Wolfram Mathematica

Oleksandr R.

00:00

@belisarius maybe we could use this as an argument in favor of migrations here. If the SO community provides such a hostile environment for Mma questions, why are they now so attached to a small number of them?

belisarius

@OleksandrR. Hehe good use for such bad manners :)

rm -rf

@acl I was thinking of this one, which has a similar variable naming scheme

acl

@rm-rf ah yes, saw that earlier. right

rm -rf

@OleksandrR. They're happy to ship the newer ones... just not the old and especially the good ones

belisarius

@rm-rf Is there a way to see if my comments were really flagged?

acl

00:04

this will teach me to answer questions on scoping while MrW and Leonid are around...

rm -rf

Heh, Leonid's edit was massive

@belisarius no

Oleksandr R.

@rm-rf yes, I understand. But the argument seems to be that the mythical "SO Mma community" might miss them in some way. Of course if Mma questions continue to receive such a poor treatment on SO then there never can be an Mma community there again. It seems to me the other sites are nowhere near as protective of themselves and hostile to anything out of the ordinary as SO is.

acl

@rm-rf "edit" :)

belisarius

@rm-rf Sometimes I feel like a motherless child

acl

@belisarius don't go to SO then :)

belisarius

00:09

@acl Well, I still have more rep there than here :=

rm -rf

@OleksandrR. There has been a history of newer sites drawing content from SO (SU/SF/Programmers/DBA/Sharepoint/etc.), but they all branched out only because SO was, by design, horrible for languages that are not C#/Java/etc. User privileges being shared across tags (despite them not having any expertise in it) makes it impossible for smaller tags to function properly without interference from smug I-have-50k-from-answering-C#-crap users

Jan 12 at 4:09, by belisarius

When I find the last message here is something like The last message was posted 5 hours ago. I feel like a motherless child

You've been feeling like that quite a bit... everything ok?

What would I have to Google, as someone who does not know about "Enforcing correct variable bindings and avoiding renamings for conflicting variables in nested scoping constructs", to actually land on that question? :P

Xerxes

@rm-rf I hit it with "module function evaluate mathematica" if I restrict to recently updated pages

belisarius

@rm-rf It is an inside joke (inside of me, of course). Comes from here

►

acl

00:26

@rm-rf at least now the epic accepted answer is more suited to it.

@Xerxes @rm-rf here you go :)

3

rm -rf

Haha!

Nasser

01:28

I think we need to put a stop to all these questions being asked without user providing simple self contained code example to show the problem they are asking help for. (Unless ofcourse the nature of the problem does not lend it self to providing code example). I am tried seeing many questions being asked, and comments asking to show example of the problem.

I suggest such question be closed, until the person provide a simple, self contained working example. This is just pure laziness on part of the person asking the question not to provide an example, as they see their time more valuable than others who are supposed to help them.

s0rce

@Nasser I agree and also import questions where they don't provide a sample (ex. mathematica.stackexchange.com/questions/20780/…)

Xerxes

@Nasser Can we put some kind of a pop-up during question submission? (WARNING: You are posting a question without any code examples! It may be difficult for others to reproduce or understand your question without an example. Blah blah. Are you sure you want to submit your question?)

"We" being "not me but somebody with interface-tinkering powers"

s0rce

Maybe also detect code (might be tricky) that isn't in markup and suggest they use the markup?

Because I could see some new users getting annoyed when they are posting code just not formatting it correctly

Nasser

@Xerxes good suggestion. But many will just ignore it I suppose. I been around Matlab newsgroup for long time, and I am seeing the same trend here. Many who just come asking one line question, expecting others to waste time trying to figure what they are asking about since they did not provide working simple example.

s0rce

I don't understand the mind-set of the vague, often trivial questions with no effort. Why do people think that someone will just come around and do it for them. :(

rm -rf

01:43

@Nasser but I almost never see you vote to close :)

Nasser

@rm-rf I never voted to close, and I do not like to down vote either unless the question was really really bad, and we are getting more of these here lately. On the bright side, I guess this mean Mathematica is getting popular. I always said to myself, M will only become popular once I start seeing the same type of quick-drive-through questions asked here as on the Matlab newsgroup :)

rm -rf

@Nasser Then don't suggest this:

> I suggest such question be closed, until the person provide a simple, self contained working example.

This is an attitude I see very often... people always want someone else to do the "dirty work".

"Ugh, we get sucky questions. They should be closed!", "Why aren't they being closed", etc., but never vote to close themselves despite having way more than 3k. If you want them closed then vote to close!

belisarius

@rm-rf Those are plain cowards. I suggest killing them until someone comes and close the aforementioned questions

rm -rf

I get flags from some 10k users saying "This is a bad question". No downvotes, no close votes, no edits to improve, nothing. Ok, so what? What do you want me to do? Implicit in that flag, is a request for closure + deletion... but why not actually do that?

belisarius

@rm-rf Lately I'm running for my "thousand delete votes" gold badge

rm -rf

01:54

If you want things closed, bad questions removed, then you can start by helping close them. Be more involved if you "want things done" a certain way

There are some that don't care to vote to close and don't care if questions are closed/not closed and don't bother to complain either. They just want to answer questions, learn new things and quietly have a good time regardless of what goes on behind the scenes. With them, I have absolutely no problem.

Sorry for the rant @Nasser, but this is quite an annoying behaviour I've noticed among several users and your comment was a good opportunity to pile it on :)

belisarius

"my graphic has green borders" , "my plot doesn't look right" , "How do I concatenate lists", "How do I transpose a matrix" .... Arrggghhh

s0rce

My plots never look right :(

belisarius

@s0rce Now, that's a good question

@rm-rf If you wanted to insult @Nasser, that was a cowardly way to do it. I suggest a duel

rm -rf

@belisarius Like this ? ;)

belisarius

@rm-rf Hey, nice idea!

A blood colored background is missing there

rm -rf

02:11

With[{t =
   Import["http://www.sciweavers.org/iWeb2Shot?url=chat.stackoverflow.com/transcript/4054/2011/10/6"]},
 Show[t, Background -> Red, PlotRangePadding -> 20]]

belisarius

Ha!

@rm-rf That was an old one :)

Michael E2

02:41

@whoever Re floor plot/energy level question. I guess I have too much compassion for the clueless, and posted an answer. It seemed the base issue was not Mathematica, but representing data. Should such questions be discouraged?

belisarius

03:25

@MichaelE2 post a link here

rm -rf

@MichaelE2 Yeah, I didn't think it was bad enough to get -5 either... sure, he could've explained it way better, but it's not as bad as some of the other recent ones. Like this, for instance

rcollyer

@belisarius link for the masochistic ...

-5

Q: Floor plot for different lists

I have two lists like this: ` m=0: Lm0R250={0.083121,0.130411,0.197507,0.274236} Lm0R200={0.0888446,0.153953,0.24331} Lm0R150={0.0992422,0.195237} Lm0R100={0.121567,0.2715} Lm0R50={0.186825} m=1: Lm1R250={0.101237,0.160137,0.234342} Lm1R200={0.113951,0.19403} Lm1R150={0.136613,0.251408} Lm...

@rm-rf i did not down vote it, but voted to close. I like Michael's answer, though.

belisarius

03:42

@rcollyer Ohhhh ... I visited the mother when the question was born. It's hard to tell a woman how awful is her newborn

rm -rf

@rcollyer You could answer it with LevelScheme, since you have some experience with it...

rcollyer

@rm-rf that is absolutely true, I'd have to pull out my references to it, though. I might do it tomorrow.

Michael E2

04:12

@belisarius Sorry for being lame. I wasn't sure how, and didn't see a "help" link -- until now, of course. It's always obvious when you're feeling most stupid.

s0rce

@Szabolcs, I sent you an e-mail about the MMA.SE palette issue where the buttons vanish.

Michael E2

@rcollyer If you're going to post a solution I'll leave mine as is; otherwise I'd like to incorporate your comment and replace my manipulate.

rcollyer

04:41

@MichaelE2 incorporate away; that's why I made the comment. If I post a solution, it will involve LevelScheme, as an example of another way to accomplish the same thing.

Although, Verbeia just closed it. Maybe after some editing it can be resurrected.

Michael E2

05:09

@rcollyer I saw that, but it let me edit my answer anyway. I think OP will struggle to express the question clearly.

belisarius

@rm-rf Another Lena topping comment here mathematica.stackexchange.com/a/20801/193

Rojo

@belisarius yo man

belisarius

@MichaelE2 I always wonder if stupidity is worth a confession, and my usual answer is "no". I save a lot of words thinking like that

@Rojo Hi red one

@Rojo How r u?

Rojo

@belisarius I'm ok, just ok

Just arrived from watching Les Miserables

belisarius

@Rojo Hmmm doesn't sound too good

Rojo

05:23

No comments]

How about you, all good?

belisarius

@Rojo I've seen that book

it isn't a best seller anymore

rm -rf

@belisarius Definitely a dupe of either this one or the one where you made a palette to create labels (can't find it right now)

belisarius

@rm-rf this one?

11

A: Given a Table of Plots with some parameter, how would I mark each of the plots with that parameter

I made a function that could be used for labeling plots interactively, adding labeled Bezier arrows, preserve your labels from session to session, and a few more goodies. Some snapshots follow: Calling code: Clear[f, r] f[r_] := 4 r/(1 - r)^2 i[r_, delta_] := 1/(1 + f[r] Sin[delta/2]^2) s = ...

rm -rf

@belisarius Yes, that's the one I was thinking of

belisarius

@rm-rf :D I love it

it's by far my favorite answer

rm -rf

05:40

You should point it out to the OP... they're at such a newbie stage that they will certainly appreciate it

(and your answer will also get more exposure)

belisarius

@rm-rf done, but I think he has to grow a little before using it

@Rojo Hmmm I haven't answered. Not bad manners, just distraction

Rojo

06:01

@belisarius All good

subbu

07:18

@ha

@halirutan hi

Öskå

11:22

Hello,
Anyone around?

Jacob Akkerboom

11:43

heya

@Öskå Heya

Öskå

Would there be any "easy" way to fit such a function? i.sstatic.net/hdruc.png

Jacob Akkerboom

Hm.. I don't know.. You mean you have data points and want to fit a function of this type? Then what function is this / what class does this function belong to? Otherwise, if mean to find out what this function is, or it just data Plotted with Joined->True, then I don't really know

Öskå

The problem is that it's already a function, its not data.

Jacob Akkerboom

Ah ok

Öskå

12:01

Nevermind, have a good day everyone! (-:

Jacob Akkerboom

alright, u 2 :)

I was just about to suggest a model :P

Öskå

oh? Go shoot

Jacob Akkerboom

a1 E^(a2 x+a3)(a4 Sin[a5 x +a6]+ a7 Sin[a8 x + a9])

or something :P

sample your function and use NonlinearModelFit... but... well no quality guarantees :)

belisarius

@Öskå f[x_] := x x (Sin@x + Sin[10 x])

Jacob Akkerboom

Maybe seeing if the absolute value of the function becomes bigger as x tends to -Infinity is a good idea.

Öskå

12:15

It's indeed a good idea!

Jacob Akkerboom

:)

I'm bad at multitasking and I'm going to do something else, so good luck!

Öskå

Thanks, have fun!

& thanks @belisarius, good one!
And good day

belisarius

@Öskå Same to you

acl

12:48

@rm-rf not -5? in the original version, there was a plot, and it was wrong (12 numbers apparently got mapped to 3, while in the end they wanted each list in a different colour; how could anybody have known that?). now it's changed, and it makes more sense. the title makes no sense (floor plot?). when asked to clarify what should be done with the lists, the reply was "yes I have two lists, they're energy levels".

seriously, I'm not having a bad day or anything, but how could it have been worse? the one you linked to isn't worse...

but OK if people enjoy this sort of thing, who am I to argue.

Mathieu

@rm-rf thx, though i've figure it out. I am wondering how could i post that stupid question....As to ur confusion, ctrl C + ctrl V.

rm -rf

13:54

@acl ah, ok. I forgot to look at the first version...

belisarius

16:46

@rm-rf More clueless closing. Gets me sick

1

Q: NDSolve with parameter

I am new to Mathematica and probably the thing I am looking for is straightforward, I tried some approaches but I couldn't succeed. I have a DE and I want to have a solution parametrized by the parameter of DE. More precisely, Let's define the DE as: x'=f[x,t,a] where "a" is the parameter and I ...

mathematica differential-equations

s0rce

:(

Mathematica StackExchange (meta)

0

Q: Display a list of users by number of closed/deleted posts

Moderators have access to a list of users by number of flags (of any kind) against their posts. Going by the general rule of thumb that more_flags == low_quality_poster, this feature is usually helpful on beta sites (where many users don't have close privileges and flag instead) and on large site...

feature-request moderator-tools

rm -rf

@belisarius Just start ignoring Stack Overflow, like I do. The less help they get there, the more likely they are to find us automatically.

s0rce

17:02

Instead of closing why don't the mods just migrate here?

rm -rf

@s0rce That's an old one... Oct '12. Posts over 60 days old cannot be migrated anywhere by anyone (other than devs)

s0rce

ah

belisarius

17:35

@rm-rf You've to be really stupid for voting on things you don't understand. It's the density of stupidity out there what matters.

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rm -rf

17:55

@belisarius There's a lot to be mad about, but you can also choose what to be mad about :) I just ignore SO completely and instead work on fixing our (different) problems here. Voting on things they know nothing about making edits they shouldn't, etc. are all problems that will continue to plague SO. The truth though, is that for the vast 95% of the site, this isn't actually a problem at all (you could vote to close blind folded and you'll be right more than 50% of the time)

Half the folks running for SO mod are also over zealous idiots. Read the next few chat messages from here:

in Town Hall Chat on Stack Overflow Chat, 20 hours ago, by Shog9

This answer pops up in the flag queue, with the flag "not an answer". What do you do?

and see the revision history for that answer (especially, the users involved)

s0rce

mathematica.stackexchange.com/questions/17581/… :(

belisarius

@rm-rf Are they competing for some kind of stupidity price?

rm -rf

@s0rce what happened?

Jacob Akkerboom

Knowledgeseeker is making a bit of a mess?

s0rce

its just a mess, question edits as comments and answers and vague questions

rm -rf

18:08

Ok, problem solved :) It'll die out gracefully eventually

Jacob Akkerboom

belisarius has to "reconquer" SO to justify his name? :)

acl

19:11

@belisarius stop wasting your time there, then!

Jacob Akkerboom

19:29

I just answered a question there :P

my first one on SO :)

rm -rf

@JacobAkkerboom It was cross-posted here and has 2 answers... might be better if you answered it here instead

Jacob Akkerboom

:( ah oh well

Oleksandr R.

20:13

Resistors seem surprisingly accurate. I have a 50M +/- 5% resistor. Measuring it, I get 50.0000M. Much better than I was expecting!

rm -rf

What's the accuracy on your multimeter? :)

Oleksandr R.

@rm-rf good question. Hasn't been calibrated for a few years so I guess probably not much better than 0.1% :)

s0rce

dangerousprototypes.com/2010/07/01/…

just don't buy the 10% resistors

Oleksandr R.

@s0rce wow, I see. I think you have to go out of your way to buy 10% resistors these days, right?

The one I tested is a high voltage resistor and quite expensive, so it might well have been trimmed to spec rather than binned as ordinary resistors are

Szabolcs

20:43

Does anyone else think that this is not really a proper question?

Looking at the comments I'm not sure everyone shares this opinion, but I don't think that "why doesn't Mathematica have function X?" or "why does it have function Y?" are very answerable or productive. "How to implement X?" would be a good question, but "WHy is there no X?" is not.

rm -rf

@Szabolcs Were you able to try out halirutan's highlighter?

I'm guessing nothing should break since only the keywords were changed, but just want to confirm. I'll ping the devs about it

Szabolcs

@rm-rf No. The site's highlighter overrides it. What I did was I extracted all keywords from the highlighter itself, and compared it to the keywords in my Mathematica, to make sure we get the same thing.

We found that an extra keyword made it into the highlighter, let me check if he removed it

No, he hasn't. I'll send a pull request now.

@rm-rf I sent the request. Just ask @halirutan to merge it, and I think you can ping the devs as soon as that's done.

rm -rf

ok

Oleksandr R.

21:00

@Szabolcs yes I agree.

rm -rf

@Szabolcs I agree, but please also leave a comment for the OP in addition to the close vote (so far, there has been no indication from others on the nature of the question and the eventual closure might come as a shock)

Ajasja

21:46

@Szabolcs Can't really decide. I sometimes ask the WHY as well :) And Leonid's comment nails it quite well. So probably not the best Q on the site, but also not the worst.

Sjoerd C. de Vries

21:58

@belisarius Cast your reopen vote...

halirutan

@rm-rf @Szabolcs I have merged the pull request.

belisarius

22:25

@SjoerdC.deVries Done! Anyone else can help?

Sjoerd C. de Vries

22:46

@belisarius already did

rm -rf

Is there some FrontEnd`* with which I can force parsing without actually doing an explicit Shift-Enter evaluation every time?

Hmm... FrontEndExecute@FrontEnd`ReparseBoxStructurePacket[expr] doesn't seem to work as I expected.

@balpha We have updated the highlighter script for Mathematica.se to work with the latest version. Could you please update the server side script too? You can work with @halirutan here for any further issues.

Oleksandr R.

@rm-rf how do you mean parsing?

If you're talking about parsing to boxes:

12

Q: How can I get the unchanged Box form of an arbitrary expression?

One may observe that MakeBoxes does not give the actual Box form of various expressions: MakeBoxes[{1*^4, 000123, a*b c}] RowBox[{"{", RowBox[{"10000", ",", "123", ",", RowBox[{"a", " ", "b", " ", "c"}]}], "}"}] The 1*^4 was expanded, the leading zeros of 000123 were stripped, and the dist...

front-end boxes

rm -rf

23:14

@OleksandrR. It's re: this answer. You need an explicit evaluation for the notation to take effect. I was thinking of doing something like FixedPoint[Parse, <Op's expr>] to drill down to the final notation substitution

s0rce

23:25

I wish BinaryReadList could be compiled to C :(

Transcript for