Mathematics

12:00 AM

tries to connect death with the Killing form or annihilation

@anon: I think those are fairly specific tags. If you want to bump one of your old questions, you could always make a small edit or offer a bounty on it.

Asaf Karagila

Algebraists don't die, they just meet their annihilators.

robjohn

Set Theorists never die, they just meet their successor.

Asaf Karagila

What if they don't have a successor?

Like axiom of choice negating sort of thing?

robjohn

never joke with a set theorist when death is on the line...

Mike Spivey

12:04 AM

And never start a land war with a set theorist?

Asaf Karagila

Not all of us are Sicilians :-)

We did have a postdoc from Sicily for the past two years though.

He was into set theoretical topology, interesting stuff.

robjohn

I haven't had pizza for a while.

Asaf Karagila

Me neither.

Mike Spivey

Ciao - time to go pick the up the kiddos.

Asaf Karagila

Enjoy!

robjohn

12:06 AM

I like deep dish pizza. I had the Chicago style pizza when I went to visit my son at college in Chicago. It was good, too.

@Mike: enjoy the kids!

Asaf Karagila

I have no idea what either of those are.

robjohn

@Asaf: Chicago style is a deep dish pizza, but it has a lot of good stuff in it, not just heaps of cheese.

Asaf Karagila

What is a deep dish pizza?

robjohn

meat and veggies, mushrooms etc

Asaf Karagila

Yuck.

anon

12:08 AM

Everyone's making me hungry, bah.

Asaf Karagila

I hate mushrooms.

robjohn

There is thin crust.

anon

I worked in a pizzeria for almost 4 years.

robjohn

Oh, I love 'em. I'll have yours.

Asaf Karagila

Meat is great on pizza.

The one thing I hate about this city is that it doesn't have many non-Kosher places, so cheeseburgers and pepperoni pizza are scarce.

robjohn

12:09 AM

thin crust pizza, has a thin crust (surprise) and a fairly thin layer of goodies on top. Deep Dish has a thicker crust and more non-crust things on top

anon

flatbread or cheesecrust > thin crust or deep dish

Asaf Karagila

anon: How old are you?

robjohn

Different names for the same thing?

anon

twenty

no, flatbread has different texture than thin crust, at least where I was

robjohn

never had anything called flatbread.

at least pizza

anon

12:12 AM

though textures vary wildly from place to place, so specifying 'flatbread' isn't necessarily meaningful..

robjohn

Too much work again. None of the answers have gotten an upvote.

Asaf Karagila

You might get that Tenacious badge :P

robjohn

I only have 1 zero score accepted answer now. I got a lot of votes for old answers recently.

Asaf Karagila

12:30 AM

Ah.

I wish it'll be raining already.

Or you know... at all.

robjohn

I like rain, but I live in a desert.

Asaf Karagila

So am I.

anon

I'm at a crossroads, where I have to choose between (a) changing my initial parameters and so-far-written derivation so the end comes out simpler or (b) continue on with more complicated expressions. I'm going with the latter.

Asaf Karagila

I am at a crossroads too. I should either (a) go to sleep, or (b) stay awake.

anon

I was at that a few minutes ago. I chose (b) until I finish one answer and one question edit.

Asaf Karagila

12:42 AM

I'll go with (a)

It's 2:45 and I didn't have any afternoon nap today.

I am shocked that I even sit here in the first place :D

I bid you adieu and good night!

J. M.

12:58 AM

@AsafKaragila You should invest in catnip.

@tb The yellow isn't your color, I must say.

@robjohn The problem is that genuine newbies (rep 1) need additional 10 rep (2 upvotes from other people) to upvote. Ergo, if you don't upvote their question, they can't upvote your fabulous answer. But they can accept.

2

Tit-for-tat and all that.

(On that note, it took me quite a while to figure out the ropes of this software. As soon as I think I have things down pat, the overlords change a few things around, and I feel like a n00b again! Yeesh.)

J. M.

1:21 AM

Speaking of "too much work" answers... I have to wonder what are the other 25 questions that can be asked on m.SE that will admit one-letter answers? (Of course, not as answers to multiple choice!)

anon

some complicated expression that just turns out to be 'x'

J. M.

@anon: that answer of yours was neat on its own, but the color was genuine art. ;)

anon

It is indeed fun adding colors. I think it provides useful/suggestive local information in a derivation and should be used more often - be the change you want to see and all that.

Except it might really screw over some synesthetes. :)

J. M.

Well, the probable problem is that some people like Andre and Asaf have some form of color-blindness...

(I've forgotten which sort they have, though.)

anon

Hm. I thought color-blindness was only between shades, so that distinct base colors are different enough to be distinguished?

though the \color{Green} is kind of hard to tell from the usual black, and coloring the numeral '1' all by itself doesn't show up very well

J. M.

1:34 AM

I can distinguish the green bit from everything else. OTOH, I needed to stare a bit longer than usual to see that you did color up the "1".

Ah, found it: meta.math.stackexchange.com/questions/2864

André apparently has difficulty with red.

robjohn

@JM I have asked no questions. I must have gotten 10 rep somehow. I'll have to check my activity.

J. M.

@rob: Your first answer here was upvoted, right?

robjohn

ack, answers of course.

J. M.

One upvoted answer means you can upvote other answers. ;)

A rather logical economy, yes?

robjohn

yeah. I figured tha out when I looked at my first activity :-)

that's when I got my first badge (Teacher)

J. M.

1:45 AM

I used to be annoyed at some of those bronze badges, until I figured that they can give useful forensic information.

robjohn

I pay little attention to them. what useful forensic info do they provide?

J. M.

e.g. "He couldn't have downvoted you; he doesn't have a "Critic" badge" or "Yep, you just hit the cap today. In fact I see you have a "Mortarboard"."

robjohn

I've gotten 200+ a few times, but I guess only once without acceptances or bounties.

actually, I've capped twice

so the Mortarboard must be a one time deal.

J. M.

You can peer at math.stackexchange.com/reputation if you need to do accounting.

robjohn

yeah, someone pointed that out yesterday and I have it bookmarked.

J. M.

1:51 AM

Yes, Mortarboard is one-time. That's meant for "hey, I was supposed to have 300 rep today from my blockbuster answer, what gives?"

robjohn

It is up to date, unlike the SQL data

J. M.

Oh yeah. I understand why they can't update the SQL more frequently though. The databases are hella huge!

robjohn

If there were a note with the Mortarboard that 200 is the cap, it would keep people like me from seeking why they missed some points.

I gotta go get dinner. BBL

@J.M.: thanks for the correction on my answer :-)

J. M.

Don't say I don't care about you, man. ;P

robjohn

I try to get the backslashes in there, but I miss some.

later...

anon

1:55 AM

just noticed this: twitter.com/#!/StackMath

J. M.

Oh yeah, the twitter feed. For people who check twitter more often than m.SE itself.

anon

For about 2 weeks straight I'd get up in the morning and check my twitter feed ... and it would take me 4-5 hours. Couldn't keep up, left my account dormant.

J. M.

If I needed to stalk somebody, Twitter is pretty damn good. That's why I never bothered making an account there.

(that is, a lot of people seem to throw caution to the wind with this Twitter business.)

anon

Eh, I used it more for information networking than social networking. Revealed little to no personal info (except IPs to the domain itself). But that's the reason I quit my facebook account three years ago.

J. M.

Man, FB is an even leakier ship.

Zuckerberg is awash in private details of people I imagine.

Transcript for

$Mathematics$ Mathematics