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12:01 AM
@HenningMakholm Okay, that is an answer that someone like Arturo would spend 5 pages on and still probably get fewer votes :-)
 
So now I have bought a smartphone. I can receive my e-mails from everywhere! Now I'm thinking that I don't really want to be able to receive my e-mails from everywhere... Will waste much more time.
 
And the competing answer is at least three times better, but has one third the votes.
 
@JonasTeuwen and you can suffer the mobile interface to MSE!!
 
Let's see...
Does it automatically give it to me when I surf to it from a mobile device?
Just a different .css right?
 
Ack, it's probably a language gap, but the comments to the answers to this question sound bad.
You have been very useful!
 
12:09 AM
@robjohn I think it is a language gap. I can imagine people translating stuff in say Dutch literally to that...
Which makes it sounds a little bit... abusive.
 
@JonasTeuwen It does, but I do understand there is a language gap, so I assume that is the cause.
That one sounds like you are a tool which in itself is an insult in American English.
 
Sure, but maybe that person also doesn't really know many words for "useful".
Useful is the most common one I suppose.
 
The correct word in this context is "helpful".
 
I'm going to bed. Good night guys!
 
@JonasTeuwen Good night!
@HenningMakholm Indeed, and that is how I took it. But if I can't mention these things here, where can I? :-)
I certainly wouldn't complain to the author.
I would have no problem offering advice, but you never know how people will take criticism.
With the people in the chatroom, I have an idea of how they would react.
And I hope they would know that I am only trying to be helpful and not being a jerk.
 
12:20 AM
@robjohn Of course you can. (I thought it looked like Jonas were having a tip-of-the-tongue moment).
 
@HenningMakholm Thanks for the suggestion. I often do have aphasic moments where I can't think of the word I want.
 
Good night!
(yes, I'm late)
 
Hmmm.
 
@mixedmath have a good one.
 
Yeah, I should get going too.
 
12:27 AM
@AsafKaragila See you later.
@AsafKaragila It's even later for you than Jonas.
@mixedmath Ah you were just talking to Jonas :-)
 
Bye all
 
It's only 7:30 there.
@Srivatsan You, too? Everybody's going. Have a good one.
 
@robjohn Well, I am not completely going away for tonight, but I will leave soon for dinner.
 
@Srivatsan or are you just talking to those who are leaving ?
I know it's only 7:30 there, too.
I will have to take the dog to the park and get dinner in about an hour or so.
 
I was. But even I might leave soon. Hungry =)
 
12:31 AM
I'll join the mass exodus -- goodnight, people.
 
Good night, Henning.
 
@HenningMakholm Good night. Sorry, I was AFK
 
@robjohn, If you don't mind, can you do me a favour?
 
what's that?
 
I remember this same question being asked before, may be the same OP. I even commented on it, I believe. Could you tell me if the OP has any previous questions deleted?
 
12:47 AM
I only see 4 questions, and none are deleted. I don't know how deleted questions show up.
 
Um, ok.
Thanks. I too see 4 questions.
 
Google is of no help either. The cache now shows the "bad" profile pages...
 
This site keeps pulling such tricks from time to time. =)
Thanks, @J.M., for ;) edit. =)
 
Does anyone know of someone with a deleted question?
 
@Srivatsan Only because you're a friend... ;)
 
@robjohn I have one. Let me check...
 
What an honest comment... =)
 
@Srivatsan What the hell are we, power tools?
 
I don't see any deleted questions for @JM
 
Ok, I am probably imagining something. // Or it could be some other user. Although I tried searching for bayes with no results.
 
12:51 AM
@Srivatsan we discussed those comments a bit ago.
 
@robjohn No, I do have one. It just doesn't show up in my profile.
I'm still trying to find it.
 
@JM so that user might have some deleted questions.
 
Yes, he might. Unfortunately the system makes it difficult to search for questions, if they've fallen off the mod panel.
 
It seems so.
 
In particular, deleted questions seem to just disappear.
 
12:54 AM
I wonder if they show up when searching for a phrase in them.
 
Here you go.
 
Once again managed to pull a rabbit out of his sleeve. =)
So the comments are all gone, is it? (I had a comment that had a bit of color, so should be easy to spot.)
 
Not really. I had it on an old text file... :)
 
@JM All magicians have their tricks, JM. It's not wise to publicise it like this. =)
So you found your question?
 
Yes, the one I linked to earlier. (But you need 10k of course.)
Anyway, here's my understanding of the hierarchy of deleted comments...
 
12:58 AM
how many curves can fit on a sphere without intersecting =)
 
Comments that are on a deleted question/answer, but were not deleted themselves, can still be seen by 10k+ users.
 
But Henning said something to the effect that the comments are deleted if the thread is deleted.
 
@Srivatsan I reposted on MO since it wasn't getting enough attention here. Now, it's not getting enough attention on MO either. :D
@Srivatsan Ah, comments that were deleted themselves can only be seen by mods.
 
So the comments are all stored permanently?
 
@rob can confirm that there are still two comments under my deleted question.
@Srivatsan Yep.
There is no "real" deletion in SE. Just concealment.
 
1:02 AM
Yes, two comments, one was upvoted.
 
Given the amount of time I spend on SE, it seems like my entire life is being recorded somewhere safe... =)
Isn't that just a delightful thought? ;)
But why do they store everything? Data?
 
Eh, so far as I can tell the only thing they'll know about me is that math drives me nuts. ;)
@Srivatsan I think so. Storage is cheap nowadays.
I'm sure the server farm in Fog Creek's huge.
 
@JM Not so sure, J.M. You're forgetting the chats =)
 
Eh, nothing they can use to know where I am on chat. :)
 
You used to be able to click somewhere on one of the profile tabs to get the list of privileges for various reputation levels. I don't think that exists any more.
 
1:18 AM
Ok, out for dinner. See you, @JM and @robjohn. [BTW thanks both for help with hunting down that perhaps-non-existent question.]
 
QED
hi
 
@Srivatsan eat well.
 
See you @Sri.
hi QED.
 
@QED Good [insert proper time of day]!
 
QED
hope you are well
 
1:23 AM
@QED pretty much.
 
 
3 hours later…
4:32 AM
hi @all
if you are free i have a quick question (very short)
in case you are asleep sorry for the disturbance
 
5:31 AM
What is quaternionic Hermitian ?
 
 
3 hours later…
8:02 AM
@robjohn The only way I knew about to do this is the following: Go to your profile page, at the top of the page hover with cursor for over your name for a while. A window in which you can click on privileges appears.
This is still working.
I do not remember seeing the same thing on some of the tabs, but maybe I just did not notice that.
 
@Martin: Did you create a new tag today?
 
By accident I mistyped.
It's absalgebra or something like that.
IIRC it will be deleted overnight, since it contains no posts.
 
I noticed a whole bunch of old modules questions on the front page.
 
Yes, it's retagging the algebra tag.
 
Ah.
 
8:06 AM
I've discussed it with Willie Wong and we agreed that retagging 10 questions twice a week is a reasonable rate.
 
8:18 AM
BTW tagging was discussed several times in the last few days here on chat, in case you're interested you can find those discussions here: chat.stackexchange.com/rooms/info/36/… This proposal come out from one of those discussions: meta.math.stackexchange.com/q/3119/8297
 
9:00 AM
Hi! Can anyone tell me what would be a best way to go about looking for a mathematical mentor?
 
9:14 AM
@ZeeshanMahmud Maybe this link could be useful for you: mathoverflow.net/questions/7441/choice-of-adviser
However, it is very difficult question to answer (especially not knowing your background, level, etc.)
I personally am not able to give some useful insights.
Perhaps you will have better chance to get some help if you ask again when more people are in this room.
Perhaps this question might be useful for you, too: math.stackexchange.com/questions/22031/…
 
9:57 AM
 
@JM I think more similar examples could be found. I've noticed Marian Fecko here, answering a question related to his book: math.stackexchange.com/questions/81715/… And - as you mentioned to me - Joseph O'Rourke is here quite often: math.stackexchange.com/users/237/joseph-orourke
 
Joseph O'Rourke is pretty active, so he doesn't count. :) What I find somewhat surprising about Stan Wagon is that he seems to answer a few hours after his name is mentioned in a question or answer...
It's like he's monitoring the site for when his name's invoked... :)
 
If you make a google alert, how fast will you be notified?
I believe SE has high pagerank, so google crawls it quite often.
 
Hmm. I think you've solved the puzzle... :)
 
E.g. searching for "proving a function satisfies a Lipschitz condition" returns a question that is only 4 hours old.
I'm of for lunch, see you later.
 
10:06 AM
See you Martin!
 
 
1 hour later…
11:19 AM
@MartinSleziak Ah, very good! I remember I did it somehow recently, and that was it. Thanks!
 
No problem.
I used to check that regularly - I remember waiting quite impatiently on 2k, so that I can edit posts.
 
I forgot it was the 'privileges' link that I wanted :-)
 
@MartinSleziak The turnaround for a new m.SE post to appear on Google is sometimes a bit frightening.
The last time I checked, a comment I posted on a new question was seen by Google five minutes after.
 
impressive
It seems that you're considered to be an important person by Google :-)
 
No, I don't think it's that. I tried searching for the question text too. Same thing.
It's probably not a stretch to say that the Google bot is always reading new questions on the front page.
 
11:32 AM
Google thinks that MSE is important, evidently.
 
Yeah, I've noticed m.SE results showing up pretty high on the results list.
(which makes striving for correct answers more important that it was when m.SE was just starting out)
 
I interviewed for a job at Google in Santa Monica, and I think I was only interviewed so that they could say that they interviewed someone in their 40s to avoid a pending claim of age discrimination. Of course, I did not get the job because they really were discriminating ;-)
 
Has there ever been a software/IT company that hires "old" (yes, quotes ;) ) people?
 
They like to hire younger, thus less expensive, employees.
They don't value experience as much as I think they should.
real experience
 
I see part of the rationale. Why hire somebody who cut his teeth on COBOL and FORTRAN II when all the cool kids are doing Java and Ruby?
 
11:38 AM
@rob : How did you figured it out ?
I do not agree with JM
in this
 
@JM Funny thing is that I had been programming in Java for a long time.
@RajeshD Well, I do.
 
@robjohn which means people are more adaptable than HR assumes them to be. :)
 
@rob : I request you to tell me how to spot such a things from an interview.....any thunb rules !
 
@JM Yes, but a big company goes with the actuarial pages, and they may be right statistically.
 
...but they won't tell you that. "Can't teach an old dog new tricks" is the mantra...
@robjohn sadly you're right... :(
 
11:42 AM
@RajeshD I had a pretty good interview, with lots of much younger employees, and after a certain time, I felt I was being ushered out because they had done their "due diligence". I then heard from my wife, who is an attorney, that Google was being sued for age discrimination.
@JM But they miss out on some "old gold" :-)
 
@RajeshD You just pick it up. The cues can be subtle, but they're there. (It's a bit hard to teach gut feel, especially over the Internet.)
 
@JM Indeed.
 
@robjohn I know, I know. I don't think that bias against "old" guys will be going away anytime soon, though.
 
@JM I agree. There may be a time, but it won't be until I am no longer interested in getting a job there.
From what I hear of things inside Google, I am not really interested any more anyway.
It is not like it was when I was in Apple over a decade ago.
 
More galling might be the fact that they change the definition of "old" every few years. (Often "downward"...)
 
11:47 AM
Apple then was a dream employer.
 
@robjohn I've only read anecdotes... but it did seem that way.
 
Of course, I was in my 30s then, and one of the "old guard" at that point
 
@rob @JM : I 've been through some interviews (some were from US on phone), where i thought i've done well and i was very suitable for the job, but i was not given the final word and kept as pending indefinitely.............I didn't understand the situation then......................but later after few months i figured out that those companies got closed or sold out
i am off for some cricket...bye
 
You need to consider that applying for a job on fresh startups is not that different from entering the lottery.
See you.
 
@RajeshD Yes, I know with a lot of IT companies, that happened. However, as far as I know Google is still there :-D
@RajeshD Avoid the sticky wickets :-)
 
11:52 AM
So rob... none of you there did Black Friday? :)
 
@JM My wife and I did not participate in Black Friday. She does not like crowded stores at all.
Sorry for the delay, I was reading some meta posts.
We have noticed this problem here.
 
QED
I think that's wise
 
@QED Although we do realize some really good discounts can be had.
Or were you saying that reading meta posts is wise? :-D
 
QED
:)
 
12:19 PM
Gah. I hate homework.
 
I hate doing them, and I also hate checking them. What's a guy supposed to do? :D
 
I don't know.
I did the assignment, now I have to type it in. I'm so lazy.
 
Oh, so the first one. :)
 
Luckily I am only required to grade exams, not homework.
At least I have beer.
@JM, @robjohn: If you guys didn't vote for closing iyengar's question there is a call for an executioner.
 
@AsafKaragila which question?
 
12:32 PM
The "Why are you downvoting my questions?"
-8
Q: Frustrating Down-votes

iyengarI have been facing lot of trouble with the down-vote system, in the past people used to down-vote me as my english was poor, but from last two months I have been taking much care in formatting questions and asking them in a good manner, but I don't understand why did I get down-votes still withou...

 
@AsafKaragila the axe has been dropped :-)
 
Thank you sir.
:-)
 
There should be an executioner badge for the first question that you've given the final close vote on. :-)
 
Ha.
And "Judge" for being the first to cast closure.
Huh. Strange.
I am in my office. Some stray cat just walked in and sat on one of the chairs...
 
Cool!
You, too, can take in a stray cat. ;-)
When I was a grad student, I took in a stray kitten for a couple of months until I had to go home for Christmas, and then another student adopted it.
 
12:43 PM
The cats in the university have a much better life than I could give them at home.
 
@AsafKaragila where do they get food and shelter at the U?
just random people and rooms?
 
@robjohn They are being fed by people, and by a crew of volunteers; they are indeed less sheltered than inside a home, but there are plenty of areas to hide from rain and winds and whatnot if one has to.
 
@Asaf: I never heard your reaction to the recent XKCD on Set Theory.
 
Pretty funny.
 
I support proof by intimidation :-)
There should be a formal proof method given that name...
 
12:50 PM
I heard that this is how USA proved to have the bigger penis than the USSR in the days of the cold war.
 
@AsafKaragila Perhaps more that were launch ready...
 
@AsafKaragila really?
 
What really?
 
"bigger penis" "cold war" -> "launch ready"
2
just putting things together
 
12:54 PM
I'm only deducing Peter Sellers.
Nov 9 at 21:19, by Asaf Karagila
"MEIN FUHRER, I CAN WALK!!" Cue Vera Lynn
 
It's not a reference to a movie, but simply an attempt at humor.
 
shrug
 
What is?
 
1:02 PM
@QED Sounds like homework, but they refuse to mark it as such.
 
QED
Phira's comments - they add nothing
 
I replied to him.
 
@QED was there really a "hurry up", or was it simply the "I have to consign the whole project in two days"?
 
And to you, actually. While at it.
 
QED
I just think there's no point getting into a discussion about whether or not lots of people upvoting a comment make it true
 
1:05 PM
If I post one of my thesis' questions and write "I have to submit my thesis in two days, please help me solve this." I doubt anyone will appreciate it.
 
@QED That is the basis of many religions, however. :-)
 
QED
yes
 
@Asaf: You mentioned your thesis. I understand you're finishing them soon. I hope you plan to put them online... I guess several people would be interested.
 
QED
we could try democratically electing theorems based on whether or not the majority think they are true
 
Oh, great. The explanation of my comment to Asaf is now immortalized...
 
1:07 PM
@MartinSleziak I haven't started writing it in detail yet, only vague ideas and preliminary results.
Also, it's just M.Sc. thesis, so I doubt too much new work will be there. I will be sure to put it online, and who knows... I may reproduce parts into papers. We'll have to wait and see.
 
QED
see you guys later
 
Ciao.
 
@QED Hasta la vista, baby...
clicko
@ixtmixilix how do you pronounce that?
 
iktomist
has doing any form of math ever made your dreams more vivid?
 
My friend used to dream about math before exams. Before the one in discrete mathematics he dreamt about visiting a factory for generating functions.
 
1:12 PM
Perhaps studying fractals may have.
 
oh, have you studied the mandelbrot set?
 
@AsafKaragila I used to work on the formal series line in one of those.
 
@robjohn Hah!
 
@ixtmixilix I've generated several close ups of the Mandelbrot set.
 
My dreams are half vivid anyway, I do my best not to interfere with the dream though, even if I know I'm dreaming. This, however, had nothing to do with mathematics...
 
1:14 PM
hmm... i keep trying to understand the orsay notes
 
@robjohn I thought that a fractal is a close up of itself...
 
@ixtmixilix Orsay notes?
 
www.math.cornell.edu/~hubbard/OrsayEnglish.pdf
brb
 
@AsafKaragila They limit toward a pattern which looks periodic, but a close up does look different than the whole set.
 
Neat. I am currently working on fractality in cardinals without the axiom of choice.
Intriguing stuff.
 
1:18 PM
@ixtmixilix Thanks for the link. I will have to read that.
 
hmm... this makes me think of a question
it's the most exhaustive study of the mandelbrot set ever made
 
@AsafKaragila How do cardinals exhibit fractalism?
@ixtmixilix It looks like it.
 
time to drink some coffee and make some lunch... ttyl...
 
Without the axiom of choice you can have sets with some structure assigned to them, and every subset has the same structure but is of a strictly smaller cardinality.
 
Almost a drive by chat :-)
@AsafKaragila Does AC disallow this structure?
 
1:20 PM
@robjohn Of course. Under the axiom of choice all infinite sets are well-orderable and thus these sort of structures become impossible.
 
Well, not knowing what the structure is, I didn't know that well-ordering would deny it.
But now I do :-)
 
The structure, at the moment, is countably many pairs without a choice function; I am certain that this can be generalized. I will proceed to do so after dealing with the current case and gaining some intuition.
 
1:55 PM
@QED She can be brusque sometimes...
 
@JM ph33r the phira?
How do you deduce that Phira is a she, by the way?
 
I won't say anything further... :D
@AsafKaragila Some old thread in meta. I forgot which.
 
Hah. :D
 
I wonder how she feels about iyengar calling everyone "Sir"... ;-)
 
1:59 PM
Dunno. I haven't seen her deal with the subjects iyengar is interested in, so no idea if she'd come across them.
On the other hand, I have to admire how nice Matt E is...
I'd even say he's too nice.
 
I want to find Zariski and slap him silly for this topology.
 
?
 
I have 12 questions from which I have to submit 5. The questions are either boring, or about the Zariski topology.
 
Just because of that, you're hating at Zariski?
 
I remember a professor from Germany pronouncing his name always "tsariski". I guess it's not correct - I don't think Zariski is of German origin.
 
2:07 PM
Russian origin.
 
But I have never heard anything about Zariski topology from some native English speaker, so I do not know what is common pronunciation in English speaking countries.
 
@MartinSleziak Odd. "z" and "ts" are entirely different letters in Cyrillic...
 
@JM Well, if it were a German word, that's how it would be pronnounced.
 
True.
 
If Cyrillic transliteration can be considered a guide how to pronounce his name, I'm ok - I can read Cyrillic good enough to decipher it.
 
2:11 PM
 
If a question is a dup. from MO, under what closing reason should we close it?
 
Is it just me, or could Telly Savalas easily play Oscar Zariski?
 
@robjohn He could win an Oscar for that.
 
@robjohn Nah, Telly Savalas is way more handsome.
 
Someone? Closing reason?
I have two days to submit this closing reason! :-P
 
2:12 PM
@AsafKaragila Dunno. But I'd just link to the MO question in the comments...
 
There are already answers on the MO thread.
 
I think several questions have copied answers from MO.
 
@AsafKaragila Sadly "no longer relevant" is not an available reason in SE 2.0 ...
 
The question was asked here two days after asking it there, where it got answers.
 
And this comment was made at MO: In principle, the question seems too elementary for this site, or at least borderline. But, since I gave an answer, I vote to reopen, not to loose the information. In general, note that the eventuality of a unsuited question with a good answer (I'm not claiming this is the case, of course) has been contemplated in this site; consider e.g. the badge "Reversal"
 
2:15 PM
In this case the question was closed on MO and answered on MSE.
This is the question I am talking about it. I ended up voting for not a real question...
 
Isn't there already a thread on meta on question that are both on MO and m.SE?
 
But usually there is some comments on MO/MSE about how the question fits better somewhere else. This case the question was asked there two days ago, and got answers.
I also don't know of any logicians hanging out only on MSE and not on MO as well...
 
MO vs MSE and closing was discussed on meta: meta.math.stackexchange.com/questions/310/…
BTW that user posted several nice question in real-analysis in last days/weeks.
 
I have used the guillotine.
 
2:26 PM
I am gonna hit the closing votes limit!
Neat :-)
If you go to the review page the Close tab shows you closing votes from long ago.
I have 3 closing votes left today! :-D
@JM There are a few calls for an execution squad on the mod tools page.
 
Wait, I'm editing something... :D
 

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