Notices by Dr. Anna Latour (anna@mathstodon.xyz)

Today we strike.

🟥

No meetings. No lectures. No research. No innovation. No knowledge economy.

🟥

Join us!

🟥

#WOInActie #KeepTheFlameBurning #Strike #HigherEducation #KabinetSchoof #Delft #TUDelft #KabinetSlooptHogerOnderwijs #Eppocalyps #DoeHetNiet #AcademicMastodon #AcademicChatter

Rob Wilkins put up 3 signed copies of "Terry Pratchett: A Life with Footnotes" for auction (https://www.32auctions.com/organizations/128726/auctions/181179/auction_items/6158640), with the proceeds going to Genre Creators for Trans Rights in the UK & SA (https://www.32auctions.com/genrefortrans)

h/t Rhianna Pratchett

#GNUTerryPratchett #TransRights #DiscWorld #TerryPratchett #RobWilkins

Excuse me? Don't think this is what we mean by "Autism Awareness Month".

All jokes aside, this is scary af.

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/apr/22/rfk-jr-autism-nih

#Autism #RFK #AutismAwarenessMonth

@aral I mean... I would probably go for 🚆 🚇 ⛴️ 🇬🇧 🚆 🚇 🍜 😋 , but yes, I guess that is the general idea :) @jeromechoo

@aral 😂 would not object! @jeromechoo

@jeromechoo wah you’re hitting me with this on a particularly bad “homesick for Singapore” day lol. I was actually watching old videos from Singapore and finally decided to snap out of it and try to live in the here and now. Opened mastodon, and there are your messages! 😂😭

I’m very happy that you enjoyed the food, tho, and this is an excellent reminder for myself to start planning my next trip to London 😁

Thank you so much for sharing! Love to see it!
@aral

Okay, I feel like I just unlocked a new level of academia?

I was reading a paper, and came across an interesting claim, so I checked the bibliography for the cited work, so I could read it.

Dear reader, the cited work was my own paper 😅

Guess the good news is that now I'll have one less paper to put on my "to read" list.

#AcademicMastodon #AcademicChatter #AcademicReading

Came home to this.

Fun fact: I do not have a cat.

#Caturday #Cats #Catstodon

Last week, I presented the work I did with prof. Kuldeep Meel and prof. Arunabha Sen at IJCAI 2023.

We showed the benefits of reducing a problem to a computationally harder problem (yes, you read that right!), by demonstrating how it allows us to solve much larger problem instances.

It was so much fun to finally share this work with so many fantastic researchers at IJCAI! Thank you to all organisers for making this conference possible. I'm also super grateful to the reviewers who gave us great feedback!

Please find our paper, slides, poster, a short video, and our open source tool, gismo, here: www.annalatour.nl/publication/2023-08-01-Solving-the-Identifying-Code-Set-Problem-with-Grouped-Independent-Support

#IJCAI2023 #IJCAI #AcademicMastodon #FOSS #PostdocLife #ConstraintProgramming #BooleanSatisfiability #Complexity #AcademicChatter #OpenSource #OpenSourceSoftware

Sir Terry Pratchett was one of two people who I quoted directly in my dissertation. This line from Feet of Clay was the motto for my introductory chapter:

"This is where we’ve filled ourselves up with so many questions that they’re starting to overflow and become answers."

It resonated with me, because this is what doing research often feels like for me.

#GNUTerryPratchett #AcademicChatter #PhDLife #AcademicMastodon #Bookstodon #Fiction #Discworld #DiscworldQuote #FeetOfClay

I guess "You can be any sex you like provided you act male." would've also worked to describe the PhD experience. At least on some levels. Would've been a more depressing choice, tho.

@jeromechoo Thanks! They belonged to my grandmother, who passed away when I was living in Singapore. After I moved back, I found them among my things. I guess my mom must've taken them from my grandmother's house when clearing out her things, and decided that I should have them ❤️

@aral

Sunday breakfast! Cc: @jeromechoo @aral

#MakanApaToday #FediGoreng #MastMiGoreng #Food #Indomie #SilentSunday

@jeromechoo @aral I have big plans for this weekend 💅

#MakanApaToday #MiGoreng #Food #IndoMie

I'm in a friend group where people regularly share articles and TikToks etc claiming all kinds of findings.

I am that person who then tries to find the sources of the original information, then reads academic papers to gauge if the "headlines" that are shared can actually backed up by proper science.

In this process, I often find myself uttering the words "I hate to be this person again, but... *in mice*. They did *one* small study with *mice* and found an effect *in mice*."

I love this.

https://www.theguardian.com/science/2025/mar/04/genetically-modified-woolly-mice-mammoth

#Science #InMice #Mice #Mammoth #WoollyMammoth

@aral Wa that's excellent!

No joke: while you were sending these updates, my friend sent me this pic of the lunch menu that they were looking at.

@jeromechoo

@aral @jeromechoo lol I can order them online, but only in quantities of at least 40 packs at a time. My partner had so much Indomie that they actually got a giant Indomie branded reusable shopping bag with their order ^^

@aral When I was in London in 2023, 2 hours of London drizzle achieved what 2 years of Singaporean sky Niagaras never managed: water damaging my phone.

@jeromechoo @aral Tip: bring an umbrella, since the designated waiting area does not have shelter.

@aral Turns out Roti King has been there for a while 👆

@jeromechoo