The DMZ

12:00 AM

I'm better at maths when I drink beer and it's not an illusion.

12:26 AM

My favorite math prof was an old German guy who did a fantastic job of getting better when he drank.

He was also one of those guys who gave up on research to take it easy and spent his spare time acting as a freelancer finding holes in other researcher's proofs.

Simon

Definitely sounds like a cool guy.

Scott Pack

During a Calc 3 session he brought in a saddle.

Simon

What did he do with it?

Scott Pack

Saddle point

In mathematics, a saddle point is a point in the domain of a function that is a stationary point but not a local extremum. The name derives from the fact that the prototypical example in two dimensions is a surface that curves up in one direction, and curves down in a different direction, resembling a saddle or a mountain pass. In terms of contour lines, a saddle point in two dimensions gives rise to a contour that appears to intersect itself. Mathematical discussion A simple criterion for checking if a given stationary point of a real-valued function F(x,y) of two real variables is a...

Simon

Oh god, haha.

I'm doing Calc II so I haven't seen that yet

Scott Pack

12:31 AM

I found Calc pretty rough. Derivatives didn't make any sense until I realized they were anti-integrals.

Calc 3 was pretty cool. It was a small class, great teacher, and it was much easier to map back to reality.

Simon

@ScottPack Yup, when my friend told me that I wanted to hug him. So much simpler.

Scott Pack

wut

Simon

Don't you like to hug people when they make your life simpler?

Scott Pack

Oh. Wow. It took me 5 readings to actually parse it.

Simon

Oops, I see where the confusion happened

It's @ "that", right?

Scott Pack

12:34 AM

Pretty much. Goddamn pronouns!

Xander

ITunes is the crappiest piece of software in the history of all software.

Scott Pack

Normally I would agree. I have, however, seen FileMaker Pro.

Terry Chia

@Xander It's smooth on OS X.

It's crap on Windows because it isn't a native app.

Xander

@ScottPack Hmm...And I have not. So I can't categorically state that you're wrong. I do have a hatred of iTunes that burns with the fire of a thousand suns, so there is that.

@TerryChia How it runs is not an issue. The utterly abysmal excuse for a UX is an issue.

Scott Pack

@Xander You and anyone whose ever used iTunes.

I still really miss Amarok v2

Terry Chia

12:43 AM

@Xander Meh, I only use it for syncing.

My audio playback (used to) be handled by foobar2000.

Xander

@TerryChia Audio playback is an issue. But so is monitoring downloads, managing an iPod, managing playlists, finding anything anywhere in my library, and...Pretty much anything anybody else might ever want to do in there. Every version it seems that they look at each and every feature and think "Hmm...How can we make this a little bit worse, and a bit harder to use?"

Except for with v11 they've apparently hit their stretch goals and made everything a lot worse.

Scott Pack

So clearly Apple designers are also Apple users. Everyone knows they go all the way.

Terry Chia

@Xander Ahh, I don't have such issues because I don't use playlist. I usually listen on an album-to-album basis.

Xander

1:29 AM

@TerryChia Yeah, that would make it easier, I admit. But even using the menus is rubbish now. And podcasts....I won't even get started on managing podcasts. Oh well. That's enough whinging from me for one night.

@ScottPack Ha. Yep. That's probably it.

TildalWave

@Xander you're officially the most generous person among all members here with rep higher than 2k, your rep to vote ratio is 16.59% (the lower the more you gave compared to how much you received from others)... there should be a badge for this, no? maybe a "philanthropist" :)

@ScottPack is #2 with also remarkable 17.03%

then @Gilles ... and more is here: data.stackexchange.com/it%20security/query/6856/…

Scott Pack

Hm. That clearly means I need to vote more.

TildalWave

@ScottPack I wanted to say that you already do and some others should review their voting habits

Simon

Haha.

Scott Pack

@TildalWave It also puts me behind @Xander. What a putz.

Xander

1:39 AM

Huh. Well I must say, I sound quite lovely.

And blast it all to tarnation, you've aroused the competitive fire in me, and now I'm going to have to vote compulsively in order to stay ahead.

Scott Pack

I still find it wild to think how much Rory has voted.

Xander

@ScottPack Yup.

So here's a philosophical question: I currently vote based on a trinary scheme. A question (or answer) can be worthy of either an upvote, a downvote, or no vote at all. This makes the most sense to me. However, is it valid to use a binary system as an alternative, where every question and answer should receive either an upvote or downvote?

Scott Pack

I think it depends on your ranges. I only downvote questions that are downright terrible.

Simon

@Xander To me, not being able to not vote doesn't make sense. Often, I find myself lacking the knowledge to judge if someone's answer is right.

Scott Pack

1:55 AM

If the question itself can be dangerous (meaning they make claims in the question that are bad juju) or the asker put no effort into the question and has no intention of it.

Xander

I tend to only downvote questions I think are particularly terrible, or answers I think are actually wrong or misleading, and I've been more careful with my downvotes of late than I have been in the past.

Scott Pack

Upvoting means I found the question interesting or I found that the question was worth asking, even if the question itself is fairly basic.

Xander

@ScottPack Yeah, that criteria makes sense to me.

Scott Pack

So if we look at a 0-10 scale I probably vote up on 4-10, downvote on 0-1 and leave alone on 2-3.

In very rare cases I'll choose to not upvote something if I feel like it's already gotten more upvotes than I think it's worth. That usually doesn't happen on here.

Xander

Ah, interesting.

TildalWave

1:58 AM

Uf, went through all those prepared queries there... some interesting stuff. It's also a lot different when you can relate to those data and have some perspective on it. For example, The Bear #2 doesn't vote, The Bear #1 has so much rep it's nigh impossible to have a good percentage on vote to rep thingy (he does vote a lot more than many others),....

Simon

@ScottPack Why is that, though? Do you believe that it has been upvoted x times more because the question already had some upvotes, some sort of conformism?

Scott Pack

@TildalWave Big Bear is the 11th most prolific voter.

@Simon More of a value judgement. Sometimes I'll think, "That's a good answer, but is it really a 15 good answer, or is it more of a 7?"

Simon

I'm not sure if you're gonna get what I mean.

TildalWave

@ScottPack yes but I was referring to the percentage of how much rep he gives compared to how much he receives... it's obviously not going to be great, otherwise where would he find the time to answer any questions he'd be constantly voting

Simon

@ScottPack Ok, right.

Scott Pack

2:01 AM

@TildalWave Comparison Votes and Posts?

@Simon Particularly when I see what I believe to be a better answer that has several fewer upboats.

Xander

@ScottPack RE: @RoryAlsop's voting: Fun fact - I am the 7th most prolific voter of all time on this site. Yet, there is a bigger gap between @RoryAlsop and the 2nd most prolific voter of all time than all the votes I've made in total.

TildalWave

@Simon it's not just ratio to other answers, some stuff is set statically for example some badges... and some answers might be good enough for a bronze badge, but e.g. not good enough for a silver one or even gold one

Scott Pack

@Xander Yeah. Pretty crazy. He claims to not vote on every post.

TildalWave

@ScottPack No, ratio between "how much rep I give others" : "how much rep I receive from others"

Simon

@TildalWave But I want a gold badge!!

Scott Pack

2:03 AM

@TildalWave I suggesting a different ratio.

Xander

@ScottPack No, I like this ratio. I win with this ratio.

TildalWave

@ScottPack I know, but wasn't sure if I was understood, not saying that you weren't ;)

Xander

Ratios where I win are clearly good ratios.

Gilles

@Xander On Unix & Linux, I've voted as much as #2 through #11 combined

I only have as much rep as #2 through #7

Xander

@Gilles LOL, that's pretty incredible. I can't say that surprises me, though, since if I recall, you also have somewhere in the neighborhood of a million-billion rep on that site as well.

Scott Pack

2:07 AM

@Xander When I calculate manually based on now data I'm sitting at 16.875%

Xander

@ScottPack Yikes. Sounds like I need to pull my britches up and get to votin'.

TildalWave

@Gilles bloody hell you have voted on average 24.3 times per day in 2 years and 10 months

Xander

@TildalWave @Gilles is the Unix and Linux site.

Gilles

@TildalWave I skim more and more, but I still often reach 40 votes in a day

TildalWave

@Xander yes I realize that but that's still some insane stats

Scott Pack

2:10 AM

If you want insane voters look at Ward.

Gilles

@ScottPack on SF? He's pretty much the only one who votes

TildalWave

@Gilles But doesn't it annoy you? I do the same some days here and then I get all nervous with no votes for the day left and some posts that clearly need to be voted on either way

Gilles

@TildalWave yes, it does

Scott Pack

@Gilles I used to hit my daily 40 most every day over there. I've not been spending much of any time on the sites lately.

Gilles

I leave tabs open

some weeks I have leftover tabs on Monday, and so on all the way through Saturday

TildalWave

2:12 AM

@Gilles Was it ever proposed that this voting cap be at least doubled for moderators? I mean it's your job to go through posts, it's only natural to vote on them then

Gilles

I also have about 50 tabs open right now waiting for an answer

@TildalWave it may have been proposed, but I'd be against it. Voting isn't something that mods should be able to do more than other users.

copy

@Gilles If you're so good on Unix, why don't you write a script to solve that problem?

Gilles

@copy time dilation? No, that's Physics

TildalWave

@Gilles hmmm dunno at least on edits and flagged posts you should be able to vote as well even if you reached your 40 votes cap IMO

Gilles

I don't do hardware. Give me a time machine that runs unix, and I'll hook it up

@TildalWave edits? Mods have no limit on reviewing suggested edits but other than that mods aren't involved in edits

copy

2:15 AM

> Le terme dilatation du temps désigne un effet de relativité restreinte selon lequel l'intervalle de temps entre deux évènements mesuré dans un référentiel inertiel quelconque est toujours supérieur à l'intervalle de temps mesuré dans le référentiel où les deux évènements ont la même position

Gilles

For flagged posts, why would a mod vote? Typically we close or delete (or not close/delete), but that doesn't involve up/downvotes

copy

Ok

Scott Pack

@copy You're speaking gibberish.

TildalWave

@Gilles well that what you said :) but you're clearly reviewing those posts then, meaning you're reading them, forming your opinion on suitability, quality, e.t.c.... you know what I mean.

copy

@ScottPack I know

Gilles

2:16 AM

@TildalWave no

on CS, I often moderate posts that I don't understand. I can tell whether an answer should be deleted, or whether a question should be closed, even if I can't tell whether the answer is correct or whether the question is interesting

TildalWave

@Gilles Oh OK then, it's your mod thing I'm not a mod anyway. I agree with vote cap of course, I just thought it might make sense to loosen that for mods... but you know what that involves and I can only imagine, so I'll just drop it and take your word for it ;)

@Gilles now you got me intrigued about the CS site, need to check what's going on there :)

0

Q: Route planning in public transport application

This is a cross-post of this StackOverflow question, (I'm not aware of linking questions between StackExchange sites). You can ignore the part about programming. I'm making a journey planner (or a general timetable application) for all the public transport in my country (bus/train/air). The sta...

Wouldn't this fall under the "travelling salesman" problem?

Rory Alsop

6:45 AM

Morning all. @xander - I haven't hit my vote cap in ages. Probably nearly a year. Just no time. Also I have less time for answering, so my rep graph is slowly flattening out. On Sec.SE anyway. Plus there are many more people here now, so I see lots more good answers on posts even before I get to them.

Voting is actually one of the things I really try and encourage on new beta sites. It correlates well with enthusiasm and energy...

MMavipc

I didn't even realize there was a vote cap

Rory Alsop

7:10 AM

@MMavipc - heh heh - push the boundaries :-)

Lucas Kauffman

8:02 AM

ooh highland park

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