Wolfram Mathematica

belisarius

3:54 AM

@Verbeia Now you got five. Voting starvation danger!

belisarius

11:01 AM

Szabolcs

1:09 PM

Anything interesting while I was away?

belisarius

@Szabolcs Hi! Just the usual: 20K monkeys trying to type Romeo&Juliet in Mma

acl

1:49 PM

@belisarius ha. I was away and had the same question as @Szabolcs. looked around, indeed, lots of questions, not many interesting.

but maybe I am just getting bored with this

Szabolcs

Had the same thoughts ...

belisarius

@acl I was looking for some fun and embarked on an answer that ended up (after lots of editing) almost unrelated to the original question.

Szabolcs

Yet another question about how to extract the results from the Solve output ... I wrote a comment to check the examples in the docs but then found it too harsh and deleted it...

belisarius

@Szabolcs That's the same thing that troubled me the first day I started with Mma :)

I think I found a convoluted way out :)

Szabolcs

I'm looking at the answers and they seem so complicated for a beginner...

belisarius

1:57 PM

@Szabolcs {x, y} /. sols[[1]] seems pretty simple

Szabolcs

that's why I +1'd that one and not the other

belisarius

@Szabolcs The standard with Mma is that any simple issue may arise many "subtle" thoughts

Szabolcs

2:56 PM

in Stack Exchange Community Blogs, Jun 8 at 0:17, by Rebecca Chernoff

@Szabolcs @gracenote has taken over blog management and I have made sure to mention Mathematica's request for a blog. Hopefully @gracenote will be checking in soon...

rcollyer

3:09 PM

@acl Probably. But, I expect the advanced users will have trouble maintaining interest, as there is the potential for a lot of low level questions that won't necessarily interest the people who have been doing this for a while. But, that is normal, I believe. As usual, the gems are few and far between. But, they do exist. Try taking a stab at mine. :)

@Szabolcs Soon in the mods world: next month sometime! :P

Szabolcs

3:54 PM

@RM That's a lot of fun! :)

@RM Why do you remove ==> from outputs?

R.M

5:00 PM

@Szabolcs I don't edit a post solely to remove it. In fact, I don't remove it if it is a block output... it's mostly the cases that look like this:

f[1]
(*

==> 1

*)

which is just a complete waste of vertical space

There are several asinine "conventions" floating around and (* foo *) is not better either, but is a little less obtrusive than some others.

I thought this whole commenting the output started so that people can just copy-paste the entire code block in a notebook and not have it generate errors... That keeps the output visible and subtle, yet doesn't harm your workflow. Somehow that morphed into making the output stick out from the post... I don't understand the rationale behind some who do stuff like

> **Out= foo **

which puts it in bold and has a yellow background from the quote block

acl

@RM they probably don't realize how the (*kdshffdjkh*) convention arose to start with

(why do you object to (* foo *) by the way?)

R.M

@acl I don't object to it. I use that often and I'm saying that's the cleanest alternative available

acl

@RM OK misunderstood you then

R.M

Yeah, I didn't phrase that right...

@acl Huh... I guess Szabolcs is the one that started this form. The ==> comes from people using his palette

Heike

@RM which palette is that?

R.M

5:13 PM

@Heike this one

Heike

@RM I forgot about that one. Judging from that post it was Sjoerd who started the (* ==> foo *) format

R.M

ah well... the wheel of blame :P

Heike

/me hums "we didn't start the fire"

2

R.M

anyway, I don't want to get into a convention discussion... it'll always be contentious and people are perfectly free to use what they like. It's just that when I edit a post for other reasons and see one line of output taking up 3-4 lines, I can't help edit it out.

aaah! You've caught up with me for the quarter @Heike! I don't think I can fend off the remaining 2.5 weeks

Heike

@RM It wasn't intentional

R.M

5:25 PM

The toad isn't working its magic! :(

Heike

@RM we just need a few interesting new questions.

@RM But I haven't caught up completely. You're still 148 points ahead

R.M

@Heike what's that, like 1-2 answers?

Heike

@RM Depends on the question. For some it's about half an answer.

Stack Exchange

2

Q: Policy on Homework questions

As we have received two homework questions today, and likely will have more in the future, what should our homework policy be? Should we ban them entirely? If not, what degree of help should we give? Also, do we make a distinction between Mathematica being used to solve a homework problem, or the...

Stack Exchange

6:39 PM

0

Q: Don't transcendentals deserve their own tag?

Recently I've suggested adding a new tag transcendentals, which should categorize questions involving essentially transcendental numbers and transcendentals equations. Transcendental numbers are the complement of algebraics in reals or complexes. That encountered a slight opposition. There are...

discussion tagging tags

belisarius

6:57 PM

I wonder why this Q got an upvote

0

Q: How to find the maximum value and the argument of a function of three variables y dividing into grids?

I am dealing with a non-linear function of three variables, namely R0k, R1 and alpha. To find its maximum value, I divided the three variables into grids and maximized the function by plotting the maximum value of the function on the grid of alpha, on all the grid points of the two variables. Now...

functions

Stack Exchange

7:12 PM

Wolfram Blog: Explore Wolfram SystemModeler: Free Virtual Conference

posted on June 11, 2012 by Wolfram Blog Team

We are excited to announce the first Wolfram SystemModeler Virtual Conference, to be held Tuesday, June 19. SystemModeler is a complete modeling and simulation tool that handles modeling of systems with mechanical, electrical, thermal, chemical, biological, and other components, as well as combinations of different types of components. This free virtual event will feature a [...]

Szabolcs

@RM I didn't start it, in fact I used to dislike it, but then somehow got used to it. I don't remember who started it, but I know that Sjoerd used to use it frequently at one time.

Sjoerd C. de Vries

7:47 PM

@belisarius I upvoted, but not because I feel the question was any good. It was just done to counteract all those downvotes raining down on a new user. I believe we should guide new users towards posting better Q's by providing friendly guidance and not be blasting them away with negativity.

belisarius

8:27 PM

@SjoerdCdeVries You can downvote a user with rep 1 into oblivion and there is no change in his/her/it reputation.

Sjoerd C. de Vries

@belisarius I know that, but seeing that 10 people don't like your post still isn't a pleasurable experience.

belisarius

@SjoerdCdeVries Yes, I understand that. But if ten people here (not in a mass crowded tag in SO) think that your post stinks, perhaps it does.

Sjoerd C. de Vries

@belisarius No denying that, but there are other ways in letting that know. Repeat offenders can be downvoted to oblivion, but beginners should be spared.

2

belisarius

8:44 PM

@SjoerdCdeVries Probably you're right. Something in that particular post got me upset. No need to analyze exactly what. Or perhaps I'm just having a bad day. It's good to have cool people like you around.

Heike

@belisarius Why does that particular question upset you? It's not the first question with incomplete code and a somewhat unclear wording. Then again, maybe that's the problem.

Sjoerd C. de Vries

@Heike Perhaps that the OP doesn't respond to comments. I don't like bad questions, but not trying to improve or at least interact is worse. We'll know in a day.

Heike

@SjoerdCdeVries The OP asked the question only 5 hours ago. Not everyone is online 24/7, so for me it's a bit early to tell whether the OP is not willing to improve his/hers question.

Sjoerd C. de Vries

9:00 PM

@Heike That's why I wrote "We'll know in a day"

@Szabolcs @R.M I copied this output style from other users. @Belisarius was one of the first users to use it. This is an early example. David Carraher is also a prime candidate for being the originator of this convention.

I proposed using it formally here but I don't really like how it looks, but it yields copyable code. This Meta question dealt with that too. I now see it has been deleted for reasons unknown to me.

Heike

I just received 11 notifications about the moderator election on SO. I guess they really want us to vote. I even got a free caucus badge for just clicking on the link in one of the notifications.

belisarius

@Heike I think it was a sum of factors: a doubtful maths approach, poor wording, not-running code, comments without feedback ...

@Heike I received 99 nots!

overflow!

Heike

99? Something must have gone wrong somewhere.

belisarius

@SjoerdCdeVries Yep. I remember the hard times when I posted things like In[29133]:=Sin[x] :)

Sjoerd C. de Vries

@Heike I got like 20 first and the another load 15 minutes later

yoda

9:09 PM

@Heike if you had posted that an hour ago, you would've gotten a gold badge :)

142

Q: What's with all these election notifications?

Yes, I promise, I will vote -- but 72 notifications seems like overkill.

bug notifications election

it hit 100 in 25 mins

Sjoerd C. de Vries

@heike I voted for the Indian guy who had nothing because I felt for him. Hope he doesn't get too much for that reason, because his English was rather bad.

belisarius

I trade 98 notifications for a gold badge. Anyone?

Heike

@SjoerdCdeVries Since I don't know any of the candidates I might adopt a similar strategy.

yoda

@SjoerdCdeVries the one who was suspended a few times for violations?

Sjoerd C. de Vries

@yoda I guess I should have checked. There must have been a reason for the zero votes...;

yoda

9:17 PM

@SjoerdCdeVries They don't show negative votes... click to expand and you'll see the actual vote tally

Heike

@yoda How would an outsider find out about things like that?

yoda

I remembered this chap from before, but if you look at the nomination tab (the past 7 days), people were commenting on the candidates... so that would've given outsiders an idea

Sjoerd C. de Vries

@yoda hmmm +58 -120

Heike

@yoda Hmm, either he's extremely ignorant or very brazen, neither of which are terribly good qualities for a moderator imho.

yoda

Yeah, I hope he doesn't get elected. Can never be sure though... when a billion strong equally ignorant fellow programmers wake up little later in the day, it might tilt the scales differently. Either way, I'm glad I'm not active there anymore

Sjoerd C. de Vries

9:32 PM

@yoda I withdrew my vote.

@belisarius You could always see whether people had switched off their computer in-between questions

yoda

@belisarius speaking of gold badges, you might want to clarify the rules on Mathematica Meta as to what happens when your 1k answer becomes CW... I know you don't lose the rep, but I think it might affect your progress to a gold math badge

It's only about 1-2 edits away from being tipped to CW

belisarius

@yoda Sorry. I once knew all those subtleties, but I stopped caring about rep and badges long ago and forgot most of "the rules"

yoda

@belisarius I know we all stopped caring about rep at some point, but I know you still love badges ;)

26 mins ago, by belisarius

I trade 98 notifications for a gold badge. Anyone?

PROOF!

belisarius

@yoda You got me! :D

I hate this one disappearing down the starred list

May 27 at 20:35, by Heike

@SjoerdCdeVries I think anyone with >3000 rep deserves a copy of v9

Vote it up!

yoda

@belisarius get a bigger monitor ;)

belisarius

9:44 PM

@yoda You deserve being a mod for your sense of humor

It is snowing to death in the south of my country

yoda

@belisarius ouch. That looks bad

belisarius

@yoda Yep. Roads and airports blocked. They are having a hard time.

belisarius

10:07 PM

@yoda I cited you here

2

Q: Moving controls from Manipulate to a Palette ( or similar GUI object )

Consider the following snippet as a reference. DynamicModule[{}, Manipulate[ Graphics[ Translate[ GeometricTransformation[ { Blue, Polygon[{{0, 0}, {1, 0}, {1, 1}, {0, 1}}] }, {{scx, 0}, {0, scy}} ], Tuples[{Range[wi], Range[he]}] -...

programming dynamic manipulate gui-construction

:DDD

yoda

lol!

belisarius

Damn! I hate putting effort in an answer only to throw it into CW :(

Heike

@belisarius stop fiddling with your answers then ;-)

yoda

@belisarius the notebook is your playground, not the answer :P Test and then upload

belisarius

@Heike I thing I could see a shrink. Once I found an interesting path I can't resist :D

user465292

10:20 PM

Hi !

Heike

Hi

belisarius

@yoda I upgrade my answers when I find something better, thinking curiosities like I'll work now. To no avail

@user465292 Hi

user465292

I am actually on the Numerical Analysis lecture right now

Thank you for help by the way

my prof is like 80years old

belisarius

@user465292 Well, I am 79

@user465292 Hope that isn't a problem

user465292

He is ex northron gruman Engineer

Na, my best friend is 72

funny part, is he tend to forget his lectures !! we have to correct him all the time

and most of the code he present is written in Fortran ))))

belisarius

10:25 PM

@user465292 It is Northrop

user465292

I live like 5 minutes from their office, never could remember the name )))))))

belisarius

And FORTRAN is still a language of choice when numerical performance is a must

user465292

True, my mother got her MS for several pages of code written in Fortran, way back in 1980's

but non of us know Fortran

Heike

Fortran is still quite common in my field.

belisarius

@user465292 Wait until you get a really problem to solve. You will learn Fortran then

Heike

10:28 PM

Several FEM packages I know are written in Fortran.

belisarius

@user465292 You can't use Mathematica (as an example) to calculate processes in a nuclear reactor. It is simply not allowed

user465292

I am in US, and as far as I know, most of the Weather Stations use Fortran

belisarius

@user465292 Probably anyone using some kind of big finite elements calc is using it

user465292

not sure, I have talked to my prof, he told me that when he retired(and it was a while back), N.Gruman made very little use of Fortran

C++/C

belisarius

@user465292 Perhaps with very good libraries

@Heike That is why Fortran is still learned at unis

acl

10:39 PM

@belisarius actually of the people I know who do "high performance" stuff, half use fortran and half c or c++

(I hate both)

hi by the way :)

Heike

@belisarius I had to learn it myself, unfortunately. The only programming language taught to maths students in my time was pascal.

belisarius

@acl You are not alone :)

acl

@Heike it was also not taught at university for me (neither was anything else, you were apparently expected to learn it via supervised solution of problems)

belisarius

@Heike Pascal was a nice language. But Modula2 and Forth were far better

Heike

@acl and some use both at the same time

user465292

10:41 PM

Europe is land of Pascal

acl

@Heike I suppose so. most who do this as a full-time thing tend not to share their code

user465292

I never heard anyone in US(at least people who around me) ever using it

Heike

@belisarius Pascal is a good language to learn the basics of programming (which is why it was invented), but not used very much (if at all) outside universities.

acl

but is it used even inside universities nowadays?

user465292

@acl nope

Heike

10:44 PM

@acl I've worked with an open-source FEM package which was half written in c++ and half in fortran. Compiling it was a bit of a challenge

belisarius

@Heike I saw "Pascal XSC" used in some big calcs. Also a lot of commercial packages were done in Turbo Pascal and its OO heritage

eons ago, of course

user465292

@Heike I recently read about some US defense contractor, who wrote some in-house software, that allowed them to convert Fortran>C. Article stated that conversion worked very well

belisarius

@user465292 The problem is floating point performance. Fortran is very hard to beat there

acl

@belisarius actually I use mma also for big calcs :) (of course "big" here just means huge matrices, and I just run the thing on the biggest machines I have available, ie, those with the most RAM).

Heike

@belisarius I still have two turbo pascal books sitting on my book shelf, as well as a Java 2 book and one on access 97. Maybe it's time to clean up my shelves.

belisarius

10:48 PM

@Heike Ha! I have the first MS-LISP manual here

acl

@belisarius what's MS-LISP?

belisarius

@acl Microsoft LISP

acl

@belisarius ah, I had no idea they had a lisp too

Heike

Was there a MS version of LISP?

user465292

@Heike As long as you don't have framed award "Successfully completed Microsoft Words 95 training"

belisarius

10:49 PM

let me search info

Heike

@user465292 I've never done any MS word training

belisarius

@Heike _My first job experience was principal developer on a software editor/compiler/interpreter for CPM and MSDOS called Microsoft Lisp, which was released in 1983. _

from wiki.java.net/twiki/bin/view/People/RoyFeldman

acl

@belisarius so which year were you using ms-lisp and for what? (if I may ask!)

Heike

@belisarius I was using MSX basic and Logo in 1983

belisarius

@acl I really don't remember when, but it was not usable for any practical purpose. Machines were just too slow.

acl

10:54 PM

@Heike I was using Lego...

@belisarius just playing then?

belisarius

@acl I call it learning :D

Heike

@acl That too.

user465292

@belisarius what is CPM ?

belisarius

@user465292 CPM is DOS' dad

acl

@Heike actually no, I wasn't even using Lego. I recall I giant arm, operated by squeezing a lever...

Heike

10:56 PM

@acl I had fake lego because my parents thought proper lego was too expensive

belisarius

@Heike I was working with mainframes. Nice beasts

user465292

IBM ??

acl

@Heike yes I guess our parents thought the same way. but they did get me a computer that cost 1/3 the price of our car when I was 8...

belisarius

@user465292 yep

acl

@belisarius and ms-lisp was too slow on them??

Heike

10:58 PM

@acl My father had a Kaypro around that time I was allowed to play with

user465292

Let me tell you a story

belisarius

@acl There was no LISP on mainframes AFAIK. It ran on an IBM XT :D

acl

@belisarius ah!

user465292

My mother worked in Computational Department at local University when she was working on her MS

it was way back in 1982

and she decided to write the program

that would predict the gender of her future child

well the program she wrote

predicted that I will be a girl

belisarius

and?

user465292

11:01 PM

so

she went out

and bough all the clothing for the girl

nature took the meets in its hands, I boy was born (me)

belisarius

@Heike Did you see one of these?

TI-59 / TI-58

The TI-59 was an early programmable calculator, manufactured by Texas Instruments from 1977. It was the successor to the TI SR-52, quadrupling the number of "program steps" of storage, and adding "ROM Program Modules" (an insertable ROM chip, capable of holding 5000 program steps) and a magnetic card reader for external storage. It was one of the first LED calculators with the capability and flexibility to take on many real-world calculation challenges, and quickly became popular with professionals in many fields. The TI-58, and later TI-58C, were low-end versions of the TI-59, lackin...

yoda

@user465292 does she also buy lottery tickets? ;)

belisarius

with a magnetic card reader! In 1977!

user465292

I am proud of the fact that my gender was miscalculated on IBM mainframes

yoda

lol

acl

11:04 PM

@belisarius technology moved pretty fast those days though

belisarius

@acl Yes, but it keeps accelerating

user465292

@acl I took the internship at very big health insurance company

yoda

ok, while we're on technology and computers... who else is planning on buying the new mbp?

belisarius

@acl The IPhone I bought 2 years ago is now trash

Heike

@belisarius It's amazing what people could do with the limited hardware in those days.

user465292

11:05 PM

they had Orange IBM typewrite in the back room

when I asked manager "why", he told me "in case of the Emergency"

acl

@belisarius maybe the rate is higher, but from 1977 we went from the calculator you mentioned to an ibm at...

Heike

@yoda Nah, my current macbook is still good

acl

@yoda no money left after I bought an air 6 months ago :)

yoda

heh, I have no money either... I'll probably do what all academics do — hoodwink some grant to pay for it ;)

belisarius

@Heike I worked at a big bank. We processed .5MM accounts with 64K RAM

Heike

11:07 PM

I'm saving up for an imac

belisarius

@Heike In COBOL!

user465292

@Heike I can't complain, I still using Lenovo X61 tablet, + trial version of Mathematica

belisarius

and assembly, of course

Heike

@belisarius The apollo spaceships had less computational power than a standard calculator nowadays.

user465292

@Heike at the same time, it had way less code !!!!

belisarius

11:10 PM

@Heike I am sure!

acl

@belisarius so, my macbook air is as smart as a mouse then?

belisarius

@acl wait .. that were the estimations back in 1998

user465292

I never understood all the comparison about "calculation abilities of human vs computers"

Heike

@belisarius There must be an xkcd equivalent of this

@user465292 That puzzles me as well. That's comparing apples with oranges.

yoda

@user465292 something about size of brain, rate at which neurons fire, etc.

They are equivalent in some sense

belisarius

11:21 PM

@yoda Computers can't use beer. That tell them appart

2

user465292

I believe there are a lot more neurons in the brain than transistors in computer + all the connections between neurons

acl

@belisarius I had a macbook that did use a whole bottle of beer

belisarius

@acl I clearly understand your usage of the verb tense

acl

@belisarius actually it survived

(but it took it 3-4 days to stay on for more than an hour or so)

I chalked it up to it being drunk

belisarius

@acl And worked better from that time on, I guess

acl

11:26 PM

@belisarius played music with more brio, yes

belisarius

Heike

@belisarius I was just posting that

belisarius

@Heike I knew :D

Heike

It's getting rather late here. Time to go to sleep.

belisarius

@Heike night!

acl

11:30 PM

night

user465292

Goodnight !

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