Dang Nguyen

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Every now and again the fine people at Facebook remind me of something that is important to memorialize. Today it's an image from 12 years ago, which was utilized in conjunction with the first essay on #remix. And it was this essay that eventually spawned "Of Remixology" @mitpress.bsky.social (2016)

Eating Clay at the Bend of the Road The Black diasporan tradition of geophagia, or dirt eating, has long been pathologized. Black writers and directors recover the practice as a sacred birthright.

Drawing on literature and film spanning more than a century, Tiffany Lethabo King writes about the Black diasporan tradition of dirt eating, also known as geophagia: “As unfinished sites, geophagical pits open portals to geological time, offering up, in morsels, millions of years of earth-knowing.”

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Good morning! Mì quảng?

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Eating Clay at the Bend of the Road The Black diasporan tradition of geophagia, or dirt eating. has long been pathologized. Black writers and directors recover the practice as a sacred birthright.

The Black diasporan tradition of dirt eating, or geophagia, has long been pathologized. Black literary and film artists recover the practice as a birthright — an intimate connection to the earth, passed down by Black women at clay banks.

The latest in An Unfinished Atlas, from Tiffany Lethabo King:

"At the opening of one of Wang’s lectures at Tsinghua University, noted mathematician Shing-Tung Yau, the first Chinese Fields Medalist and dean of Qiuzhen College, praised her achievements.

"Hong Wang is the greatest and most important Chinese scholar of the younger generation." Yau said."

"Last summer, she gave seminars at major institutions across China, such as Peking University, Tsinghua University, the Chinese Academy of Sciences and other leading research centers, drawing large audiences."

"She later carried out postdoctoral research at the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton before becoming an assistant professor at UCLA in 2021. In 2023, she joined New York University’s Courant Institute as an associate professor, and by 2025 she had been promoted to full professor."

"After graduating in 2011, Wang moved to France, where she studied at École Polytechnique and later earned a master’s degree from the University of Paris-Sud. She then went to the U.S., completing her PhD at MIT in 2019 under the supervision of mathematician Larry Guth."

"She became known for studying ahead on her own, often searching for materials independently and solving difficult problems before discussing them with classmates or teachers."

"Born in Guilin in southern China, Wang was raised by two middle school teacher parents and showed unusual academic talent from a very young age. By the time she entered primary school, she had already learned first-grade material and skipped straight to the second grade."

"Wang drew even more attention in October 2025, when she received two important mathematics honors on the same day: the Salem Prize and the Gold Award of the International Congress of Chinese Mathematicians (ICCM)."

Meet Wang Hong, Chinese math star tipped for 2026 Fields Medal - VnExpress International Chinese maths star Wang Hong has emerged as a leading contender for the 2026 Fields Medal after solving the three-dimensional Kakeya conjecture, a century-old problem in geometric measure theory.

Some speculations coming out of Vietnam today:

e.vnexpress.net/news/tech/pe...

Thank you to Cesar Hidalgo for an entertaining evening in conversation with @dianecoyle1859.bsky.social at @waterstones.bsky.social Cambridge, discussing his latest book, "The Infinite Alphabet: And the Laws of Knowledge".

Get your copy: www.penguin.co.uk/books/458054...

I loved “The Midcentury Kitchen.” Found it on a lark via a tweet and it was totally worth it

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🆕Blog: New data suggest UK labour productivity may finally be emerging from a long period of stagnation, helped by a pick-up in financial services.
@thomasaubreycca.bsky.social highlights how the insurance sector could drive further gains through cyber security & AI opportunities.
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