test

apparently the test was failed

I dunno, I think it might have been a success

really depends what was tested

Typing?

And pressing Enter

responses?

That aspect failed

but it could be that no one was here anyway

He should have studied harder

Possibly

Good talk

Da Bears

I should stop making my passwords 20+ characters in length

I have no strong opinion one way or the other

But entering it so many times so often, it's just annoying

@Jim Why do you think anyone would respond to "test"?

@dmckee wait, would you not?

everyone knows how a chat messaging system works. You type stuff in the box, hit enter, and it is sent to the chat room. Nobody needs to test it to see how it works these days, so I'd respond to that because there's a good chance the person is using it to draw the attention of others without explicitly doing so. And I'm curious

I think I'd be inclined to ask, "What are you testing?"

Huzzah for curiosity

but testing sending messages would mean they could have deleted it after the test was a success

Also, there's more important things to worry about these days

Namely,

I like the new lightsaber. I always wondered why they had nothing to protect their hands from getting cut off by slipping off the other guy's saber

but why in god's name would they not put a metal piece in between the hands and the new protective light bits? Now I'd be worried about holding too high up on the saber or of bringing it too close to me

exactly

or you could impale yourself on the handguards when fighting in close and trying to hold the other guy back

Yeah, there's some aspects to lightsabers that just don't make a whole lot of sense

The jedi one's probably have more safety features. The sith just don't care about their health quite as much

That's obviously because he was hit and is looking for the Jedi who hit him

@ChrisWhite And how do you know it's monoclime?

No other reason to pull out your lightsaber

We do have a "resource recommendation" tag, but this doesn't really fall under it, right?

@ChrisWhite touche

@KyleKanos I want to say no. He's found the resource already. But I could be convinced by a master debater to think the solution manual is a separate and valid resource

This is the story of Nau (new anonymous user): One day, Nau visits Physics.SE and reads an answer he doesn't like. So Nau decides to leave a helpful criticism of it for the post author. He signs in as an anonymous user and goes to add a comment to the post when he discovers he can't. Instead of letting him leave a comment, the site tells him he isn't allowed because he does not have enough reputation points.

Determined, Nau says "I'm disallowed from leaving a comment. I'm sure everyone will be OK with it if I work around the system and edit the post to include my comment. That comment block wasn't meant to tell me that I shouldn't be commenting yet". So Nau ignores the systems designs and edits the post to include his comment. And everyone lived happily ever after. The End.

Yeah, that is an annoyance

Desperate times call for desperate measures.

It astonishes me that people think that it's okay to find alternate ways to do things they are explicitly told we don't want them doing

But that's the internet mentality: "you won't let me do this? I'll find another way to do it"

@Jim: Maybe the wording on the site needs to be more explicit

@JamalS could be, I'll sign out and see what it says

@Jim: As in, instead of saying to a new user they can't comment, it should say something like "You are not allowed to comment due to your reputation - please do not resort to other means to do so."

It says in big bold letters "Commenting is restricted to registered users with at least 50 reputation"

But perhaps it should be amended with "please do not resort to other means to do so." as you suggest

@Jim: Yes, but I'm guessing they think commenting, as in that specific mechanism, is for users of at least 50 reputation. They are utterly stupid, but sometimes you have to spell it out :)

probably won't work, they'll just think "Okay, but they need to hear my opinion. So I think I'm the exception to this rule"

@ChrisWhite too true

@ChrisWhite: I'm guilty of the first, as I torrent educational materials.

How old are you?

@KyleKanos that's not relevant. Being not young has nothing to do with your physical age

@ChrisWhite what happened to you?

25 is still young

When you hit 30, then you're old

Am I the youngest regular?

You're only as old as you feel

@JamalS: Probably

and you act

I feel like I'm 20 still

@KyleKanos: Oh, that Dimension1 has me beat my one year, but he isn't on the SE anymore

I'm one of 2 people in the department with children

Well, as grad students

@KyleKanos Yeah, you act pretty young too. Like 27 or something

Lol, I'm well past that age

Heck, my wife is past that age too

Thus "act young"

But I would like to point out that I've acted the same the last decade!

It's a good age, there's nothing wrong with being it

I actually wish I were older, or rather, could 'fast forward' my life till I'm a grad student :)

@JamalS You could try cryogenic freezing

lol

@ChrisWhite: No, I actually want everyone in my specific field to care about my results.

@ChrisWhite: 'you're old enough to do anything...' I just want to do physics :)

The former is a high expectation, and not always achievable, but I think one should always try to achieve it.

Bah, getting older just means one has more opportunities to realize how stupid one was the year before

talking about wisdom

Oh, I need some advice. @KyleKanos: 'Hypothetically' speaking, suppose you did an online lecture course, and a student attending an interview at your university has seen it, and would like to meet you and discuss some things. If you had free time, would you meet him?

If I had the free time, I suppose I would

Okay, maybe it's obvious it's not so hypothetical after all... Thanks!

there's some caveats to that

Namely?

If the student says they want to meet because the talk gave them ideas about gravity being part of the EM force, I wouldn't meet him

@Jim: The student is 'normal' as in doesn't have wacky unconventional ideas. Rather, he's studied physics as any undergrad or grad student, and would like to discuss the professor's lecture notes, and a particular paper he published.

oh, then yes. Definitely if I could spare the time

Okay, I'll definitely send an e-mail then.

It will be the only time I'm in Cambridge, so it's worth trying.

@ChrisWhite: Over the past year, I haven't seen many questions that fit that tag.

@JamalS Cambridge? Who are you asking to meet?

@Jim: D. Tong

@ChrisWhite Probably not enough questions to warrant that

But if we get a more active Experimental crowd, we might need to

@JamalS k, just checking

@Jim, @ChrisWhite: See the above twitter image on the Sith lightsaber

@KyleKanos oh god... not more star waaaaars

@ChrisWhite Really? It feels rather like an exponential curve to me...

@JamalS This attitude really worries me... but ok I guess I won't go into that again ;)

@ChrisWhite meta.physics.stackexchange.com/questions/1309/… might be relevant. I'm not a fan of these questions.