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2:44 AM
5
Q: Best answer contest: Second quarter of 5779

Isaac MosesHave you seen (or written) a recent answer on Mi Yodeya that you thought was really great? Let's have a contest to help you tell everyone about it! This contest has two phases: Nomination and Voting. It is currently in the Nomination phase. Nomination - ending April 10, 2019 Post an answer to...

You can probably still sneak in a last minute nomination even though the official Stack Exchange day is already April 10th, so long as Isaac hasn't officially declared that the nomination stage has ended and the voting stage has begun.
 
3:07 AM
@Alex I'm glad more people are having a better experience at BH.SE now
 
@curiousdannii Indeed. Though it's possible that the issues that bothered others still exist and I'm just personally not bothered by them.
 
@MonicaCellio That's a great point. It's ridiculous to think that everything can be boiled down to just 22 words.
@Alex That is possible. I think when I spoke to Monica previously about BHSE she said that presence of any Christological readings of the Hebrew scriptures was enough to make her not want to be there, even if they weren't saying it was the only way or even that the poster was certain that's what they thought it meant.
(Sorry if that's not an accurate represenation of your thinking @Monica!)
 
3:27 AM
@curiousdannii yeah, so the next logical step is to say that any letter can mean one of several words beginning with that letter -- but then you need to have a way to know which one to apply when. It just doesn't hold up; such systems are used by people who already "know" what "answer" they're looking for, and who are prepared to construct it however they can.
@curiousdannii the problem was more that Christian dogma was treated as The Truth, on a site that claimed to be non-religious. This led to some highly offensive and inappropriate posts that, by the way, violated the supposed "show your work" rule, but the moderators at the time -- all from the same Christian denomination, by the way -- prevented even the small segment of the community that saw the problem from handling it via community moderation.
As I explained it at the time, the site had become an online church, and supporting that is problematic for us. I haven't paid attention to the site since I left; if they have fixed some of these problems in the years since, I'd be quite happy to hear that. But I'm not going to go back and investigate for myself.
Obviously there's going to be a lot of Christian reading on a biblical-interpretation site. University religious-studies departments (at least the secular ones) somehow manage to have faculty and students of diverse religious perspectives, some of whom believe some of the others are heretics or going to hell or whatever, nonetheless collaborate respectfully. That's what I hoped the site was trying to do. Anyway, I explained it in my blog post. I left the site; I'm not invested in it now.
 
 
4 hours later…
7:53 AM
@msh210 Actually, yours is the mirror of the left-most knot in Figure 3 (and both T(3,4) and T(3,-4) are classified as 8_19).
But since it's not amphicheiral, you're not wrong.
 
8:19 AM
@magicker72 Oh, oops, didn't realize that diagram was 8_19.
 
@msh210 Well, there are only three non-alternating 8-crossing knots (up to mirror), so it had to be one of them! The torus knot is the only non-hyperbolic one, and there are programs to check that (so I did).
 
9:18 AM
Wow, it's been a while... my dissertation was on 3-manifold topology (close to -- but not -- knot theory), but I haven't touched it since. I don't even remember what "hyperbolic" means for a knot! (But now I've looked it up: its complement is hyperbolic.)
@magicker72 What's your connection to the field?
 
9:42 AM
@msh210 I know how fast this stuff disappears if you're not thinking about it... I'm a contact geometer by trade, mostly 3-dimensions but recently higher-dimensions too.
 
10:25 AM
@magicker72 Ah, interesting. I touched the edges of geometry myself, more firmly in the topology world. I'm Allen Hatcher's grandson.
 
10:57 AM
New wave of spam/advertising, answers start with a link to jewish.shop/pc... then have some text linked to one keyword in question but highly irrelevant. Assume fastest way to delete is downvote, flag as spam, and vote to delete for those who can
2
 
11:37 AM
1
Q: During Temple times, who can butcher a kosher animal?

ninamagDuring the Temple Times, for the purpose of consumption, can any Jew butcher a kosher animal or must the animal be butchered by a Cohen or a Levi? I would appreciate a rabbinical source.

 
 
3 hours later…
2:16 PM
@msh210 Wow nice! I'm Rob Kirby's great-grandson. Also got a good mix of topology and geometry.
 
2:50 PM
@magicker72 Ah, so knots are in your "blood". :-)
 
3:45 PM
5
Q: Best answer contest: Second quarter of 5779

Isaac MosesHave you seen (or written) a recent answer on Mi Yodeya that you thought was really great? Let's have a contest to help you tell everyone about it! This contest has two phases: Nomination and Voting. It is currently in the Voting phase. Nomination - ending April 10, 2019 Post an answer to thi...

Voting is now open for the 5779 Q2 Best Answer Contest. We've got 11 nominations (so far), and you've got a week to read and vote on them.
4
 
4:10 PM
0
Q: Best answer contest: Third quarter of 5779

Isaac MosesHave you seen (or written) a recent answer on Mi Yodeya that you thought was really great? Let's have a contest to help you tell everyone about it! This contest has two phases: Nomination and Voting. It is currently in the Nomination phase. Nomination - ending July 7, 2019 Post an answer to t...

 
4:39 PM
@msh210 Indeed. And on my blackboard. :-)
 
 
1 hour later…
5:48 PM
@msh210 Of all the topological constructs to pick as your gravatar, why that one?
 
6:04 PM
Some time back I heard an explanation of the dispute between R' Eliezer and R' Akiva about how many parts were in each Makkah as being one of what the primary purpose of the מכות was. If they were primarily to redeem the Jews, then each consisted of 4 parts, corresponding to יקוק, the 4-letter Name of Mercy. If they were primarily to punish the Mitzri'im, then each plague consisted of 5 parts, corresponding to אלקים, the 5-letter Name of Justice. Does anyone know what the source of this is?
 
 
1 hour later…
7:21 PM
2
Q: Are children permitted to help build the Beis Hamikdash?

Dr. ShmuelWhen the Beis Hamikdash is being built, can the children help out [in any way] in its constructing? Perhaps because of their young age there would be a reason to prohibit them from helping out. In searching for an answer to this question, I came across some examples of children constructing mod...

 
@DonielF Found it, my Rebbe quoted R' Yitzchak Isaac Chaver on the Haggadah, but given that his second answer there is a paraphrase of the Ritva I wonder if he wasn't the first to propose this theory either.
 
8:08 PM
where in the gemara about a rabbi who did not eat by his father's table (he was self sufficient from a young age)? please hel
help
 
8:34 PM
@magicker72 :-)
 
@hazoriz Chulin 7b: אמרו עליו על ר׳ פנחס בן יאיר מימיו לא בצע על פרוסה שאינה שלו ומיום שעמד על דעתו לא נהנה מסעודת אביו
Soncino translation: It is related of R. Phinehas b. Jair that never in his life did he say grace over a piece of bread which was not his own; and furthermore, that from the day he reached years of discretion he derived no benefit from his father's table.
 
@DonielF I don't recall. But it was my X-Face first and I later adopted it as an avatar elsewhere too. (I no longer use a mail client that allows me to set an X-Face,though.)
@Alex and neither did his donkey? :-)
 
@msh210 His donkey didn’t say grace.
That would make it a talking donkey, something which the likes of Rambam and Ralbag rejected even when attested to in Scripture.
 
@Alex But the donkey did derive benefit from its father's table?
 
8:58 PM
@msh210 Not if that’s considered a תקלה.
 
 
1 hour later…
10:16 PM
@Alex thank you, may G-d Almighty bless you
 
@hazoriz Amen.
 
10:43 PM
@hazoriz what book are you reading with interesting Talmudic references?? :)
 

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