The h Bar - 2013-10-02

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user54412

1:57 AM

@DavidZ there might be a question or two lurking in there (like what types of data those satellites gather), but it could certainly use a rewrite; I have no objections to closing it, but I don't want to end up being the sole arbiter of astro stuff

2:23 AM

@ChrisWhite *"sole arbiter of astro stuff"* -- which you already are... BOO ;-)

1 hour later…

3:25 AM

user image

nasa.gov

@CrazyBuddy It just look like a protest to me, they can just let it run without maintainance until problem appears

Yeah... The insufficient funding is what makes me suspect whether NASA has been arrested or something o_O

Hacked again? Not likely

@ChrisWhite you're not, though - one non-mod close vote doesn't do anything ;-)

@hwlau Nah...

3:37 AM

@hwlau from what I'm hearing, they can't. I mean, yes, technically they could, but legally they're required to shut down the site for some reason.

@DavidZ A lot of people are gonna be furloughed...

nytimes.com/interactive/2013/09/27/us/…

Maybe, some issue with the government itself... O_O

I see. Bureaucracy stuffs.

It sounds a big things happening.

Wikipedia writers are fast :D

United States federal government shutdown of 2013

The United States federal government entered a shutdown on October 1, 2013, suspending services deemed "non-essential" by the Antideficiency Act. [http://reuters.com/article/2013/09/30/usa-fiscal-courts-idUSL1N0HQ2AK20130930 U.S. federal courts to remain open if government shuts down], Joseph Ax, Reuters, September 30, 2013. It is the first U.S. federal government shutdown since the shutdown of 1995 and 1996. The United States Federal Government has shut down on 18 occasions since 1976, [http://www.theguardian.com/business/2013/oct/01/us-government-shutdown-world-economy-dolla...

4:34 AM

@david @tpg I speak so me french; but ot seems to be the same as physics.stackexchange.com/a/79242 (see dimension's last chat message above)

I should walk into an airport and yell "I'm Viktor Navorski!". Not every day one can do that :p

1 hour later…

Anonymous

5:39 AM

I wanted my reply to the moderators on my second suspension (by David Z) to be public, so let me paste it here:

Anonymous

> Well, there's obviously nothing rude about that, and I wouldn't feel attacked if someone were to tell me that.

> Especially for the second one, I had noticed that a particular user who will not be named, as that may only cause more trouble for me, stops bugging answers once they're accepted, so it's obviously natural that I requested that.

> This unnamed user should not baselessly troll about Mc Mahon or people who read his books , as this user obviously does not even know the topic he is trolling about!

@DImension10AbhimanyuPS You do not know about who has and has not been warned in private

Criticising is different from attacking. We have repeatedly made that point.

In this case, there war only one user making attacks.

Anonymous

@ManishEarth And yet, I think I have made it clear that my "attacks" were nothing but criticism, whereas the unnamed user was actually attacking people, even their character.

Anonymous

By the way, physics.stackexchange.com/a/79304/23119

@DImension10AbhimanyuPS No you hadn't. To us maybe. Not to the user being attacked.

Anonymous

5:44 AM

@ManishEarth Because it is obvious. Yet, it's funny I need to clarify that fact.

You seem to be claiming that many things are obvious. And meta response has told you, multiple times, that it isn't. Maybe not in this case, but in others

Anonymous

@ManishEarth I was Criticising. Obviously. Because I was logically stateing that mcmahon's books are not dummies books; they are mathematical, etc. etc., whereas saying "You are arrogaent", "Yet you listed Dilaton, who read Demystified" is obviously an attack.

Anonymous

How not-obvious is that?

Alluding to "shutting a user's mouth" and calling a user a troll are both attacks

4

@DImension10AbhimanyuPS: BTW, What's the point of flagging a troll post in the main site, and posting it here?

It's gonna be removed there anyway... Why do you want us to see the whole post...

Isn't the link enough? o_O

5:49 AM

yet you listed -- that's not an attack. Unsure? Post on MSO and ask them to compare. Let's see how obvious it really is.

@DImension10AbhimanyuPS The suspension message was issued by DavidZ, but it was discussed and agreed by all the active moderators. All of us.

Anonymous

@dmckee So,...?

Anonymous

@ManishEarth Shutting a user's mouth ===== Making him stop trolling.

You seem to be implying that there was rouge action involved on DavidZ's part. There was none. The vote was unanimous. And David was simply the one who wrote the final draft of the text.

Advocacy of any action to "shut [another user']'s mouth" is abuse. It will not be tolerated.

Anonymous

How is calling one a troll an attack, anyway? Saying that mcmahon's books are garbage without any evidence is trolling.

Anonymous

5:55 AM

@dmckee Alright, then. Just that that sort of an attitude only works for a programming site or such other.

Anonymous

Not a physics site.

So you say, and you're entitled to your opinion on that

Anonymous

@ManishEarth Sure, I'll wait and see what quality of questions and answers there will be in a few months.

Anonymous

and other sorts of activity too.

@DImension10AbhimanyuPS You keep saying that. I don't agree. Neither do the other moderators. A lot of people on this site manage to have strongly held and strongly defended opinions without personalizing the dialog.

Anonymous

5:58 AM

Like trolling.

These people ask good questions and provide very good answers.

Exactly. One point I have repeatedly made is that academic discourse, even when disagreements are involved, can go through fine without any sort of attack

Anonymous

@dmckee It's unlikely that the site can manage that way with a be nice attitude. Can we just wait for a few months and see ? .

Sure, even when discussing controversial stuff (here and elsewhere), things can get heated, but there's no need for that

@DImension10AbhimanyuPS It's done well so far with the same policy

Banning a single user doesn't change much

@ChrisWhite You're one of the few high rep users who is in chat, exercises the community moderation powers, and understands the system. And probably the only one who is astro-y. So...yeah, sole arbiter :p

user54412

6:07 AM

@ManishEarth lol - there is something to be said for everyone closing questions that aren't in their specialty - for the same reason judges recuse themselves from cases they might have an interest in

hah

Care to join astro.SE btw?

(doubt you want to)

user54412

@ManishEarth i would join if it were just amateur astronomy and such (maybe a place for purchase recommendations like photography.SE)

It's mainly amateur

user54412

but I don't condone their "and astrophysics" bit

user54412

that's the problem - the fact that the amateurs who wanted it were afraid to ask astrophysics questions here means they don't want the kind of answer i'd give

6:10 AM

user image

I can send an invite if you want

@ChrisWhite Currently, such answers are exactly what the site needs, really

user54412

nah - i'm on too many sites anyway

user54412

actually, a couple of those are in space.SE's scope too - that's spreading the community pretty thin :/

Exactly

After spending time on all three, my conclusion is that Astro is scope-wise a subset of Physics, but it "smells" similar to Space, attitude/audience wise

(The similar CSS theming and the overall community theme makes me confuse the two)

So IMO the best option is to expand Space Ex to just "Space", and have it cover all the Astro topics.

user54412

I think the SE team really doesn't understand small communities - after all, they're all tech people and there are 10s of millions of them - so they don't appreciate the concept of site fragmentation

Physics' scope won't be affected either way, but it provides a place for the scared-of-Physics.SE people to stay on

@ChrisWhite Actually they do. And they are very careful when it comes to that

There is fragmentation on tech sites. EE and Arduino.

And the team was very careful about that one

6:15 AM

Actually it kind of does affect our scope, if the new astro.SE splits the astronomy and astrophysics community between us and them.

@DavidZ We need not start rejecting astro questions is what I mean

Sure, but by analogy if they created Python.SE, it seems groundless to argue that that wouldn't have an effect on Stack Overflow's scope

It would suck all the Python questions away from SO, effectively removing Python from the site's scope

user54412

and certainly SO migrates mathematica questions to mathematica.SE

user image

@ChrisWhite Good point

@ManishEarth lol :P

user54412

6:18 AM

venn diagram maker?

@ChrisWhite Right, but a lot of those are Mathematica usage questions, not really programming.

@ChrisWhite Microsoft Word :P

user54412

@DavidZ well, so are all the questions on matplotlib or gnu make etc.

(at home, no linux)

user54412

i'd say most of SO's questions by number are "what's the command for this?"

6:19 AM

Yep

i.e. homework

@ChrisWhite That's different, though. When you're talking about a code library, its usage questions are programming questions.

I think I mentioned that "if Phys.SE accepted problems along the lines of SO, we'd be a homework help site"

somewhere

Mathematica was never a strict subset of SO, it was more like a hybrid of SO, Math, Scicomp, and perhaps others, which is how they justified getting their own site.

@JeffAtwood: ? (Not sure I quite get what you're trying to say here) Not all of the SE Q&As deal with "problems". Stick that label on any science site and you have a homework-help forum. — Manishearth Jan 21 at 8:21

@ManishEarth well sure ;-)

6:21 AM

@DavidZ yeah

user54412

@CrazyBuddy hwlau is right - it's more of protest - for example nasa's extragalactic database is still up

hmm

ah

And, JPL is alive too :D

@ChrisWhite well is the database actually funded by NASA, or by Caltech?

JPLs website is more along the lines of the other govt websites. The site is up, but it mentions that it's not being updated.

user54412

6:27 AM

@DavidZ is there a difference? :P

@ManishEarth Yeah...

user54412

most of the money funneled through caltech is via NASA/JPL anyway

user54412

and IPAC is basically a government facility - it has very little connection to the university

Perhaps... NASA is a federal government agency, but Caltech isn't, so if it's funded by Caltech it would probably not be affected by the shutdown

Also if the database is actually operated by Caltech then it might not be subject to the law forcing non-essential government programs to be shut down

Caltech is NASA funded but they will be living off the budget. They won't go to NASA every time they want a new box of chalk :p

6:29 AM

Nah, Caltech is a university. They just get some funding from NASA, like most other universities.

user54412

@DavidZ the NASA funding completely dwarfs the entire university budget

Huh, weird, OK then

user54412

it's a weird place in general

@ChrisWhite you were at caltech right?

user54412

yep

6:30 AM

ah

user54412

but that barely got me into IPAC - and in my four years there I couldn't get clearance to go to JPL even once :(

Still, though, maybe the grants to Caltech have already gone through, so they're not relying on continuous government funding?

user54412

@DavidZ probably

exactly

@ChrisWhite sad face

6:31 AM

The government is restarting sometime soon, right?

Who knows

The longer they stay shut down, the angrier people will be, so I think the politicians realize they do have some vested interest in getting things restarted soon

Every site states "...until further notice"

Are institutions affected?

but as far as I know, as of now there's no plan for getting things started again. So the shutdown will continue until Congress actively decides to stop it.

user54412

government secrecy in a nutshell: after weeks of pestering the person at JPL who grants visitor access (I was trying to collaborate with someone there), they finally give me a link to the form to fill out... except the form was only accessible from an inside-JPL IP address

@DavidZ well, they do get their paycheck from the government. At least their official paycheck

@ChrisWhite sit at the JPL gate and run aircrack

6:34 AM

lol

aircrack?? o_O

@CrazyBuddy wep wifi cracker

@ManishEarth Congress? Yeah, the money to pay them has been previously allocated by law, so the shutdown doesn't interrupt their salaries. It's more about political pressure.

2

A: I know the WPA-PSK secured wifi password, If I use the wifi, will I be caught?

They will get your MAC and IP address and then they will send it off to the NSA. The NSA knows every IP and MAC in the world (every computer has a unique combination). They will then send a special intervention team to storm into your place and kill you. If I were you I'd just throw away my com...

Probably should tell that user that he's being messed with.

user54412

lolll

user54412

6:37 AM

"colonoscopy images"

heh

THEY KNOW ALL

I'm about to completely lose it... my advisor just accused me of making up data and I need to refrain from telling him where to shove things.

@tpg2114 :(

Man I'm angry... ridiculous. I am seriously tempted to quit now that I've sent him evidence I didn't.

@tpg2114 wow that's serious

you mean, like a formal accusation, and not just something said in the heat of the moment or as a passing remark?

6:41 AM

Doesn't he know that you've been using up computational time? That means that you've been doing work, so the data can't be cooked up

"If i sound pissed you have no idea. Your future is now on the line if you wish to rethink this further. There is already a consequence regardless of your explanation.

Note - i have no interest in email discussion - you need to deliver a code for the paper you submitted NOW that anyone in CCL can use to reproduce ALL the results - can you do this? i need an answer and a code within matter of hours not days... - if you cannot i would have to assume the paper has fraudulent results. If i have to withdraw this I will need to do this by next week."

@tpg2114 wow :(

Good luck

I gave a brand new post-doc my code to reproduce data and he couldn't. Rather than default to him doing something wrong (which it turns out he didn't), my advisor defaulted to my making things up. It turns out that something is wrong with the cluster we're using

ah

And when I ran my simulations in July, it was correct and I verified things by running them again on my workstation and by hand tonight

But running them on the cluster and it's incorrect

One would assume that I would be given the benefit of the doubt and asked to explain what is happening rather than assuming I am fabricating data

6:44 AM

Yeah, you'd think that would have already been tried by the time you get to the point of an accusation of fabricating data

@tpg2114 Oh my... :/

This is the first I heard of difficulty.

This is weird because it would seem that just running the code on any other computer, other than the malfunctioning cluster, is enough to show where the numbers came from

He ended his email with: "If i dont get a satisfactory response before my BP explodes i will make a decision on your future in CCL"

Exactly, but I can almost guarantee the post doc didn't do that

He's only running on the same cluster I did

It's not his fault. But he's been here for 2 months, I've been working there for 7 years. Who is more likely to be doing things correctly?

@tpg2114 Ouch. Hopefully the proof you sent him will set him straight :)

Got to go. Hope things work out!

6:47 AM

@tpg2114 That's a lot of experience :)

This is just another escalation of his attitude towards me and other students in recent months. I really just want to quit

A PhD isn't worth this.

Right, but you shouldn't have to deal with that.

I would think at some point in this process a third party higher up in the department should be (or should have been) involved.

user54412

I was just about to say the same

user54412

shouldn't a department chair at some level care about a prof driving students away

@tpg2114 Whaaa..? Quit?

6:50 AM

He's tenured, just got a $40,000 per year raise and brings in a lot of money.

But he also has the highest attrition rate of PhD candidates and the longest graduation time of any other prof

I read questions about things like this (well, vaguely like this, usually not so bad) on Academia and the top or near-top suggestion is always to get a third party involved, like the department head or graduate program adviser, and document everything

Well fortunately he likes to do everything over email so documentation is no problem.

2 hours later…

Anonymous

8:30 AM

@ManishEarth When did I say it did, anyway?

Anonymous

But Ron Maimon's ban definitely did change things, a lot.

Anonymous

9:03 AM

This Person seems to be assisting the well - known trolls.

Anonymous

This too:

Anonymous

0

Q: how can I apply a rib symmetry in a waveguide mode solver using the finite element method in fortran

How do I apply symmetry rib in a waveguide mode solver using the finite element method in fortran

electromagnetism maxwell-equations

@DImension10AbhimanyuPS Flagged both ;-)

@CrazyBuddy ping!

@UV-D Ping isn't allowed here..!!! It's only on Space & Astro :D

9:12 AM

lol, how are you?

Ping only if you've got a HW question to solve :P

@UV-D Fine ;-)

well I do have unusual results from my experiment today

but it isn't homework

@UV-D What experiment? You're going to blow up the atmosphere? You might want @tpg2114 for that :D

how...how did you know?

I can mind-read everyone :)

through SE chat :P

9:20 AM

that is creepily awesome

@CrazyBuddy am going to be published again for the 6th time this year soon

9:46 AM

@UV-D Cool ;-)

(was having lunch) :D

10:22 AM

@ChrisWhite: Your quote gets likes in Facebook :D

11:11 AM

@CrazyBuddy ping :P i ping where i like! :P

@RhysW YOU SHOULDN'T..!!! This is my room (apparently)

@CrazyBuddy ping :D

haha i actually came here for serious reasons though

for a change

@RhysW What? Wormholes?

nono, universe expansion this time

been reading about hubble expansion

Metric expansion of space

The metric expansion of space is the increase of the distance between two distant parts of the universe with time. It is an intrinsic expansion whereby the scale of space itself is changed. That is, a metric expansion is defined by an increase in distance between parts of the universe even without those parts "moving" anywhere. This is not the same as any usual concept of motion, or any kind of expansion of objects "outward" into other "preexisting" space, or any kind of explosion of matter which is commonly experienced on earth. Metric expansion is a key feature of Big Bang cosmology an...

^^^ There you go...

No questions..!!! :P

11:14 AM

wiki...WIKI!?! you insult me with wiki! i spit on your wiki! patooey

silently goin out

:P I kid ofc, but im not a fan of the wiki

@UV-D would back me up if he was here

And people, looks like we've got a new contributor... :D

So I recently discovered http://physics.stackexchange.com & I'm loving it!!!

Tweeted by X1alejandro3x on October 2, 2013 at 4:08 AM

And, that's this guy :D

52 5

quantum-field-theory quantum-electrodynamics feynman-diagram homework trace vector-fields work

Looks like @DavidZ is ~~gathering~~ threatening people around the whole internet to visit Physics.SE :D

@RhysW Just kidding :D

Nah, ive been reading "Inflationary Universe" paper by Alan Guth, so going to wiki from there is preferably avoided

ah...

BTW, one more thing I discovered :P

11:19 AM

the paper is older than i am

by 14 years

As NASA is dead, so does APOD...

apod.nasa.gov/apod/astropix.html

Here's the new linky (well, it's the APOD mirror) :D

asterisk.apod.com/library/APOD/APOD%20mirror/ap131002.html

But, seems like I can't access the index or the archive -_-

@RhysW Oh my.... :D

budget cuts

???

@RhysW Wikipedia.....hiss..... spit...

12:09 PM

Protip: Serially down-voting the community manager that caught you in a voting ring doesn't really help your case. I'm just sayin'

Tweeted by tinkertim on October 1, 2013 at 12:00 PM

3

12:38 PM

@UV-D much appreciated :P

Hey all

I have a quick question. If you have 3 rods pinned together to form an equilateral triangle, suspended from a ceiling. How would I work out the compressive forces in the bottom rod?

1:07 PM

@LarryHarson awesome profile message

1:23 PM

@DImension10AbhimanyuPS I have no idea nor interest who it is about, it was well written

and I saw what you said before you deleted your comment and I have no idea who that is (btw mods can see deleted comments)

and are not concerned about who it is

Anonymous

@UV-D . It doesn't need to be public and I'm pretty sure mods can't ban me from chat if I delete the message.

that's up to them

if it does not need to be made public, why post it?

Anonymous

to tell you that it is what I wrote it is. Buh.

do not take that tone with me

Anonymous

@UV-D what tone?

1:28 PM

"Buh"

Anonymous

@UV-D I use it quite commonly. No tone is associated with it. Buh,.

anyway, my point is - I am not interested in who the profile message is about or supposedly about, I just thought it was well written.

@MadScientist hello!

@UV-D Hi

Anonymous

@UV-D Oh, ok I thought you were agreeing with the content of the message.

how are you?

@DImension10AbhimanyuPS I actually never mentioned whether I agreed withit or not

but that is a moot point

@MadScientist how is life treating you?

1:35 PM

@UV-D fine

Hey @MadScientist looks I am about to be published again (6th time!)

@UV-D Congratulations, first author?

yup - it is a good feeling (have an astrophysicist and atmospheric physicist as co-authors)

1:58 PM

I do applied atmospheric physics

2:11 PM

Hi everyone

hey

g'day

2:30 PM

hello @dmckee

hello @ManishEarth

?

how are you?

hey @ManishEarth, when I went for my walk, I was followed around by a bat (we have heaps here)....and no, it was not wearing a sombrero

heh

it was creepy...it was echo-locating me in a creepy way

hi @CrazyBuddy (again)

@UV-D Hey ;-)

2:45 PM

it's like that bat again!

lol

And, you'd never forget that :P

forget what?

user image

@UV-D The pings :D

what pings?...lol

Oh and @CrazyBuddy before I forget ... my standard ..... pings..... hiss..... spit

Anonymous

3:14 PM

@UV-D Regarding this, I think that allowing the tag would give a higher preferences to exp tags, which isn;t' good.

I disagree

experimental and applied physics is just as useful, important and progressive as theoretical physics

Anonymous

@UV-D What I meant is that while probably may be "just as useful", that doesn't make it superiour to TP.

I never said that

Anonymous

@UV-D I didn't say that you did.

no one has said that in fact

Anonymous

3:25 PM

I said that having such a tag would make EP superior to TP, which it isn't.

Anonymous

c.f. this comment

that is nonsense, it is a unique tag for experimental/applied physics

Anonymous

if we are to have a tag for lab safety, we should have one for safety against computers shutting down, too.

No. The latter is localized.

exactly, lab safety is quite universal and very important in applied and experimental physics

Anonymous

3:27 PM

@ManishEarth how is the former not? Both ore off-topic, by the way.

it isn't. Lab safety is quite a broad topic because there are many many precautions

Anonymous

@UV-D like how precventing computers shutting down is very important in TP.

lab safety guidelines can apply to several fields in physics

On topicness is debatable; not sure if we've hammered that out yet

Anonymous

@ManishEarth Why aren't there for accidental computer shut down prevention. ?

3:28 PM

because that's like two questions worth of info. Not more

Anonymous

@ManishEarth maybe it's just me being ignorant about EP, but I just don't see any more than 2 questions for lab safety.

we don't have many, which is a valid argument for deleting the tag, but I'm saying that it's not a small topic

@DImension10AbhimanyuPS there are a lot

he means on the site

Anonymous

@ManishEarth i meant possible questions.

3:30 PM

I'm pretty sure safety is off topic here, but it's not something that's set in stone. Easy to change

Oh, there are many

but the point is, I voted that it should be kept

Anonymous

It again may be that I am being ignorant about EP, but how can you have so manny possible questions for that tag? May be an experimental physicist could tell...

I am an applies/experimental physicist and lab/field safety is part and parcel of the work that I do

Anonymous

@UV-D Ok, ok. I guess you may be right .

in the near future, when asking about a pysics technique, I would ask "What is an effective and safe means to...."

because quite frankly, I am accident prone as it is without being dissected, mulched or vapourised

Anonymous

3:40 PM

0

A: What is the optimal design for a paper airplane? (Or, at least, how can you approach it?)

Areo D. GUNK GRAVITY IM IN ALGEBRA

Anonymous

protected by qmechanic 33 seconds ago. that's quick! .

oooh nice question!

Anonymous

i had posted it here because of the spam.

huh?

oh yeah

see what you mean

Anonymous

data.stackexchange.com/physics/query/104095/suspended-users

Anonymous

3:45 PM

why am i not listead there? .

Anonymous

does it take time?

Anonymous

to update data.se?

i'd imagine there is a timed process

@DImension10AbhimanyuPS There are lots of different aspects of laboratory safety that could be relevant to experimental physics, for example laser safety, handling strong vacuum, all kinds of chemicals, ...

2

4:37 PM

@UV-D I'm glad you like my profile message :)

There's a few people that thought the whole community would disintegrate because a certain person was suspended from here a while ago. So I thought I would offer then free counselling

@DImension10AbhimanyuPS I found it hilarious the way you set up an account: "Dimension10 banned user" before. Honestly, I was in stitches over it :)

1 hour later…

6:03 PM

@DImension10AbhimanyuPS just checked, it looks like it may be updated once a week in the early hours of mondays

6:26 PM

cw-reveals-that-he-prefers-an-ammateur-community

12 hours ago, 4 minutes total – 6 messages, 2 users, 0 stars

Bookmarked 10 hours ago by DImension10 Abhimanyu PS

@DImension10AbhimanyuPS /cc @ChrisWhite Way to take things out of context.

If you knew the previous discussions on Astro.SE, the main thing is that the Phys community doesn't want fragmentation. If Astro remains an amateur site, there is minimal fragmentation between the two sites. If it becomes full on Astro+Astrophysics, then there is some fragmentation which he doesn't want to be part of

2 hours later…

8:02 PM

-3

Q: Why is Ron again suspended?

I would like to know why Ron's account is suspended again, this time until Ago 2014. Can anybody explain to me what happened?

8:18 PM

Hi, I couldnt help but turn up because i just read a post that said scientists have discovered a new state of matter, and i thought, hey, physics will be able to help me out

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