Yup, a mere few weeks.

Oh, non-isolated isolated singularities

@robjohn I think I previously went 3 years without visiting the chat rooms.

Now he’ll track down the date and minute…

it was 4 years

bloody hell....all I wanted to do today was take care of a simple errand and then get immersed in the math......not one iota of math done yet. Going to take a nap/mediation session and hopefully can begin doing some work......I have to vent here cause I don't think many people can relate to not wanting to do mathematics......

at least the PCR is out of the way......it tickled.....

September 2, 2017 until August 13 of this year

with a name like RV you must be in the world of stats... :)

Hi! Just a (very) dumb question: what do people call an essential 2-sphere in a 3-manifold? Specifically, I'm trying to make sense of Haken's lemma: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heegaard_splitting#Theorems

It looks like I visited the Math Mods' Office in November of 2017

I've been reading it's a 2-sphere that doesn't bound a 3-ball

That's correct?

Our topologist(s) are not in at the moment, @Anthony, but what is wrong with calling it an essential $2$-sphere?

Oh, your question is ambiguous.

Hi Ted, thanks for warning me! Nothing wrong, just wanting to make sure I got the definition right :)

It's nontrivial in homotopy, so, yeah, it doesn't bound a ball.

Oh well, yeah, makes perfect sense, thanks a lot!

(I had warned it was dumb!)

3-manifold people have their own lingo.

@dc3rd It used to be my area of interest, but it hasn't been for quite some time.

@dc3rd What is PCR?

@RandomVariable ...pity that.....aspiring statistician here.

dc3rd is expecting to mutate any day now.

@TedShifrin ....Covid test that you have to do 48hrs before you travel. THere's the two tiers of tests: 1) antigen test which is a quick test 2) PCR test which is more thorough and sophisticted (and more expensive :( )

Oh, right.

And criteria has become more stringent because of omicron....You don't think these current tests could detect it?

I was reading this morning that this is how the immunologists in South Africa discovered the mutant. The tests weren't showing things they expected.

@TedShifrin not yet....all this preparation is in anticipation of being able to next september tackle the 4th year/grad level probability and stats courses formally. So once I tackle those with a level of success then we can say I've mutated....

that's true...I read an article on that too....they suddenly got a wave of new cases after things were dying down

and couldn't figure out why...

truly not surprising that it has mutated....I'm hoping that was already in contingency preparation from the get go....

This is what all the refusal to vaccinate results in ... not to mention the lack of sufficient vaccines all over the world.

@TedShifrin ...both things that are completely manageable............but..............."people" and "greed".......all those "values" being espoused and when they are needed for the greater good, they don't get applied...

Perfect timing for the populist movement all over the world ...

frustrating place this world.................it may sound very cruel, but since we as a species seem to not care for our world, mother nature has decided to "balance things out".....rather Darwinian.......sigh

things need to get back to normal so pharma companies can start suing each other over this stuff like the good old days

@leslietownes Too much money to be made in this "Covid Goldrush"....

something I read about a month or two ago that pissed me off to no bounds.....Pfizer permitted their patent to be used in South Africa and I think Nigeria based on the condition that the countries sign agreements to build Pfizer vaccination facilities in their jurisdictions............I get the financial aspect of it, but it oozes greed....

that's weird, i hadn't heard of that. most companies have kept uncharacteristically mum about anything covid related in the USA

It was a BBC article at least pertaining to SOuth Africa.....wasn't really played up either....it was in the meat of the article where most won't read if it is long.

Well, it's sure a good thing Trompolini told big pharma to go take a hike.

Oh, wait. You mean ... ?