Had a fantastic time seeing colleagues and hearing research talks at CiE/MCU 2026 in Trier, Germany this week! The post-proceedings aren't out yet, but in the meantime... Preprint: arxiv.org/abs/2606.31974 Slides: people.stfx.ca/tjsmith/sem/...
Taylor Smith
@taylorjsmith.bsky.social
🇨🇦 Theoretical computer scientist. Assistant professor at @stfx-university.bsky.social. Website: taylorjsmith.xyz.
Quite a dilemma: I was upgraded to business class on my trans-Atlantic flight this afternoon, and I know I need to sleep on the plane to adjust to the time change, but I also want to stay awake to take in my only business class experience.
Diego Cabrera Salamanca, Taylor J. Smith: Generating Fibonacci Words via the Prefix--Suffix Duplication Operation https://arxiv.org/abs/2607.20405 https://arxiv.org/pdf/2607.20405 https://arxiv.org/html/2607.20405
Check out our latest preprint! "Generating Fibonacci Words via the Prefix-Suffix Duplication Operation": arxiv.org/abs/2607.20405 #TCSSky #MathSky
Proud supervisor moment: my visiting summer research student just submitted his first-ever paper to arXiv. More details to come very soon!
lmao just found a this hilarious line from Peirce where he writes, "if you, dear Reader, are inclined to suppose I have overlooked something comparatively obvious, please consider the possibility I have not"
CAUTION: This email originated from outside the University. Don't click links or open attachments unless you know the sender and know the content is safe. Also, why are you receiving emails from outside the University? Aren't we good enough for you? Is this how you repay us after all these years?
A few months ago, I was interviewed by CBC News about my unique collection. The video interview was just posted today! There's also an article for those who like reading instead of watching: www.cbc.ca/news/canada/... 1976montrealolympics.ca #montreal #mtl
Montreal Olympics enthusiast shows off his memorabilia collection from the 1976 Games
YouTube video by CBC News
youtube.com
Happy 50th anniversary of the opening of the Montréal 1976 Olympics! Check out this retrospective, which contains footage from my Olympic collection - can you spot it? 1976montrealolympics.ca #montreal #mtl
Is the legacy of the 1976 Olympics in Montreal a good one, 50 years on?
A half century after the eyes of the world were on Montreal, which hosted a memorable Olympic Games that ended up costing the city and the province a sum that took a generation to pay off, the impacts...
cbc.ca
Investigators have released their preliminary report on the crash involving a LEGO 747 and Space Shuttle earlier this week. flightradar24.com/blog/flight-...
Some researchers in the hotter or faster-moving fields might not blink twice at this, but as an early-career researcher doing math-heavy work that takes time to get picked up by others, this was pretty neat to see on Google Scholar.
Bologna opens a new library containing more than 32,000 books from Umberto Eco's private study - arranged exactly as he left them - a decade after his death.
Umberto Eco library opens in Bologna, 10 years after his death
The University of Bologna has opened a new public library housing the personal book collection of writer Umberto Eco, a decade after his death.
wantedinmilan.com
USA to UK: 1776 - "RAAAH WE'RE ANGRY AND INDEPENDENT, TRY US 😡" Canada to UK: 1848 - "Hey, we've got responsible government 😎" 1867 - "Hey, we're gonna be our own country now 😎" 1931 - "Hey, we're gonna write our own laws now 😎" 1982 - "Hey, we're gonna change our constitution by ourselves now 😎"
Hoping against hope that she changes her last name to Kelce so that nobody can ever say our names sound alike again.
The New York Times@nytimes.com · last mo.Guests are arriving for Taylor Swift and Travis Kelce’s wedding at Madison Square Garden, where some fans gathered in spite of the intense heat. Follow live updates. nyti.ms/4f1stRG
Did Leibniz anticipate P v NP and Machine Learning in 1677?
The True Method
Harry Lewis pointed Bill and me to Gottfried Leibniz's 1677 treatise The True Method (translated from the original French ). I highly reco...
blog.computationalcomplexity.org
Check out my latest preprint! "Complexity of Universality and Related Decision Problems for Unary Two-Dimensional Automata": arxiv.org/abs/2606.31974 #TCSSky #MathSky
Whoa, arXiv looks different now. No more Cornell Red (except in the logo... for now); it appears they've opted to go with "Open Blue" and "Repository Brown".
Started a Letterboxd account (on the recommendation of someone very close to me with much better movie taste) and spent the past day trying to remember every single movie I've ever watched in my life. Still haven't gotten to the 'writing reviews' part, though.
One of my favourite little tidbits is that, exactly 89 years before I was born, one of the greatest writers of the last century went on his first date with his wife-to-be and, uh, did something I've never done on any of my first dates.
Irish Literary Times@irishlittimes.bsky.social · 2mo agoDear God*! I just realised—it’s Bloomsday! *“God becomes man becomes fish becomes barnacle goose becomes featherbed mountain” (Episode 15, Circe).
"list of the longest English words with one syllable"
I'm far from being a legal expert, but I think it'll be interesting to watch how this under-16 social media ban plays out in Canada - especially since children don't enjoy the same legal autonomy as adults. If compulsory education is allowed for child welfare reasons, why not this ban?
David TS Fraser@privacylawyer.ca · 2mo agoAs we anticipate a social media ban to be proposed by the Canadian government tomorrow, it's worth noting in the Charter of Rights: "everyone" includes young people and "media of communication" includes social media.
In honour of Canada celebrating the installation of our new Governor General, here are two short stories where the path of yours truly crossed those of past Governors General:
Mark Carney@mark-carney.bsky.social · 2mo agoAt every stage of her exceptional career, Louise Arbour has defended and promoted justice, dignity, and equality. Today, she takes her place as Canada’s 31st Governor General. Congratulations, Your Excellency.
english isn't for cowards. if you're not saying 'torpify,' that's a skill issue. there's no Académie Française telling you what to do. if you try to type 'pallific' and freak out when you see a little red underline, maybe you're not ready to roll with the big dogs.
Just received the cover for a hot new title dropping later this summer. Make sure to get your copy, it's a gripping read.
I recently became acquainted with the work of Bruno Latour and his actor-network theory in particular, and it gave me some thoughts about how ANT intersects with the current discourse on the use of AI in mathematical proof. (Warning: non-philosopher about to talk philosophy)
I have nothing against continental philosophy but I will say a big benefit of analytic philosophy is that you can just reduce all questions to working out the Laurent expansion