RanaldClouston

Lecturer in Computer Science at Australian National University. Interested in logic, types, and categories.

See my introduction post https://fediscience.org/@RanaldClouston/111372747473214344

He/him.

Blog: https://blogs.fediscience.org/the-updated-scholar/
Official site: https://cecs.anu.edu.au/people/ranald-clouston
Google Scholar: https://scholar.google.com.au/citations?user=_7YKlyMAAAAJ

Public Key

npub1u3cy7f328ye893pxfxa3mkpa2k62fk3s90lz8q3yxwdlr9u8s08qfhp4uw

NIP-05 Address

ranaldclouston_at_fediscience.org@momostr.pink

Profile Code

nprofile1qqswguz0yc4rjvnjcsnynwcamq74td9ymgczhl3rsgjr8xl3j7rc8nspz3mhxue69uhhyetvv9ujuerpd46hxtnfduqs6amnwvaz7tmwdaejumr0dskw94wq

Publishing to

nostr.wine

Author Public Key

npub1u3cy7f328ye893pxfxa3mkpa2k62fk3s90lz8q3yxwdlr9u8s08qfhp4uw

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Last Notes

2026-09-17 12:04:04 UTC

Still a day or two left for you or your students to apply for grants to attend the #Logic Summer School at #ANU in Canberra. We can and do support international travel for students!
https://comp.anu.edu.au/lss/grants/

2026-08-19 09:23:51 UTC

The Australian National University's annual #Logic Summer School is running for its 34th time! https://comp.anu.edu.au/lss/ . Starting on 7 December, we'll have a week of lectures by locals, including a series by me titled 'Foundations (plural) of Mathematics', and then a week from our overseas guests Amal Ahmed, Natasha Dobrinen, Rod Downey, Rustan Leino, and Sara Negri. We have some funds we can use to support students to come to and stay in #Canberra , including international flights: see the 'grants' section of our homepage (menu accessed via top left corner in mobile), so please spread the news if you know students who might benefit.

2026-06-14 04:52:24 UTC

My tenth and counting of the #GardnerDozois best short #SF of the year compilations that are gradually putting increasing strain on my bookshelves. This edition collects stories from 2006, and perhaps isn't quite as diverse and interesting as his very best, but the basic standard of quality in these things is always great, and it has terrific stories from the likes of Carolyn Ives Gilman, Stephen Baxter, Greg Egan, Justin Stanchfield, and Alistair Reynolds. @npub1q60…kp90 #bookstodon
https://fediscience.org/system/media_attachments/files/116/746/624/611/757/644/original/9f053eb451155cc8.jpg

2026-04-24 03:24:00 UTC

The deadline for submission of abstracts to #IMLA (Intuitionistic Modal Logic and Applications) has been extended to 30 April. It would be great if I were to see some of you there (at least, at the banquet for that weekend's #FLoC workshops).
"Constructive and intuitionistic modal logics, and their connections with type theory and computation, remain foundationally and practically significant in computer science, logic, and related areas. These include applications in type disciplines, meta-logics for computational phenomena, and explanatory frameworks in philosophical logic. The workshop aims to explore theoretical and methodological issues at the intersection of constructive proof theory and modal semantics, as well as practical questions about which modal connectives and rules best capture computational phenomena at appropriate levels of abstraction."
**Invited speakers**
- Danel Ahman (University of Tartu, Estonia)
- Brigitte Pientka (McGill University, Montreal, Canada)
- Ranald Clouston (ANU, Canberra, Australia)
- More to be confirmed
https://sonia-marin.github.io/imla26/
#ModalLogic #IntuitionisticLogic #Logic

2026-03-20 06:25:44 UTC

A quote I found in a book I'm reading: "Let him who is not come to logic be plagued with continuous and everlasting filth". John of Salisbury (ca. 1115-76), spitting fire. https://plato.stanford.edu/archives/sum2015/entries/john-salisbury/#4.1 #logic

2026-02-28 22:37:52 UTC

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Dead Alive was only used as the title in the US. I agree it's a masterpiece. I love the line from Leonard Maltin's review, that it "is--one hopes--the pinnacle of its kind".

2026-02-28 09:29:08 UTC

Had the delight of introducing my 13yo to Peter Jackson's Bad Taste tonight. Such a wonderful, inventive, gross movie.

2026-02-25 02:29:54 UTC

Picked up this history of Australian #philosophy on the chance it covered philosophical logic, and indeed @npub1xxv…u2a9 , Graham Priest, relevance logic, and the Automated Reasoning Group make cameos. As a book the writing is delightfully funny and acerbic, but so biased towards the author's right wing politics and personal friends that it's hard to take seriously as history. He goes so far as to praise a 'gaps in the fossil records' anti-evolution book, and discusses David Stove at length while somehow not mentioning his remarkably explicit endorsements of racism and misogyny. University of Sydney also appears to receive excessive emphasis, although admittedly its 1970s split into right and left wing philosophy departments is bizarre and interesting. @npub1q60…kp90 #bookstodon
https://fediscience.org/system/media_attachments/files/116/128/868/120/670/309/original/43c42ff1191dd4d0.jpg

2026-02-01 21:39:05 UTC

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how do they handle the footnotes?

2026-01-10 05:52:22 UTC

Finished the third and most recent of #AdrianTchaikovsky 's Children of Time series - but the fourth is coming in a couple of months (https://www.panmacmillan.com/authors/adrian-tchaikovsky/children-of-strife/9781035057788)! This one really worked for me, with its blend of hard lives on an inadequately terraformed planet with surreal and brain-bending temporal inconsistencies and fairytale elements. While the dive into hyperevolved animal intelligence feels less deep than the first two Children books, I did appreciate the acknowledgement of a bird psychology book by Jennifer Ackerman, one of my favourite pop science authors. @npub1q60…kp90 #Bookstodon #SciFi
https://fediscience.org/system/media_attachments/files/115/869/199/451/972/578/original/2291e020b2646a4b.jpg

2025-12-28 00:11:27 UTC

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"how do you do fellow straight manly men?” - the discussion of how breasts bounce on zero gravity is especially eye roll inducing.

2025-12-27 22:56:59 UTC

#ArthurCClarke 's prose could most charitably be described as unassuming, and his attempts to write human characters and politics are not very convincing, and yet this story of first contact encountering a massive alien spacecraft still, somehow, really works: Rama is such a memorable, mysterious, awe inspiring creation. #Bookstodon @npub1q60…kp90
https://fediscience.org/system/media_attachments/files/115/793/954/725/678/177/original/84467704fe57d63c.jpg

2025-09-28 23:06:16 UTC

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I already named all the children I'm going to have, and I didn't even think about whether their names enhanced my personal brand. Thank goodness services like this now exist for the next generation of child namers.

2025-07-26 06:31:02 UTC

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yeah, it's one of the very few (3-5?) songs I've heard today that I think is not good at all

2025-07-26 04:39:12 UTC

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yes, too white and too male. Good to hear Thelma Plum now also.

2025-05-30 04:15:48 UTC

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I'm not saying there's no variety, but there is a *lot* of alternative rock in that list compared to the youth music that's actually endured. The Fugees 'Killing Me Softly' does make it in at 35 but that is just about the only representative of a year of pretty spectacular output from US hip hop, for example.

2025-05-30 02:39:33 UTC

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My unpopular (?) opinion is that the 1990s Hottest 100 lists are pretty bad - some great songs for sure, but too homogeneous in style, and way way way too homogeneous racially.

2025-05-29 00:13:58 UTC

#FinishedReading a 1950s vampire novella which, thanks to George A. Romero, ended up setting the blueprint for dozens of zombie movies. The main character, alone amongst the shambling hordes for almost the whole story, is sometimes pretty unpleasant company, but his dark sides, and even his outbursts of bigotry, pay off as we hit the ending of this thematically deep little masterpiece. #Bookstodon @npub1ny7…uv57 #RichardMatheson
https://fediscience.org/system/media_attachments/files/114/588/174/733/183/072/original/c887040b186838bb.jpg

2025-05-05 21:45:21 UTC

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Kevin Bonham, who's very good at this sort of thing, has written about Bean: https://kevinbonham.blogspot.com/2025/05/2025-house-of-reps-postcounts-laborind.html?m=1

2025-04-05 04:07:51 UTC

#FinishedReading #AnneBrontë 's 1848 novel of domestic cruelty and escape. Huntingdon is a devastatingly sustained portrayal of a 'can't you take a joke, love?' sniggering, if superficially charming, bully, and the passages of the initially naive Helen alternately suffering through, or trying to stand up to, him are compelling. I'm less convinced by the character of Markham who frames the story, and Anne's extremely strongly expressed (if somewhat unconventional) Christianity isn't exactly my thing. Definitely worth the read. #Bookstodon @npub1ny7…uv57
https://fediscience.org/system/media_attachments/files/114/283/362/586/492/645/original/1ad5bd5122979abd.jpg

2025-04-03 09:14:23 UTC

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given it's Tolkien, the mighty army of spies might be just a flock of birds, right?

2025-02-06 10:40:58 UTC

#FinishedReading this oddball classic about the Devil and his retinue causing havoc in Soviet Moscow. Some of it is a riot, some of it is a bit obscure now (Bulgakov has some scores to settle about how the historicity of Jesus was debated in 1920s and 30s Russia!), and it is a bit repetitive, but overall still an interesting read. #Bookstodon @npub1ny7…uv57 #MikhailBulgakov
https://fediscience.org/system/media_attachments/files/113/956/487/874/769/112/original/fcf9b5c78002982f.jpg

2025-01-16 00:26:10 UTC

Quite different from the planetary #scifi I associate most with #UrsulaKLeGuin , the story of a man whose dreams change reality, and the sleep doctor who exploits him. Written with her trademark elegance and wisdom, with shifts between quiet interiority and 'big budget' spectacle that only literary sci fi can offer. A classic that I'm amazed I got so far into my life to get around to reading! @npub1ny7…uv57 #bookstodon #FinishedReading
https://fediscience.org/system/media_attachments/files/113/835/158/090/848/804/original/812935f55c682c2a.jpg

2025-01-06 05:48:43 UTC

Academic #philosophy question for the Mastodon hive mind: can anyone point me to a good example of a philosophy paper, preferably recent, which does *not* have #logic as its primary subject, but does use formal logical notation to present its argument? I'm writing slides introducing logic and want to give some sense of how it is used in analytic philosophy (as well as other fields). Boosts welcome.

2024-12-23 05:02:17 UTC

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have you read Red Plenty by Francis Spufford? Pretty interesting book on the Soviet attempt at a mathematically managed economy

2024-12-21 05:29:08 UTC

In 1985 French agents bombed the Greenpeace ship Rainbow Warrior in Auckland harbour to prevent its travel to Polynesia to protest against nuclear testing, killing one person. #MichaelKing , who I know best as an iconic New Zealand historian, published this journalistic account a year later, detailing the French operation and police investigation. The book is extremely detailed at times but still a vital record of a sleazy and contemptible, but historically important, operation. #bookstodon @npub1ny7…uv57 #finishedReading
https://fediscience.org/system/media_attachments/files/113/689/156/733/941/931/original/8cadc892006a8132.jpg

2024-11-18 03:25:55 UTC

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how does it work if someone on BlueSky sees my post and replies? Or do they have to opt in to the bridge to even see the posts?

2024-11-07 20:37:23 UTC

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right? What do you do if you're a decent person in elite politics in America? You need to find a way to appeal to some people who are willing to support, or at least tolerate, some pretty appalling things. It's nice to pretend that this can be accomplished by only doing wonderful left wing things, but it seems more likely to me that you have to mix that with some pretty queasy compromises?

2024-10-16 06:05:02 UTC

In 1951 a tiny piece of tumour was taken, without knowledge or consent, from Henrietta Lacks. The extraordinarily malignant cancer killed her, but in the lab the cells, known as HeLa, continued to live and divide, becoming the first ever functionally immortal human cell line. HeLa was used for numerous scientific advances and her cells are traded around the world for serious money; it is estimated they collectively weigh more than 50 million tons... (1/2) @npub1ny7…uv57 #Bookstodon #RebeccaSkloot
https://fediscience.org/system/media_attachments/files/113/315/555/495/113/363/original/a7d756023ad5166a.jpg

2024-10-06 03:51:14 UTC

A collaboration between #KeanuReeves and #ChinaMiéville (inspired by Reeves's comic 'BRZRKR') seems a random thing, but I very much enjoyed this violent #fantasy , written across a variety of times, voices, and even fonts, of an 80,000 year old immortal warrior, his pig frenemy, and the various cults formed for or against them @npub1ny7…uv57 #bookstodon #FinishedReading
https://fediscience.org/system/media_attachments/files/113/258/406/209/610/278/original/e691618eb0f56427.jpg

2024-09-10 22:10:00 UTC

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I debated for many years, and most debate styles internationally do offer structured, limited ways for participants to ask questions during their opponents' speeches. But there are exceptions so I agree that it isn't intrinsic to the nature of debate.

2024-09-03 10:14:23 UTC

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I have not, just looking him up now. He's more philosophy oriented than I am, but his 2015 Logic Journal of the IGPL paper in particular does look quite interesting. I'm on leave this week but will try to read more when back at work :)

2024-09-03 08:19:01 UTC

These #GardnerDozois best of the year compilations of #SciFi short stories - this one from 2009 - are such good value, near 700 pages of consistent high quality. Lots of stories concerned with poverty and/or set in the global South this year, but I've included an image of the most distinctively 00s sentence! #Bookstodon @npub1ny7…uv57 #FinishedReading
https://fediscience.org/system/media_attachments/files/113/072/610/799/020/131/original/844a36fe9b64179d.jpg
https://fediscience.org/system/media_attachments/files/113/072/622/543/404/785/original/35e4e40ddb0516fd.jpg

2023-11-08 03:14:21 UTC

I've been on Mastodon for a year, so it's time for a new pinned #introduction post with an updated dog pic! I'm a lecturer in #computerScience at Australian National University #ANU in #Canberra , #Ngunnawal / #Ngambri country. I research #typeTheory , #logic , #proofTheory and a little #categoryTheory , and teach an intro to programming class in #Haskell . Sometimes I post about work; when I'm busy at work I'm more likely to post about #books , my #labradoodle , and other pleasant distractions
https://fediscience.org/system/media_attachments/files/111/372/718/014/455/071/original/a34608e49296f87d.jpg