Thanks. Can you talk more about the balance between doable and inspiring as an early grad student? I feel like ability to pick research topics which are completable—or at least milestones which are completable—is, like, the filter which separates the wheat from the chaff in terms of academic careers

@drew-lewis.com I meant to ask this on Twitter but never did: what made you choose affine algebraic geometry as a special interest? What led up to that and what other directions might you have gone?

Several years ago, I was feeling lazy after making gumbo and did not fish out the bay leaf before serving. So when it ended up in my bowl, I expressed delight at my good fortune.

Ever since, the now 10yo has delighted in determining which lucky family member gets the bay leaf.

* There is in fact a robust middle class, the billionaires. While lacking pedigree they have so much money that they can compete with any inheritor of land, title, or military rank.

Democrats' constant references to a middle class are not only ahistorical*, they're counterproductive. The "middle" metaphor accepts that there will be a bitch class beneath, doing bland work for shitty pay.

People use social media to consume and argue about the news. I don't believe retweets and <3 of 320-char text/memes need to be continued and elaborated upon. I was hoping for something more like listening directly to the Palestinian/Ukrainian/&c who sourced the video used with permission by the BBC.

If I were redoing social media, I would make posts privately viewable and only open them up to the public selectively. Sometimes you're hotheaded and need to cool down before speaking.

Bourgeois derives from Burgher.

Given the opportunity to do it all over again, wouldn't you want to center your user interactions on, not the <3 button?

Not a social media mogul with the design answers but <3 chasing is the epitome of personal deterioration via internet usage (framing your life to collect <3 from strangers)

Liking is still a public matter and there's no private dislike.

(I dislike things for various reasons rather than categorically, and would prefer to bucket things, eg "this is US politics and today I prefer not to be bombarded", "today I wish to mentally travel to Yemen", etc)

Given the opportunity to do it all over again, @jack still would display "number of followers" prominently: the one design choice that most made odeo feel like self-promotion instead of human relations.

I only need 10 more math books in my library and then my intellectual life will be complete. this is true because I have not specified the base