no one will use your pure math research #MathSky csrc.nist.gov/csrc/media/P...

Example of how you might feel while wearing our reflective jacket

In a discourse that is so eaten up by the binary of "we can't draw lines because it hurts the broader effort" on one side, and "we can't draw lines because who are you to say we draw it here and not there" on the other, there's a lot of care and clarity (not to mention bravery) in this piece.

And the freaking greatest thing I have ever seen: this intersection has a traffic signal that is set by DEFAULT for pedestrians and cyclists, cars have to activate to cross. 🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥

no but seriously you all gotta watch the trailer

The elections are on next Tuesday, and so much is at stake, including the soul of the Democratic Party when it comes to transgender people. I am asking you to leave a very small number of races blank in which a Democrat has embraced extreme anti-trans hate. I make my case here.

*Haven't thought that through.* Oh my word. Reposting with alt-text.

This is one of the most spectacular train rides in North America. I was one of the only passengers on the last train of the year out of Carcross on the White Pass & #Yukon Route. Why does this isolated route exist (and continue to thrive)? Full story here -> www.highspeed.blog/last-train-o...

Something I wish more people would realize.

I wish more people understood that every minute they spend engaging with AI slop papers is time they could instead spend reading a junior colleague's paper and offering feedback and guidance, or time they could spend with their students helping them see the joy and beauty of math.

This whole thread up and down is FASCINATING about the politics of dissertation depositories (and databases more generally)

Kudos to NBC New York for saying it without equivocation: "The US is to blame for the world falling behind in the fight against climate change."

new york forever. FUCK ICE.

Workers constantly dig up and relay brick sidewalks and streets in the Netherlands. Water pipe break? Laying fiberoptic cables? The same team opens and closes the and does the work. This team is smoothing out a street that got uneven after 20 years. "It's normal maintenance, just sand below."

Oh my word, I read the article and the secret password was indeed literally the number 4. "Astonishingly, the private keys were 4, 56, 66, 115, 155, 156, 230, 237."

Using money that was set aside for needy families to instead build out the surveillance state is just... cartoonishly evil.

If you use Overleaf (by that I mean on overleaf.com and not a local installation like, e.g., we have at our research lab), check if “AI features” are enabled here www.overleaf.com/user/settings. They were for me (then again, I don’t use overleaf.com anymore). #AcademicSky #MathSky

This morning the cargo bike dad yielded for me as I walked my kid to daycare. But the SUV driver behind him blew the stop sign and drove right at us. Spare me the “when will the bikers follow the law” shit.

My 4 yr old daughter has an account, opened without our consent. The maximum amount of money any person can donate to my campaign is $1,000. The limit to what a corporation can donate to our daughter's account: none. Every corporation with business before the MN Legislature can now donate stocks...

Read this article about the childrens' lives that have been forever changed by 3 minutes of terror. Then go down to your early voting site and vote out every politician who cares more about the gun industry than our kids. www.cnn.com/2026/10/17/u...

The way that the cop came to this conclusion was unconstitutional, U.S. District Court Judge Sara Hill ruled, and all of the evidence—including the car’s travel history and everything the police found—must be disregarded in court. www.404media.co/watch-footag...

Thank you to the mathematicians like @louigi.bsky.social fighting back. www.ahmath.org/statements

As a Jewish evolutionary theorist against Israeli apartheid I can tell you in no uncertain terms that 1. There is no such thing as "biologically Polish or Russian", and 2. There is, in fact, an extremely important distinction between anti-Zionism and antisemitism.

This is a similar phenomena as MSM only looks at a handful of Ivies and elite institutions when discussing higher ed when the vast majority of students don't attend these schools or schools like them.

I made this pattern a few weeks ago and forgot to post. I’m not sure what the name for this type of link is, but it’s kind of the opposite of a Brunnian link. Each component is linked with every other component and removing any component does not change this property.

At thousands of No Kings events yesterday - including this one in Middletown, Connecticut - the people of this country made clear that in 16 days we are taking this country back from the would be autocrats and oligarchs. In America, the people still rule.

Short thread asking @nytimes.com and other MSM to stop interviewing the same small handful of people every time something math-related comes up. Mathematicians are dismayed when AI scoops them on the results? How about look for advice from someone familiar with getting scooped and outpowered.

This is me, for example! All of my awesome colleagues fall into this category!

“The internet is a store but it used to be a library” hits me like a slug to the chest

LA No Kings ✊🏾✊🏼✊🏿✊🏻✊🏽

The real trolley problem is that we don’t sufficiently fund public transit. Give it the money it needs so we can serve and / or kill the general public!

I love the WITCHES VOTE banner.

Just voted in WA State. They tried to pass their anti-trans, pro-billionaire initiatives and I said, No, No, No.

That link doesn't work for me, but this one does: publicdomainreview.org/collection/s...

NEW YORK, N.Y. - October 17, 2026: Demonstrators rallied on the steps of the James A. Farley Post Office Building in Manhattan on Saturday in coordination with 'No Kings' gatherings held around the country. Organizers called on the U.S. Postal Service to deliver all mail-in ballots.

LAPD attempted to shut down the No Kings protest in downtown Los Angeles, so we had to make a great escape

A ballot measure in Virginia this fall would make it the 26th state to allow anyone who is not presently in prison to vote. “This is a moment that’s been a long time coming,” says an advocate who has fought to expand rights restoration.

one thing I'm gonna say is: more horn sections and drumlines at protests please.

Hard agree. If you haven’t heard of it, it’s because Meta sued the author and got a gag order that prevents her from saying a single word about her own book. Mark Zuckerberg is a threat to human rights and democracies the world over, including ours. It is vitally important you know how and why.