The h Bar - 2015-03-18 (page 2 of 4)

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12:06 PM

@DavidZ I did back then - it was declined, the rest happened in chat

ah, well then it probably wasn't that serious

On one hand we don't want people to feel uncomfortable, but also we do keep a high bar for removing questions or answers

@DavidZ it was in comments

Oh, huh. Well, still it probably wasn't that bad, but we're a lot more willing to delete comments

if you say so

I do. Though I can only guess without seeing the comments.

Oh wait, I just reread your earlier message. If people were calling you pathetic and suggesting that you deal drugs to cover costs, and it wasn't a joke, then that absolutely should have been deleted, possibly with disciplinary action taken against the posters.

12:21 PM

@DavidZ well, it is a moot point really - I felt uncomfortable with the comments on the question and very uncomfortable with those comments in chat - I even flagged the drug dealing comment in chat (but as it was a 'joke', it was 'okay'), so I felt I had no recourse but to leave, so I left.

Fair enough

I also felt I was being ridiculed, but anyway, good night

@StanShunpike No, not serious on that.

@SabreTooth I would have been interested to see these examples because we are always refining our moderation practices, and if we're declining flags on posts that are obviously offensive, we need to figure out why and adjust accordingly

@0celo7 He always makes me feel kinda sad because he's so clearly not normal :P

12:33 PM

@StanShunpike btw why didn't you flag that question as off topic, if you think it's completely off topic?

@ACuriousMind I agree so so much with you right now :D

(except I'm not into fantasy at all, lol)

@KyleKanos 'cause it's better when stoned? :)

@SabreTooth NB: flags in chat here are handled by any 10k+ member, network-wide, not just the mods/10k+ members in the room. I imagine the people who reviewed my comment understood the reference and figured it was a joke (which it was meant to be).

Feb 3 at 21:45, by Kyle Kanos

Well, you could always get a job selling drugs. Be like Walter White or something

That was my comment (the rest of what SabreTooth mentioned was going on around there as well)

@StanShunpike They're obviously more general (by definition of a field)

@Danu I had to look back twice to get the joke there :(

@KyleKanos The only reason I can imagine this being construed as genuinely offensive is if someone doesn't know who Walter White is and doesn't bother to Google it---which certainly can happen but isn't really your fault, IMO

@KyleKanos Lol

12:41 PM

@Danu I asked and gave the reference as well

I guess I'm used to weed jokes, as I get them all the time whenever I tell anyone where I'm from

Feb 3 at 21:49, by Sabre Tooth

I am well aware

Then I think it was handled appropriately.

let it go guys :-)

@StanShunpike Lol, nonsense not to have commutativity. Do you even gauge theory, bro?

@ChrisWhite QG seems mostly necessary philosophically, to me :D It just sucks to have incompatible theories, and it's unacceptable to even imagine that nature is inconsistent :P

@DavidZ I think it's pretty terrible, because it's so low-level, doesn't really allow for mathematics, etc. I did, at some point, get the highest upvoted answer on the highest upvoted question over there though :) Woopey!

12:49 PM

here's whoopi getting an award :P

Terribly actress

yep

too ghetto for my liking

@infinitesimal That was....(a) random (b) a looooong time ago

(a)I did, at some point, get the highest upvoted answer on the highest upvoted question over there though :) Woopey!

@infinitesimal What do you mean by that?

12:53 PM

some actors/actresses act like they represent the ghetto

Ice Tea etc

nobody represents the poor minorties

@Jimnosperm: Look what you're doing!

0

Q: Magnetic field due to far away square loop current and due to infinitely long axis, Biot-Savart

in two of my 5 homework problems I'm not very confident in my solution, and my TAs have been on strike for 3 weeks so I could use some help, thanks haha Griffiths is the textbook we use, so I reference equations there, but I will put them in just in case. Also, my solutions from word don't seem...

homework-and-exercises electromagnetism current

@infinitesimal Err... I'm pretty sure actors mostly act exactly how they're told to by directors.

@Danu I'm pretty sure he's talking about when they're not acting

yep

@Danu I suspect the reason you consider it "low level" is that /r/askscience is a science popularization platform - it's meant for the general public to be able to ask questions to science experts. Of course if you evaluate it as a place for experts to ask each other questions, it'll seem terrible. But it's very good at what it does.

12:57 PM

Ah, unlucky double-meaning of "act' haha

It also reaches 4 million people every month.

Or wait, maybe that's the number of subscribers. Anyway, it has huge reach.

@DavidZ Of course, you have a point. However, often the truth appears to be deformed quite a bit---to the point that the laymen are actually led to believe things which are not quite correct.

Of course, this is an enormous recurring theme in science popularization

...and there is probably no good "fix".

It's a necessary theme, I think. We do it in education as well.

But I'd rather we at least be very careful and explicit when doing it

You can't explain things in a fully correct way to people with little to no background knowledge. It's a good goal to strive for, but an unreachable one.

12:59 PM

@Danu I should have said "they pretend like they represent the ghetto" sorry

It's mostly personal experience that has made me hate that stuff so much

I've already mentioned this before, but for me in particular SRT was always quite mysterious

Almost completely due to opaque "simple explanations"

I've found that especially powerful geometric tools, even if they're more technical and may require some terminology, make things a lot clearer and much more intuitive, too.

Yeah, but that's because you have the particular mindset to make use of those tools.

I don't know---I really believe that things like e.g. appealing to symmetry principles, even if it is not an obvious point to start reasoning to the layman, is very strong and yet fully correct in a way that many other simple explanations wouldn't be.

Of course, this is just an example

But my point is that it's not simple.

Or, I suppose you could say that it is, but only if you grant that simplicity is relative to one's preparation. What is simple to one person is not simple to another.

It's very hard to discuss this in general, haha

Of course, everything typically depends strongly on what particular question we're looking at

I guess no "winning argument" can be made on either side---trading between impact and correctness is a difficult matter

I may or may not also be influenced by my recent mathematical readings, haha

1:11 PM

I think there are more correct and less correct ways of explaining things, but which is which depends on your audience.

And sometimes there is no correct way of explaining something :D

@KyleKanos That is when we cry in shame

Due to their proximity across the channel, there's long been tension between North Korea and the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Southern Ireland.

Wait, what?! This is just wrong, isn't it?

how does that change my perspective?

1:15 PM

The continents are flipped upside down

I dont get it.

Okay... so what's funny about that?

It's not an upside-down map (e.g., rotated pi radians)

Guys...it's a play on the real "upside-down" maps that are supposed to change our "Western"/"Northern" perspective

It's not upside down it's incorrect.

1:15 PM

explainxkcd.com/wiki/index.php/Main_Page

@ACuriousMind Oh, but that's not funny

I probably just haven't seen enough of those because I take great care not to be flooded with stupid stuff like that

I got it :-)

@Danu Well, I don't find this one particularly funny, either, but that's what it's supposed to be

I thought it was pretty funny

@ACuriousMind Cool beans

2/10

1:17 PM

1/0

just wrong

@infinitesimal Undefined?

and wrong

@Danu xDDD

@ACuriousMind Mathematicians have a good sense of humor sometimes

"so Electromagnetic Force is carried by Photon as its Force Carrier, and Quantum Particle Theory believes that, there are particles due to which the force is apply, hence, the magnetic field is made of photo"

0

Q: Is Magnetic Field is made of Photon? Is there any frequency of Magnetic Field waves?

(Considering the What is a magnetic field question which is asked on just 8th march, by @DragonSlayer3 and my own question which is left with negative points and closed, Photon Energies in sunlight, and in Magnetic Field of Magnets? What is Spectrum of Photon Journey form North to South pole of M...

electromagnetic-radiation photons magnetic-fields

Sigh...

1:22 PM

I like the anger and resentment in the first sentence. Good start.

Gah @ACuriousMind: I was just going to protect that question when you got to it first

I need to use my new-found powers or something

@Jiminion you ass!

!!

(I hope you were joking in that comment)

weren't you?

basically. I don't really think photons are particles like other stuff.

1:27 PM

@KyleKanos Hehehehe

@Jiminion Take a very low-intensity beam of light and send it at a photoactive screen. The dots you will see successively appear are evidence for photons - they are just as real as electrons

@Jiminion Anyways, I don't think it's a good idea to make a joke in that particular spot since the asker is so, so confused about these concepts. I have therefore flagged your comment (nothing against you personally, I don't mind the joke itself)

I agree they contain energy.

I deleted it.

In some ways. I think MANY folks are confused about Physics.....

@Danu I deleted it.

Hah, I don't think anyone here disagrees with you

@Jiminion :)

I mean, even the "professionals".

I'm not sure what you're talking about.

1:31 PM

-1

Q: The Energy in the energy diagram belong to what?

I was reading this answer and I saw an energy diagram: Does the energy belong to the system or to the outside?

user image

@KyleKanos I think the question might be asking whether that energy is meant to be bond energy that is contained in the system or the energy that is freed when the bonds are dissolved.

Of course, both differ only by a sign, really

Oh god, the cursive words are disappearing again

I disagree. I think he means How does that thick black arrow of "Energy" play into the system

screw me

Chat, Y U SO broken :(

What?

My italics are fine

1:35 PM

I don't see any cursive. I see italics

Ah, italics, I mean

Yeah, just remembered that false friend

Here, I'll show you guys

user image

lol

That's very strange

That is weird

:D

1:38 PM

It happens to me regularly

Screw you, Kyle

hahahahahahaha

I can still copy-paste, you ass

I'm laughing so hard right now that I can't drink my coffee

That means we can talk in secrect by just writing in italics?

lol :)

1:39 PM

And I'm awfully glad it's Spring Break so that my officemates are not looking at me funny

@ACuriousMind No, only in cursive

@KyleKanos I don't think physicists sitting in an office giggling are that unusual ;)

You've not seen my quartet (including me)

We don't typically laugh at out screens

@Danu gauge theory is my weakest area. I need to improve it. What can I read to do that?

@StanShunpike The usual QFT books probably cover stuff decently. 'QCD as a theory of hadrons' is a book that I've been recommended for QCD (which has a nonabelian gauge group) in particular

1:41 PM

I definitely don't recommend Quantization of Gauge Systems if you just want an introduction. Boy, that book is dense.

Also, it's a mathematics book, not physics

@Danu You mean, as in, it doesn't actually discuss many physical examples?

Or, as in, it is written at the math level of rigour rather than the physics level?

:)

If I had meant the or to be exclusive, I'd have written xor ;)

Both, although it's not a completely pure mathematics book either

Oh god, I love the Dutch sometimes

So, the government decided they didn't like these 'growshops' that just sell supplies for people growing their own weed, and made some legislation against them.

Now, all growshops have decided that they're now all officially selling supplies to home-grow bell peppers

1:48 PM

Logical consequence: Outlaw growing bell peppers

Including signs that say: "Only for use in bell pepper farming"

-_-

I love it

Mh, I do love me some good bell peppers.

I actually have a fellow student who really grows his own bell peppers and chilis

@ACuriousMind Hey, it's a legitimate service they're providing :)

1:50 PM

When he offered some of his plants for sale, he got multiple replies from people who thought he was actually selling weed :D

There was some disappointment when he had to make clear that they were really just chilis

weed destroys your memory

@ACuriousMind My wife & I had a garden last summer. Peppers are one thing we did not grow, but want to in the future

@infinitesimal Not that I could recall

@infinitesimal Have you tried it?

yes

1:53 PM

@KyleKanos They're tasty little waterballons

Or hellishly hot devils :P

@KyleKanos What did you grow, then?

I find that alcohol destroys a lot more of my memory than weed/hash does

@ACuriousMind Two types of cabbage, two types of lettuce, & kale

@ACuriousMind does it improve yours?

@KyleKanos Eeech, cabbage :P

Lettuce is fine, though

@Danu how did the whiskey festival go?

1:56 PM

@ACuriousMind Aren't you German?

@DavidZ I thought about doing it. I thought flagging was to bring stuff to the attention of mods though....and you're a mod...so I reasoned I didn't need to do it. Is that the wrong way to think about it?

His name is Bjorn....what do you think? Lol

@KyleKanos

I'm pretty sure it's either Urs or Beorn

@KyleKanos Yeah. The abundance of cabbage here is to my daily chagrin.

@ACuriousMind So you do not like sauerkraut?

@KyleKanos Not really. I find it disgusting on its own, and can tolerate it in Döner or as a trace element in other meals

1:58 PM

Weird

My wife has been making it lately and it's delicious

We eat it pretty much at every meal

Then you are a better German than me :D

@infinitesimal Not that I could recall

Does björn mean bear in German like it does in Swedish (it is also a name in the latter, like Björn Borg)?

@ACuriousMind :D

@alarge It only means that in Swedish, it is not a German name or word, actually

@infinitesimal I didn't actually end up going :(

2:06 PM

@Danu :(

do you play Planescape: Torment @ACuriousMind?

@infinitesimal I wonder why you ask that... ;) Yes, I do (or rather, did, I've played it about five times, I think)

i see it left a lasting impression ;)

One of my favourite games of all time

after only five times?

Well, as much as I like it, I can only bear to read mostly the same texts again so many times

2:12 PM

@ACuriousMind Who reads textboxes during games?

It's genius lies in the story and the atmosphere, not in the gameplay

(The gameplay is admittedly the worst of the D&D games)

@KyleKanos Well, if you don't read the "textboxes", then you'll have no clue what the hell anything is about

@ACuriousMind Yeah, and?

There's more dialogue than exploration or combat going on

You can actually play through it just talking, only fighting once, I think

@KyleKanos This game is not for you ;)

Oh, wait a second! I played D&D Heroes when I was a little kid (more RPG memories---although this again may not count as RPG)

I thought the dragons were soooo epic

@ACuriousMind It's like all other RPGs: run around & fight people

2:14 PM

@KyleKanos Lol

@KyleKanos Do you want to pick a fight with me? :D

The gamer nerd inside me just shed a tear

Actually, I guess that really you should read textboxes during first play through

@Danu I did not know that existed until now

That way you can ignore them in subsequent play throughs

2:15 PM

@ACuriousMind That stuff was so fun

@KyleKanos That's...not how it works! At least, not in the story/dialogue heavy kind of RPG

Well to beat it the quickest, just remember (or write down) which order of answers you need to give

@Danu Hack and slash is fun. I don't know how many hours I spent with Diablo II

Does not matter what your character is actually saying, just that you say it

I repeat: Planescape is not for you

2:17 PM

Planescape: Torment

Planescape: Torment is a computer role-playing game developed for Microsoft Windows by Black Isle Studios and released on December 12, 1999 by Interplay Entertainment. It takes place in locations from the multiverse of Planescape, an Advanced Dungeons & Dragons (AD&D) fantasy campaign setting. The game's engine is a modified version of the Infinity Engine, which was also used for BioWare's Baldur's Gate, a previous AD&D game set in the Forgotten Realms. Planescape: Torment is primarily story-driven; combat is given much less prominence than in most contemporary role-playing games. The protagonist...

combat is given much less prominence actually wouldn't be too bad because fighting battles takes the longest

Random Encounters are the worst

So just remember textbox choices

You're really just playing to finish the game as quick as possible, are you?

That's the goal of speed running

He's like a speed runner, except he doesn't actually appreciate the game ;)

I think speed running appreciates the game

2:20 PM

blade runner?

Relevant and cool as fuck: electricsheep.org

2

@KyleKanos Depends on the game. I'd say that anyone who tries to speedrun Planescape or Baldur's Gate doesn't really appreciate what they're meant to be.

That's not true, but those who'd speedrun it would probably have played it 'the right way' several times through already

@Danu I am not sure that I'd agree that doing it slowly & reading everything is the "right way" (even in quotes), but it's otherwise correct

@Danu Sooooooo beautiful

2:37 PM

@StanShunpike ah, I see what you mean. Flagging is a way to bring things to the attention of the moderators while also making an "official" record that you are doing so.

Sometimes that record is important, e.g. if somebody thinks it was wrong for a moderator to unilaterally close the question.

We tend to interpret flags as loose proxies for close votes in those cases. If nobody flags the question, it indicates that nobody actually thinks it's off topic.

"Kindly refrain from using jargon when answering this"...Gnnnnh, it's not that we use the jargon for fun, you know?

(Although some seem to do, admittedly)

2:53 PM

See the earlier discussion between me and David, haha

can you believe the answer this doctor gave 'Don't kill yourself, we can help you' ???

@infinitesimal What?

Which doctor?

Psychiatrist

I have no idea what you are talking about, I'm afraid

there's a guy in the the math room with severe OCD

I finally talked him into going to a doctor to get on medication

and that is the answer he got

along with a prescription

3:00 PM

I see. I don't see what's wrong with "Don't kill yourself", though. Solid advice in my book.

people who want to kill themselves don't listen to "solid advice"

they need a therapist

which is the next thing I'm trying to convince him of

medication + therapy gives the best results

Sure, but I'm not surprised that a psychiatrist didn't refer him to a psychologist. The two professions really don't think the other has much to offer.

true, but the patients are the ones who suffer

as I said medication + therapy gives the best results

finding the "right" therapist is like looking for a needle in a haystack

you can do it, but it takes a lot of searching

I honestly don't think anyone ever found a needle in a haystack

even with a magnet?

3:12 PM

@Danu Do you think anyone ever sought a needle in a haystack?

Unrelated: Why is there still no HW close vote on this question? (I've not cast one because I was out of votes when it was posted, and am out of votes again)

sorry for being off-topic

@infinitesimal ? There's no off-topic in chat!

A bold claim...

@Danu nydailynews.com/entertainment/theater-arts/…

Danu = wrong!

(although I must confess I'm probably the greatest source of ridiculousness in this chat... Talking about my semi-existent love life and all)

3:19 PM

@Danu Do you disagree?

@KyleKanos Bwhahaha

@Danu At least yours is semi -existent ;)

:)

@KyleKanos Heh, "He described his latest challenge as an exercise in "literalism.""

"Previous performances carried out by Sachsalber include a day sitting in a room with a cow and sawing off branches as he sat in a tree."

Yeah, modern artists are dumb. But they still do interesting things every now and then

3:21 PM

That's hilarious

@Danu Yeah, Werster is definitely a dick, and probably has high functioning autism. I guess people put up with him because he's an amazing runner.

Although I don't get what the sitting with the cow is taking literally

and he didn't even use a magnet

Mythbusters used the burning & magnet techniques

^^

Do they have Mythbusters in Germany?

3:23 PM

@ACuriousMind Maybe it's an Italian saying? :P

@0celo7 They have it everywhere

If not on TV then on the internet :P

@0celo7 Yeah, it runs here "documentary style" - dubbed but you can hear the original voices in the background

At least, it did back when I watched television

I'm doing bathe remediation for delinquent middle schoolers right now.

*math

Holy crap phone.

Some probably need a bath more than math :P

This is actually sad.

They do the work to get a C and then quit.

@ACuriousMind I hate the German dubbing thing

3:29 PM

@Danu Since I have learned enough English to understand the original, I hate it, too

I can't listen to American SpongeBob because I prefer the German dub that I saw as a kid.

@0celo7 Seriously?

@Danu Yes.

4:08 PM

@ACuriousMind Well the obvious answer is to just unlearn English ;)

Wie soll das denn gehen?

Ich kenne nicht.

Aber, es könnte mein Deutsch zu helfen.

(hope I didn't screw that up)

Uh, you did

Damn

gehelfen?

meinem Deutsch, and no zu - Es könnte meinem Deutsch helfen

Also, you'd say Ich weiß nicht instead of Ich kenne nicht for a generic "Don't know"

4:17 PM

To be fair: I got like an 80-something on German II where we covered the Dative & Genitive cases. So my knowledge of that is not good.

@ACuriousMind Interesting. I'll try remembering that one

4:35 PM

Hah, I'd never thought about the fact that "wissen" and "kennen" (or the Dutch equivalents) are pretty hard to distinguish in English!

@Danu Kennen, not können

@ACuriousMind Hahaha yay for paying attention

I was supposed to know this language

But yeah, it's surprising that English doesn't distinguish the two

(see what I did there?)

@Danu Heh

4:37 PM

I guess "to be aware of [object]'s existence" would be the best way to translate "kennen"

@ACuriousMind What is the difference?

@KyleKanos Wissen $\approx $ know

See the above for the translation of "kennen"

when applied to people, it'd mean "to be acquainted with" (in fact, that may just be a better translation in general)

@Danu This line applied to kennen or wissen?

That's about "kennen"

Yeah, Danu is pretty spot on, I think. Kennen means you know something or someone exists, wissen means all other possible meanings of "know".

4:41 PM

I see. What a convoluted language.

I think this is actually a weird quirk on the part of English rather than the other way around

I've been speaking English my whole life, so I may be biased, but I'm pretty sure that English has no quirks.

French (and therefore I assume all southern European) language also distinguish the two

Spanish also has an equivalent word to kennen

So it probably is a quirk of English

:D

4:43 PM

The Greeks have 7 words for love. We have one

...the analogy is not very good

I'm pretty sure Occam's razor applies here and the less words the better

@KyleKanos I know of three or four, I think, but they are all pretty different

Although I would say that conocer translates literally as "to be acquainted with", so that actually it is a common-usage issue rather than a vocabulary one

(or "to be familiar with")

It's actually annoying not to have different words for romantic and non-romantic love

4:45 PM

Love is love, man.

Not really

It's also extremely weird since English pretty much trumps every other language on vocabulary. But in this one example of love we are very limited

[restraining myself not to make rude remark]

@Danu Just be free!

Something something inbred

4:47 PM

in my opinion love is more than any word in any language can describe

http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/ken
Maybe not such a quirky language after all eh

::restraining myself to not post "What is love" again:: :D

Haddaway - What Is Love (Official Video)

@MarkMitchison Oh yeah, I think Tolkien's used that before

Lol

4:48 PM

lol

I think we should sticky it to the starred comment bar

@ACuriousMind the cylinder map in radial quantization is $w = (t,x) \mapsto z = e^{t+ix}$, and radial quantization physically comes up when you want to analyze a system of finite size at it's critical point that could remain in that state indefinitely. If the system had a fixed time period, you could use a torus map and do some crazy quantization. Do you know what the 'torus map' is?

don't hurt me no more

@KyleKanos It's only used by the Scots in everyday parlance

@bolbteppa I guess it is just gluing the cylinder into the torus, I recall doing that for the torus partition functions

I.e. you do the quantization in the plane, map that back to the cylinder, and then glue the cylinder into the torus by fusing its ends

@Danu Not the worst of ideas

I think I've seen it...what, three times in the last week here? :D

4:51 PM

Jimnosperm said it

But I don't think he linked the video

Then at some point I linked it

(see the 'I... I just did' comment that's starred)

@ACuriousMind okay so you have a primary field interpreted as an operator in radial quantization $\psi(z,\bar{z})$, then to take it back to the cylinder we just say $\psi(w,\bar{w}) = (\dfrac{dz}{dw})^h(\dfrac{d \bar{z}}{d\bar{w}})^{\bar{h}}\psi(z,\bar{z})$ and that is the 'definition'?

Uh, never did that, but I guess it is true

Once you've done this you're supposed to compactify, I do not see how to define it properly

You can determine the Hilbert space of the torus by modular invariance alone, there's no need to pull the fields back along the maps explicitly

4:57 PM

@ACuriousMind you're the local online comics expert, right? Have you ever read 'Oglaf'? Dat shit cray!

Alternatively, you can see the torus as a quotient of the plane by the group action of the modular group, then you get the torus directly, and no need to compactify anything

@Danu Oglaf is weird

Never got really into it, but it's not bad

Also, NSFW

Ok man thanks

Then again, everything I know about the torus CFT is what's on these pages, so perhaps get a second opinion ;)

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