@tb There's just one 's' missing in the first sentence of the acknowledgements.

@MattN emails?

@tb No, "answering (numerous questions...)".

@MattN Oh, yeah, I caught that one... I think. frenetically checking the offprints

: )

@MattN phew, yes, I caught it...

I'm glad : )

$$\Huge\textbf{IT IS DONE. THE HOMEWORK HAS BEEN SUBMITTED.}$$

@AsafKaragila Yay!

My page is a starting to move around.....

Now if you'll excuse me I am going to wash all traces of algebraic topology in a beer flood of biblical proportions.

@tb Did you look at the .tex file?

@AsafKaragila This is too big.

@AsafKaragila pheeeeew

Where's the Arak?

@KannappanSampath No, sorry, I was distracted.

@AsafKaragila Mmmh, Clausthaler! slurp

@tb Never mind. I'll be happy if you had comments or suggestions. : )

@KannappanSampath What happened to dense.pdf?

@KannappanSampath well, as I said, try using the amsthm package :)

@MattN That's gotten far enough to include 4 pages (not complete) on compact sets, some exercises and stuff. I am planning to complete these as a prelude to a report I must be writing for not less than 45 pages this summer.

@KannappanSampath And did you implement some of my suggestions? : )

@MattN Sure, but I have corrected only a few parts. I'll have to get rid of a few more "obvious" thingies hanging around...

@KannappanSampath Oh, I meant the other suggestions. I think we had a wrong or incomplete proof somewhere.

@KannappanSampath One thing this allows you to do is to write \begin{defn}[Partition] . This gives results like in my remark 2.4 or proposition 2.15, for example.

However, I'd rather not look too closely at the source...

@MattN They have been fixed fully. : )

@KannappanSampath Great : )

(There's nothing wrong with it at first sight, but I doubt I could be of real help while keeping this within reasonable limits of effort invested by myself).

@tb I understand what this means. I have now an example to emulate. Let me give this a try. : )

:3718255 I don't think so. Most certainly not in this case.

: )

Adidas are evil. They no longer make my shoes. I've been wearing this model for like 10 years. Now they screwed my life because I have to try on shoes when I want to buy some. What a pain.

Oh, I know that feeling. I had a similar experience when my grocer stopped offering my favorite brand of crispbread...

: /

Have you tried ordering it off amazon?

@KannappanSampath Hi

@RamanaVenkata Hi! How do you do?

@MattN No, that didn't come to my mind... But I doubt I want to have a boxful of crispbread crumbs delivered by FedEx :)

@tb I think they'd make sure to not make it into crumbs! : )

I sure hope so, but the thought alone makes me shudder...

But, I think a pack of 12 would be too much, no?

Why did I see a fine message, disappearing? I thought that was fine with the room!!

@KannappanSampath Crispbread? I would think no. It's dried up already so it'll probably last forever.

@KannappanSampath Fine Don't you have classes in morning tomorrow??

Yes, Kannappan you seem to have bad sleeping habits.

@RamanaVenkata I sure do. But late in the morning. : )

Oh, okay : )

@tb What's your favourite crisp bread?

@MattN I agree with that. As long as there are no grains that can go rancid, I think it's easy enough to keep them for a few years.

@MattN I go to bad as late as 5 in the morning if there are classes only in the afternoon. Else, at 3, which is what it is now!

@MattN those

@KannappanSampath I don't think time matters, as long as you have enough hours of total sleep.

Okay 527 Okay. What courses do you have this Semester?

@MattN : )

@tb I see. Never seen those. (I don't like crisp bread and I'm not too much into bread). Have you tried Ryvita? (The plain ones, Migro sells them)

@RamanaVenkata What is that 527 in between there? BTW, you could visit this page for all general queries about course.

@MattN I think I tried them, but they're not the real deal :)

: )

Hm. Another Clausthaler or sleepy time?

And I liked the round shape of the others. I don't ingest huge quantities of crispbread, so I had a metal box where they fit in exactly (out of pure luck). This doesn't work with the rectangular ones :)

@KannappanSampath Nothing some typo error I haven't seen it.

@tb Sure, just break them into pieces. : )

They'll end up in pieces and worse in your stomach anyway.

@tb If I may ask, the manuscript looks intended for course for graduates taking category theory. So, where do they publish these expository writings?

@MattN Das Auge isst mit...

: )

Eat with your eyes. : ) (I sure do a lot !!)

I was not serious, obviously. (Given that he already shudders when thinking about slight damage induced by Fedexing the thing.)

@KannappanSampath I published this one in Expositiones Mathematicae. It's not really a course, it's more filling in a gap in the literature.

(Yes, it was published by evil Elsevier :))

@tb Oh, I see...

@tb That was swift, before I could write a comment about that.

@tb I should tell you I have then been taking the advice from the right person, as I like to write detailed elaborate and coherent piece of thing, although I have never succeeded even once.

Oh my, this whisky stinks. Poor me, it's 1.5 meters away and inconceivably offensive to my nose.

@KannappanSampath Actually, it was responsible for my joining MO and math.SE a little later... A buddy of mine pointed out that it was featured in one MO answer. Don't miss the comments on the accepted answer :)

@MattN Like Holy Monkeys?

@tb I don't know. I've not smelled Holy Monkey : )

@tb I see. : )

lifted from a MO comment:

Do someone please know how to fix the matrices?

@KannappanSampath It is a lot of work and involves enduring a long time of frustration and desperation. But when it finally turns out okay, well, then... :) Don't forget that I'm about twice as old as you are... Don't be too ambitious when starting out. Stick to short things and try to improve them. It's easier to have coherent 5-10 pages than more.

@MattN Well, I've was considering visiting the two Delft guys. But Jonas's descriptions of his Whisky, sigh

@tb Expository is also frustrating? That surprises me slightly. I thought the killer was research.

@tb : )

Come to think of which: what are cool places in Europe to spend a long weekend?

@tb I am in the first two stages of italicised words still. What I find is, there is no single book that proves the equivalence of the definitions of integrals Darboux and Riemann. So, I thought I'll write that up for the blog. The 5-10 pages comment, I think I have once written close to 30 pages of short lectures on Analysis but all of which had atmost two page of coherent details.

I'm not even sure I'm in the mood since I hate travelling but I thought I'd ask anyway.

@MattN well, writing expository stuff is frustrating because it is highly undervalued and things never seem to come out as beautifully as you intended them to be. Research is frustrating in completely different ways (and different people find completely different aspects of it frustrating).

@tb undervalued? But why does my mentor spend so much time writing those small expository notes for the Resonance which he edits jointly with several people. (thinking aloud)

@KannappanSampath Well, it all has to do with this pressure of publication. People don't even think expository papers count... While writing up the latest brain fart of yours and getting it published in a crappy journal counts...

@tb I would think not producing anything for a while because you have a dry spell is emotionally hard to deal with. The problem is probably that if it's bad enough one might go into a down spiral.

But I'm sure there are plenty of other aspects that can be frustrating.

Such as having to deal with funding or correcting exams both eating up your time.

@tb Oh, may be he is old enough that he can spend time on this. (He does on an average publish three papers a quarter...)

@MattN Well, this is most annoying. One of the main problems is to find big slabs of time where you can think properly. Having a dry spell is something you have to get used to over time. As the average person you simply don't have one good idea per year.

: )

@KannappanSampath But isn't it sad that you have to be old enough to spend time on this? Wouldn't it be way more worthwhile to let young people think instead of forcing them to produce worthless crap?

But I think I should stop here, lest I start ranting...

(or pursue doing so)

@tb I think yes. But in the place where I study, I think newer professors are to publish $x$ number of papers every quarter. (Not sure what $x$ could be!)

That's essentially what I'm on about...

I wonder why not everything can be effortless and pain free like languages and music. : D

I had a really good day today. Helping others during class is fun and the teacher told me today that he thinks the class is probably well below my head and gave me tips on how to improve myself to become total awesome : D (I've not done any homework during the last 2 years but since he made an effort to help me I think I might start doing homework again)

(^talking about Japanese class)

@MattN I was just about to ask... :)

BTW, why Japanese?

@MattN This sounds great :) But isn't the effortlessness linked to the fact that you don't have to do it and you don't depend on reaching a certain level in a limited time frame?

Why is Victor bumping his NARQs?

(as in why not some other language, I am asking just because I would like to know for no reason..)

@MattN Yeah, this is cool. : )

@KannappanSampath Originally I wanted to learn it while in high school but I never gave it high enough priority. Then I ended up having a half-Japanese partner and I jumped at the opportunity. I ended up liking it so much that even though the thing ended I kept on learning the language : )

@MattN Languages? Pain free? Music? Effortless?

@MattN Oh I see. That is definitely fun. I am seriously giving a thought about learning German/French, but let's see how it all works out.... : )

@tb I'm not sure. I think both. Maths would be less painful for me if I didn't have any frames. But to me learning a language is basically effortless, with or without time frames. Well, of course, realistic time frame. If my life depended on it and I'd have 1 month to be fluent in Chinese I'd probably stab myself in the guts to end the misery early.

Oh dear. I hate typos.

@MattN HAHA.... That's definitely the case here with me. You just cannot pressurize yourself and live upto an unrealistic time frame. : )

I think what is most disturbing about the cattle farm is that it's a zero-reward-100%-punishment system.

@MattN ???

If you do something wrong you get the cow prod and if you do something right you get...nothing.

@MattN I didn't experience it that way.

@HenningMakholm Yes. Or at least pain free.

@MattN What is the cattle farm referring to here?

@KannappanSampath This.

I forgot to mention shapes of Pangasius there.

@tb Yes. Because you don't struggle as much as me. : ) So you get less prod.

@MattN Well, much as I enjoy playing the piano, it certainly hasn't been effortless to learn to do so. And language education has in my experience always been painful.

@HenningMakholm I am tempted to blame your language experience on the teachers you had.

@MattN I never experienced the prod and I had plenty of reward, I think...

@MattN Well, it's not as if it's the teachers' fault that the German people have collectively decided to develop a form of communication with three genders in it ...

@HenningMakholm : D

@HenningMakholm Check out Twain's The awful German language...

@HenningMakholm You got 2 stars for this! : O

_^^_____________________________________

@MattN I'm thinking about adding a third star just for making you edit that message once more :)

Better hurry if you are really going to do that. : )

@tb I have. As far as I remember, he's making far too much of a fuss over grammar and word order. Those are the easy parts. The painful one is acquiring a vocabulary.

@HenningMakholm Maybe... Since both the hard part and the easy parts came naturally to me, I'm in no position to judge. Nevertheless I could relate to what he's describing.

@KannappanSampath what do those cat's ears signify?

@tb I think it's a smiling face: ^^

Although I'm not sure about the line.

Well it was a kind of smiling face, the way I smile may be.... : )

i have no interest in learning a language other than organically....when i worked with people from mexico, i learned how to speak enough spanish to talk to them. i don't see why any other language-learning experience should be different.

I'm going to sleep in about 20 minutes.

@tb Are you planning to stay up late again?

@DavidWheeler How do you define "enough" in that context?

@DavidWheeler If that was the only way, kunne jeg nok slet ikke skrive noget du ville forstå. Pragtfuldt, ikke?

Goethe institute seems to be the best place where I can best learn German. : )

@HenningMakholm Does that mean something like "then I can write something and you'll understand"?

if i understand them, and they understand me....at first, it's just random-string generation, then i apply error-correction filters, learned over time

@MattN You seem to have missed a negation there :) I love the prachtvoll!

"ikke" is the standard negation in Danish.

@tb Possibly : )

my guess is norsk

@KannappanSampath I do one month of holiday per year, all in one go which I spend at a language school of my choice : )

@MattN There are not many good ones here. :/

If you spend some time in the country it's much easier to make progress.

sure, there's a bunch of "vocabulary acquiring" at first. but i don't "learn the language axioms, and derive grammatically sound sentences"

@KannappanSampath No, in the target country!

@MattN I mean you visit Germany to learn German, for example

That's great fun. Homestays are fun too. Although, greatly depends on the country. I wouldn't do another homestay in the UK. And I wouldn't do a homestay in the states.

@KannappanSampath Yes.

intuition first, analysis later

@MattN I think that would require social skills that I don't possess.

Which brings me to ask: why don't you believe in wearing footwear?

@HenningMakholm In Japan they are very tolerant and forgiving. I'm not sure about Swiss people.

@MattN why no states?

if i had a german girlfriend, i can guarantee you i'd learn german pretty fast

Eh, why?

@KannappanSampath Because I've heard sucky stories and I wouldn't want to spend a sucky time during my holiday.

@KannappanSampath Believe? Not a matter of belief; one of comfort.

desire is a strong motivating force

@HenningMakholm You don't wear shoes?

@MattN No matter how tolerant and forgiving, it would be inconsiderate of the guest to arrive with as little a capacity to make the stay somewhat interesting for the hosts as I would.

@DavidWheeler Basically, that's the thing. The reason why learning languages is pain free is because you can do it with your brain switched off.

@MattN Not when I can help it.

I have a German boyfriend but we always speak English. Well, 99.99...9% of the time.

@MattN Have you visited his home page?

No. Going to do it now.

Barefoot o_0

The worst pain is toothache.

@HenningMakholm That makes me think of stepping into other peoples' spits, glass and burning cigarettes.

we don't often realize it, but our brains come with a lot of stuff "pre-loaded". there are a lot of kinds of knowledge we acquire only semi-consciously

@MattN I thought this problem was peculiar to India!

@KannappanSampath No. People spit so much here that you have to constantly watch your step to avoid stepping into one.

@MattN Spit has never struck me as a problem frequent enough to be relevant. Glass tends to dull when it's kicked around in the street for a few days. Cigarettes generally stopped burning after they're not being sucked on (back in the century when they were common). Also, looking where you step helps in each case.

@MattN Joking?

@KannappanSampath No, unfortunately not.

of the foot injuries i have received in the last 10 years, most of them have been pieces of metal or thorns of some kind

@HenningMakholm Ok.

@MattN ?

(You evidently haven't been to either China or South America)

@DavidWheeler Do you barefoot too?

sometimes...it's...a different state of mind

@tb I have been to China and for example Shanghai while being slightly filthier in general, has actually less spits than here.

@MattN well, I still don't follow. I don't see that many people spitting around here and I never feared stepping into spit. Chewing gums, well, but spitting?

Go have a little stroll around Hauptbahnhof and look at the floor.

I think you've never noticed because you don't look where you step.

I think you're vastly exaggerating as you always do when it comes to talking about here.

: D

Exaggerating? That makes two of us : )

By the way: if you are having an argument with someone you should avoid accusations of the form "you always". : )

you always say that

I'm not having an argument. I'm just making an observation and I haven't seen you not exaggerating in this context :) Hence the inference always...

Just for the record: I think I'd much rather step into dog poo than into someone's spit. I think spit is the single most disgusting thing on the face of earth (apart from puke) and stepping into one would make me gag. (Has made me gag in the past, actually.)

i prefer ad hominem arguments...much more satisfying

@MattN whaaat? go to Vienna, then. You can then enjoy looking for the dog poo free zones on the banks of the Danube :)

@tb : D I wasn't saying that I'm enjoying stepping into dog poo!

Not that I think spitting is not disgusting, but dog poo is waay worse.

the attractiveness of spit depends entirely on context

@tb I disagree. Dog poo doesn't make me gag.

it's like vegetables...freshness counts

Boss, where is this discussion heading?

Yikes. Ich finde jetzt, dass alles zum kotzen ist.

: D

@Gigili wholeheartedly agreed

Happy now? You guys sure are sensitive.

: )

on a more basic level, i find the notion of denying we are actual physical beings somewhat self-defeating

i don't especially revel in the gory details, but i'm not prudish about them, either

^What are you talking about?

i eat, i breathe, sometimes my nose runs, i have to eliminate waste...these things are unremarkable

He thinks about something and reports the conclusion here.

@Gigili Better now? Sorry, I really didn't mean to offend you.

i'm neither proud of the facts of being an animal, nor ashamed of them...they just are

@MattN Much better, thank you. =)

Np : ) And sorry again.

Although I think I didn't write anything NSFW.

there is a certain tendancy to "vulgarize" certain aspects of our existence...i think that gives them undue importance, paradoxically

@DavidWheeler you might enjoy this talk

You did not.

@MattN I don't think so either.

Pinker. I read one of his books. Slightly lengthy. And not soo exciting.

@DavidWheeler Not that I disagree in particular, but what exactly are you reacting to here?

@MattN very true.

But nevertheless entertaining, I think.

Which one? I have Words & Rules here.

Same here...

"spit"

Come to think of books: my Bourne trilogy arrived yesterday. Now all I need to do is make it to the end of Arabian Nights and hope the Bourne books are more entertaining to read.

Back from some drinks with the Rector Magnificus!

Yay! How was it?

Cool.

@tb Good pointer. : )

@KannappanSampath It is a good talk (I thoroughly enjoyed what's going on around 20-25 minutes into it). However, thinking about how often the guy must have rehearsed and practiced it makes my toes crawl...

@DavidWheeler Spitting gives them undue importance?

@tb True... )

@Gigili not at all. there's nothing remarkble at all about spit. being uncomfortable about "spit" indicates a basic ignorance of the fact you are continually tasting and swallowing your own

toes crawl -> toes curl... (it's getting late)

Which talk are we tokkin' about?

skin crawl : )

@DavidWheeler Well, nevertheless it's not a pleasant sight seeing people create huge puddles of the stuff.

I'm going to sleep in a minute.

@tb This shows my sense for English...

kwwruuugug

@DavidWheeler Very true, painfully true.

@JonasTeuwen Is this Dutch? Or are you describing your whisky?

@MattN He's recapitulating his conversation with the Rector Magnificus, obviously...

i would argue that it's neither pleasant nor unpleasant in and of itself...it depends on context

@tb : D

@MattN I'm creating a huge puddle of spit.

And the conversation with Karel, yes.

@JonasTeuwen I think you are just trying to make me throw up. : P

Am I succesful?

Nope.

What should I do to improve?

@JonasTeuwen this sounds more like puking to me, but let's not elaborate.

Yikes.

@DavidWheeler Well, being more antsy about other people's bodily fluids than about one's own strikes me as an evolutionary sound procautionary instinct against too easy spread of infectuous diseases.

Good night folks!

@tb Don't stay up all night.

@DylanMoreland Indeed.

@MattN I won't. Sleep well :)

What an amusing evening! Thanks for that, I'm still smiling. : )

@tb And you!

Same here... See you tomorrow!

it's perfectly natural to be squeamish about other people's bodily whatever, until you have determined their health....other mammals do this all the time

@DylanMoreland Well, he must have a terrible hangover...

@DylanMoreland better ignore it...

that's part of the "context"

Talking about a hangover, let me get some whisky.

@JonasTeuwen Good idea. I bet you haven't done that in a loooong time :)

Would anything here be worse if accept rate just stopped appearing next to everyone's name?

for example, a mother is less likely to avoid interaction with her baby just because he spit up, than a complete stranger is

Exactly.

@DylanMoreland Something would go wrong. You'd write answers for 100 days and see, you rep has not changed a bit.

MO seems to do just fine.

@DavidWheeler But it stands to reason that it is easier for nature simply to create a general squeamishness about foreign bodily fluids, no matter what the health of the foreigner. Adding exceptions for foreigner that you have determined (how?) to be in good health would be extra work for evolution, with no particular benefit that I can see.

Makes perfect sense to me now, great example.

@DylanMoreland I don't think so. The only value I see in it is that one can point the concept of accepting an answer out to new users if they haven't grasped this basic feature of the site.

@DavidWheeler Of course, but that's because of a parental instinct, not because the mother thinks her baby is healthier than generic babies.

@KannappanSampath I don't follow.

@tb I mean no one would accept answers, the game-likeness of the site would go away soon...

@KannappanSampath why? As Dylan pointed out, plenty of answers are accepted on MO and no acceptance rate is displayed.

It seems to me that you're not arguing so much that we ought to allow ourselves to be animals, but that we all ought to make a conscious, reason-based effort to be less squeamish than our natural instincts tell us to be.

Granted, the clientele is somewhat different.

but similar logic also holds for those we are intimate with

@HenningMakholm Was this directed at me? In which case, I don't understand. : )

and why a hug from a friend is received better than one from a random stranger

@KannappanSampath No, at David Wheeler.

well, yeah, I don't care. :-) @tb

my argument is that we should be aware of how our animal instincts influence our thought

@HenningMakholm Sorry for the untimeliness of the comment that immediately succeeds the comment I have linked you to.

@KannappanSampath To be honest, having an answer accepted counts much more to me than having tons of upvotes.

@KannappanSampath You're forgiven. (Not least because I'm too confused to understand what it is you're apologizing for).

@Matt: couldn't sleep?

@tb Yes, this satisfies me as well. That we have written an answer that was found useful.

No wanted to add something.

@HenningMakholm I think the reason why language & music both seem effortless is because I'm good at copying. Now how do I copy maths off someone if I can't look into their head and see what's going on?

@tb I agree -- however, the possibility of the answer only being accepted because someone is bullying the OP to keep his accept rate up, seems to cheapen that feeling.

@HenningMakholm kids do all sorts of stuff that adults would classify as "gross". i would argue that the children already have the natural instincts, it's the adults' behavior that is culturally imposed.

@HenningMakholm I agree with that, too. To me the most annoying thing is when I give a thorough answer excluding all the trivialities that may have escaped the OP and the OP accepts a short answer that is simply going for a cheapo...

I like to go for cheapos. My advisor dislikes that feature I'm afraid.

"A mathematician should be precise" and other rhetorics like that.

Hi, leo, long time no see :)

@DavidWheeler I's assuming your thesis is that, for example, Matt's strong reaction to saliva is culturally acquired. Which, I think, overlooks the fact that (as far as I can tell) it seems a bit exaggerated to the rest of us. If it was a cultural thing, wouldn't we all have it? Or is Matt the only civilized person around here?

@tb hi!! :-)

I'm a barbarian, and so are you, you walk barefeet.

@leo How's it going in Costa Rica?

not all cultural biases are universal

@JonasTeuwen you're civilized, even though you drink whiskies that taste like church yards...

@DavidWheeler Of course not, but most of us are raised in the same more or less generic Western European cultural background as Matt.

This Highland Park tastes like cherry pie.

@JonasTeuwen Of course you're a barbarian; you're north of the Limes.

perhaps, but probably not by the same parents, or with the same church, school, etc.

@tb Everything is fine. My classes started this week

:-)

@DavidWheeler Well, I dare you to try the same argument on sexual orientation ...

i don't follow you

and is hot

I mean the opposite of cold

and is hot

@leo You can't imagine how much I envy you...

@tb lots of snow?

but i would still hypothesize that people's reaction to sexual orientation is cultural, regardless of whether or not sexual orientation is

for example, in cultures tolerant of homosexulaity, i would not expect a natural ostracization on account of it

@leo No, the snow is gone now (for good, hopefully), but it still is quite cold. We had the first nice week in a long time where you could dare to step out of the house without scarf

@DavidWheeler If you think being able to abide spit or not is necessarily a cultural trait that can be influenced by your arguments, wouldn't it follow from the same reasoning that liking boys or not liking boys is similarly a culturally acquired thing (as opposed to, for example, an expression of statistical variation with no discernible single course), and that you could talk people into (or out of) being gay?

here we are in summer. Time to go to the beach :-)

@leo rub it in!

Enjoy :)

indeed

that's too simplistic...we have instincts, and we have traits we learn, and then we have personal preferences (based on specific influences or unique experiences), some of these areas "overlap" leading to complex variations in behavior

my house is about 2 hours in bus of the beach :-)

My house is about 7 hours by bus from the beach :(

Mine 40 minutes.

My family's house. Now I'm in San José, quite far

But it's a Dutch beach.

That does not really count.

it's hard to pick any one thing and say: THAT is "cultural" and "THIS" is not.

@DavidWheeler And yet you seem to be assigning attitude-towards-spit to one particular of these categories, based essentially on .. on what, actually? Your own bare assertion?

@JonasTeuwen well, you can walk about 5 miles into the sea before you can swim?

my own experience is: some people have an aversion to spit, some do not

@tb Yeah, something like that...

Sure. And some people like math, some do not. Some people (of various sexes) like boys, others do not.

some of the aversion some people have towards spit, is perfectly natural: an instinctive distrust of something that may be harmful

How are the Dutch's beach?

some of it is personal, for whatever reason, they find it disgusting

even if i were to get to know one particular person extremely well, it may be hard to separate the different factors

@leo something like this

but i think it is worth-while to be aware: how much of what you think is "true" is just "true for you"

@DavidWheeler Then I'm afraid I still don't see what your original point was. It looked to me that you were trying to convince Matt, by reasoned argument, that he ought to stop being revulsed by spit?