The h Bar - 2018-11-08

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peterh

01:17

I am so sad. I did some home calculation and now I think that the Higgs field decays exponentially on the space coordinates for infinitezimal deviations.

David Z

@enumaris When I do them I always call one or two minutes late to make sure the candidate has time to get settled, in case they're coming directly from something else. But 15 minutes late is extreme, and 100% of the call time late is even more extreme.

2 hours later…

getafix

03:41

so, I have been given a lattice gas with $$E_\nu = \frac{-\sigma}{N}\sum_{i,j}^{N}s_is_j$$ the coupling is weak but long range not nearest neighbour and asked to compute a canonical partition function in terms of a ghost field $\phi$ which has a gaussian distribution: $$p(\phi) \propto \exp(-N \phi^2/2kT \sigma) $$ what I don't get is what does it mean to use a "ghost field" in this case

I have been given no information about the origin of this field or its physical significance by my lecturer..

1 hour later…

getafix

05:03

i guess it is okay just to treat it as some external field..like we would in an ising model?

John Rennie

05:13

(Deleted)

1 hour later…

enumaris

06:18

@DavidZ yeah...I think he was interviewing someone else and that call went over lol.

2 hours later…

Slereah

08:36

Hello

John Rennie

09:12

We don't have a lot to be proud of in the UK (certainly not right now) but we can be proud of this.

3

Anonymous

09:59

@JohnRennie Awesome! :)

Emilio Pisanty

user image

anyone know why Stack Overflow's gone green?

say, here.

Anonymous

10:15

@EmilioPisanty I don't see it

Anonymous

It's still orange for me

Emilio Pisanty

@Blue huh

Anonymous

user image

Anonymous

@EmilioPisanty Are you using some beta version browser?

Anonymous

28

Q: What is this Stack Overflow green icon?

I'm seeing what seems like a new color scheme for the Stack Overflow icon: This appears in the Inbox and Hot Questions items, but not on the list of SE sites, for example. I see the new icon is used as <div class="favicon favicon-stackoverflow site-icon grid--cell" title="Stack Overflow">, an...

discussion user-experience

Anonymous

10:20

It seems to be a known problem

Emilio Pisanty

@Blue nope

standard Chrome on ubuntu

Version 70.0.3538.77 (Official Build) (64-bit)

it shows as normal on the sprites sheet, if it is indeed this one that's getting pulled from.

3 hours later…

Slereah

13:09

146

Q: Appropriateness of dedicating my thesis to a Jewish mathematician who died in a concentration camp

I am a Muslim student in a non-Arab country. Would it be unwanted/inappropriate for me to dedicate my thesis on Tauber theory to Alfred Tauber, and more generally to all those Jewish mathematicians who died in Nazi concentration camps during WW2? I thought it would form a nice opportunity for som...

thesis politics dedication

Secret

13:39

> I thought it would form a nice opportunity for some remembrance of the fact that so many people whose work we value today were affected

The more awareness, hence the less complacency hence the less ghosting, the better for this world

Having said that, entirely up to this guy on how to weight the risk of getting into a political conflict

@.Leaky (assuming he is still pingable from last visit) That's another reason not to press the ignore button. Sometimes a user who is known to deliberately selectively ignore you have just way too much interesting things to share to be lost out into the ignore button's screening

Captain Bohemian

14:14

who would think of to click that ignore button if nobody annoys severely enough?

Slereah

15:01

5

Q: Are self-doubt and desperation a normal part of scientific writing?

I am currently writing a research proposal for a PhD in a very interesting field. While working on the proposal I noticed that I run through the following (emotional) stages: Enthusiasm: I think about the topic and am excited to work on it. I start thinking about what I want to do and how I am ...

phd thesis writing

Secret

@CaptainBohemian Some people annoy you like hell because they ignore you. The standard route is to limit your exposure to said person so you won't get annoyed, by pressing the ignore button

The problem about me is that I have a self referential problem: I am annoyed by people ignoring me, but I am also annoyed by ignoring people who ignore me (because it is the same as leaving the problem unsolved)

For example, knowing that Samuel Lereah have a history of selectively ignoring me because he think I am a lunatic and on that we still failed to reach a reconcilation, you will expect that the correct solution is for me to press the ignore button on him so he vanishes from my screen

But it is not that simple: Me ignoring him because he ignores me and I get annoyed by it, is basically giving him a free rein similar to how numerous criminals whole got lose because the jury failed to get enough evidence for the trial

It is basically giving him the karma houdini and justice is not served

It always frustrates me why people who give the silence treatment always get away scoot free since the dawn of history. Ignoring is complacency and it is not really justice and solving the problem

Meanwhile, there is also the polar opposite issue of trolls, who exists just to annoy people, and there are no solutiosn against them except to ignore, but even then it is not a permanent solution

rob

15:19

0

Q: Word for "proportional government based on map area"?

Since the US election the other day, I've started seeing the usual spate of choropleth maps like the one below. [source and discussion] These are problematic for representing the results of political elections, because what matters in those elections is (usually) the total number of votes cast...

single-word-requests politics

Secret

Generalise this, all of us are familar with variosu kinds of complacency such as not enough people working together to address climate change and other important social issues.

To continue from what I said earlier. The main reason I like Trump is precisely because he is such a train wreck

He is so destructive, unpredictable and unconventional that it forces most people to stop being complacent on issues and actually get things done

Honestly... I don't really care how crapsack the world would have became, if the original sin of complacency can be erased forever from the social framework of humanity

rob

@Secret This is sort of like burning your house down because that will finally motivate you to clean that room you've been avoiding. That's a real strategy that works in some cases --- for instance I know of a fast-food restaurant that was razed and rebuilt after a fairly minor fire whose damage was limited to the kitchen --- but it seems like a high-risk, overkill approach to ordinary problems.

Secret

@rob But I don't know if there is a low risk way for people, particular most of us in the general public, to motivate them out of complacency, such as actually trying to engage with the politicians and held them in account, as well be more active in solving social problems

The majority of the general public are really status quo loving, is there something sufficiently effective to motivate them without e.g. destroying everything?

rob

@Secret I have to turn this question around because I don't understand it yet. Can you give me some examples of problems that couldn't be solved until there was a real destructive event? I just want to make sure we are thinking about the same sorts of issues.

Secret

I guess for simplicity, we can quote climate change issues. We have like only 12 years before a tipping point will be passed, and causing earth to enter the hothouse state. But most of the movement on this seemed to not able to get past the complacency of political roadblocks

while climate change is not yet destructive enough to qualify as a good example, it is sufficiently close enough given the correct status of things

But personally, I think it can be solved before it gets too destructive, but it seems we need to get past the complacency roadblock of politics

@rob I guess maybe I should also check with you what do you think is an example of a problem that fits your criteria?

to ensure we are on the same page

typo: current status of things

rob

15:38

@Secret Well, I gave you a silly example (burn/replace rather than cleaning), but you seem to be thinking of bigger societal issues, like climate change. But that doesn't count because the issue isn't solved yet, so we don't know what will be required.

I think you have in mind examples like state-supported chattel slavery, which required a civil war to end in the US, but not things like restrictions on child labor, limiting the wage-earner's work week to 40 hours, and the end of Jim Crow laws. Those were accomplished with sporadic or disorganized violence, but mostly peacefully.

My examples have a US-centric bias, also.

Secret

yeah, that's pretty much highlights it. One needs such a big movement to end slavery, but for others they are slow but steadily solved

I think a china example in history will be during Mao's rule, many people starved and executed, and it takes China to open its borders to free trade to solve that

rob

@Secret But chattel slavery was ended in other countries without war --- I think the UK managed this in 1850 or so, but perhaps @JohnRennie remembers that better than I do. It was particularly entrenched in the US for more complicated reasons.

Anonymous

@Secret Umm, have you ever given a thought to 1. Why you feel annoyed and overreact on being ignored while most others don't? 2. Why the people who ignore you do so (in general)? Not trying to be rude or anything. I just find this to be an interesting case

John Rennie

@rob I'm not quite that old :-)

danielunderwood

I feel like the civil war is still alive in some sense in other issues. My understanding is that the civil war was due to the Confederacy not being willing to concede, which is what one side or the other seems to be doing today

And that's separate from the people who for some odd reason still feel the need to identify themselves as Confederate citizens

Semiclassical

15:47

The historical irony to me is that the trigger for the Civil War was the ascendency of the Republican party to the presidency

Anonymous

@Secret I have noticed most kids (<10 years old) throw tantrums when their parents try to ignore them. But that attitude wears out drastically once they reach their teenage years. Then they don't even give a damn about their parents ignoring them

Secret

2. Some of these are well explained, such as Slereah just simply think I am sprewing nonsense all the time, but many times, especially when people ghost you, there is no explanation
1. I felt annoyed of ghosting, or even in general other people ignoring other people without leaving behind a reason and all sorts of complacency, is because it felt to me those people have just got away harming people without justice served onto them

danielunderwood

@Blue I think it depends on the parents. I knew people whose parents would give in and they still seem to throw tantrums while being adults

John Rennie

screwing nonsense?

Anonymous

> I felt annoyed of ghosting

John Rennie

15:49

@Secret spewing nonsense

Anonymous

I guess you'll need to quickly find a way to not get annoyed by ghosting :)

Anonymous

If you put some effort into conditioning your mind, you will soon stop feeling annoyed by people ignoring you

Anonymous

(at least, that's my experience)

Secret

It is indeed a very interesting case, because indeed for most normal people, they get around by it just fine, but for me, the ability to give a silence treatment (and its polar opposite, trolling), those people always get away emotionally harming others, and leaving no trace or evidence to send them to justice, and they don't bear the burden of actually trying to solve the problem

It's like as if I have a disease of being distressed by not hearing any voices at all

rob

@JohnRennie I meant that it was probably part of your history curriculum in school, silly person, while I only learned about it in passing as an adult.

Secret

15:53

Put it in short: Ignoring as a strategy is a cheap cop out that for some reason does not have a karma associated to it

It is also lazy frankly speaking

John Rennie

@rob yes it was all very civilised - as always with the British. Someone pointed out that Magna Carta prohibited slavery and that was pretty much it.

rob

@Secret My wife the animal behaviorist teaches "ignore it" as a stratagem to pursue aggressively to extinguish undesireable behaviors in animals.

I used to ask her whether it worked on people as well, but she never answered me, so I eventually dropped it.

2

Anonymous

@danielunderwood Yeah, it sure has something to do with the atmosphere they were brought up in. In my experience the kids who are brought up in extremely rough conditions - the street urchins for example - they seem to be way more self-confident and mature than the other kids of their age. But then again childhood abuse can induce peculiar characteristics in people as they grow up. It's requires a delicate balance apparently

Secret

@rob That will backfire like hell for people like me who had an opposite response to ignoring vs talking

rob

@Secret Our daughter has the same trouble. It's very stressful for us.

2

Secret

15:58

Usually my way to cope it is to try to get a good moment when people are cooled down enough to have a negotiation, and then we work together on a solution

But that fails if the person ghosts you, especially online

rob

We frequently wind up reacting to extinction bursts, against our better judgement.

Secret

One literally need to be an FBI agent to ghostbust a person to force them to confront the problem

danielunderwood

@rob yeah I think it's definitely a delicate thing. I see parents these days just handing their kid a tablet to pacify them then wondering why they won't calm down when they don't get what they want. Drives me crazy

Emilio Pisanty

yo @rob

danielunderwood

oops

Emilio Pisanty

15:59

-1

Q: Physics.....It takes 2 to Tango

Physics is like whatever....2 people(or even the same person) gives diffent answers if you keep asking the question. Does a Massless Neutrino travel at light speed?

danielunderwood

That was suppose to be to @Blue

Emilio Pisanty

better a mod than me

edit it to leave only the second half, and put that as the title?

close it as TQIT?

(this question is terrible)?

Secret

I will say my personality is a pretty confrontative person, if something goes wrong, I will urge all parties to discuss about it and work on a solution

I just cannot stand seeing what should be a solvable problem unsolved because of non technical reasons like people not willing to engage

Emilio Pisanty

@rob thx

rob

@EmilioPisanty No worries.

Anonymous

16:04

@Secret Ignoring is also a smart strategy when you don't want to get caught in a toxic cycle. Also, I don't really think you or we ever truly faced "being ignored" at a higher level (for example - try to go out on the streets in tattered clothes and try to beg for food or money- you'll see 99% of the people turning their face away). It's sometimes useful to ponder on just how lucky we are to get a wholesome meal every day.

Emilio Pisanty

@rob I'm writing a response to David's comment there (short of flagging as unkind), but maybe you want to step in instead?

Secret

@Blue Well, that is indeed true, we are more lucky than any of the beggars in the streets

Emilio Pisanty

nvm

just posted

rob

@EmilioPisanty That is a gracious response to all involved. Nicely done, thanks.

Anonymous

@Secret Well, my point was simply that often we tend to blow our worries and troubles out of proportion and that makes us blind to the bigger picture. Life's really good for us, but we refuse to see it and keep complaining about the insignificant things. :)

Secret

16:13

Complacency is not really that insignificant as we usually think. It shapes things from election results to workplace problems and as well beggars and refugee issues

While it is true that the centre of my extreme resentment is focused on ghosting as an act itself, the related phenomenon of complacency also irks me too because of the injustice it causes

Having said that, I don't know what is the best way to pull all beggars out of the poverty line

and capitalism so far is the only known most efficient system to do so, at least for global poverty

Perhaps one day we might stumble upon a better economic system, free of the instability and flaws of the current one

user351417

@EmilioPisanty Oooh done that without looking at this! But is there a reason why neither you nor @rob chose to do so if you guys brought it up earlier?

Secret

Regarding the blowing out of proportion point: For my case, you might say I kinda hack the system: I hate ghosting so much that I actively work towards to shape my workplace, community etc. to ensure that ghosting and all its generalisation will be eradicated hopefully by 2025

rob

@Secret Oh, I think now I understand why you are thinking at the same time about (a) ignore/silent treatment/ghosting in chat and (b) solving societal problems. That didn't make sense to me because, to me, those things are very different.

I think there are two different levels of responding to an acrimonious argument.

One is to engage with the issue in the argument.

The other is to say "this is a discussion that should happen elsewhere or not at all," in which case the solution is to disengage.

I think perhaps you're interpreting silences as "this discussion shouldn't happen at all," which is sometimes (but by no means always) the case.

To take the example of my children again:

sometimes getting-ready-for-school-time gets interrupted by philosophical discussions about why we have school, and why it starts so early in the morning, and so on.

That's a great discussion to have, and it's important, and I have nothing but respect for it

But having that conversation properly takes a lot of time to sort out a bunch of complicated issues

and starting it at 6:30 when you're not wearing daytime clothes or shoes and the bus comes at 6:47 is a recipe for unrelated problems later in the day.

My kids do not like when I am ... intense ... about how we can continue a discussion later, but for now please shut up and play along

Luckily chats are asynchronous, so stepping away and coming back later (or meeting elsewhere) is always an option.

But I can see how you would interpret that sort of resistance as complacency.

Interesting.

Secret

If I were one of your kids, if you say "starting it at 6:30 when you're not wearing daytime clothes or shoes and the bus comes at 6:47 is a recipe for unrelated problems later in the day." it will convince me to shut up

but for most people who are dealing with "this discussion shouldn't happen at all", they don't ever bother to rationalise why

rob

@Secret That's something that the moderators here do explicitly as well.

Rationalizing why a discussion should happen later is engaging in the discussion.

But if the discussion needs to stop before people get hurt/mad, then it needs to stop.

This is the "cooldown" suspension reason.

Secret

16:27

1 min ago, by rob

Rationalizing why a discussion should happen later is engaging in the discussion.

Wow I never thought of that

I thought explaining why does not necessary mean the discussion is engaged

rob

The best we can do is to make it clear in other, less-intense interactions (like this one) that we'll make a good-faith effort to engage later if an appropriate opportunity presents itself.

And also that other people totally have the right to not-participate in any discussion that they not-want to, for reasons that they do not have to disclose.

Secret

I guess you enlighten me on a highly inconvenient truth about the nature of "stopping discussion". I might have to process this a bit after tonight's chat, it deeply conflicts with my all consuming decades old hatred, and thus I don't know how will these two pieces of knowledge will interact

41 secs ago, by rob

And also that other people totally have the right to not-participate in any discussion that they not-want to, for reasons that they do not have to disclose.

Anonymous

@Secret Except that rob might be having 10 other things running his mind at that time - like what food should I give my kid for lunch, when do I have to pick up the other kid from school, etc. At that time a stern "We will talk about this later" is the most efficient and practical way to go. Rationalizing such decisions require time and energy, and that might not be a wise investment at that point of time.

Anonymous

You need to realize that people have their priorities

Secret

the quoted (and also priotities) is probably the truth (or law of nature) I have the most trouble of. It gives people the freedom to deny having incidents traceable making it harder to avoid them in the future

But indeed., this concept of "Rationalizing why a discussion should happen later is engaging in the discussion." is really really new to me, I think I am going to have quite a wild ride in my mind when you have a truth interacts with my deep seated hatred.

Who knows, it might be able to extinguish it, after this 10 or so years of failing

rob

16:31

@Secret Yes, it took me a while to figure it out, too.

Perhaps when I find myself in that sort of situation, I need to be clearer when I do acknowledge that the discussion is valuable and should happen later. But, as @Blue says, that imposes a cognitive load that I can't always manage in the moment.

danielunderwood

Hate to interrupt you guys, but I wanted to throw this out in case anyone knows. We have Ado's theorem that states that finite-dimensional Lie algebras are isomorphic to a matrix algebra with the commutator as the Lie bracket. Does that apply to Poisson algebras, particularly Hamiltonian mechanics? I can't seem to find anything either way, so I figure it's probably a misunderstanding somewhere.

Secret

it's alright, we have finished the discussion for now

and I think you need Acuriousmind to solve that, I knew zitch about lie algebra

rob

@danielunderwood Always willing to step aside for physics, but I do think that was useful.

@danielunderwood Unfortunately I have no idea how to answer your question.

Semiclassical

in Mathematics, 6 mins ago, by Semiclassical

Trying to figure out what the proper way to respond to a conference invite is. (I was aware this was coming, and I'll be accepting it, I'm just not sure what the proper words for it are)

danielunderwood

@rob no need to step aside. I figured I'd just have the question sitting there if I didn't go ahead and send it. I think it's good that this chat has a lot of non-physics discussions

Semiclassical

16:42

Professor [X],

I am happy to accept your invitation to the conference. I believe [person] will be covering my travel expenses, but I'm grateful for your support regarding the hotel accommodations. I look forward to seeing you and everyone else at the conference.

Sincerely,
[me]

that seem fine?

It's a few months away so there's no need to review details yet.

Secret

Sounds pretty formal and courteous, so it should be fine

Semiclassical

cool beans

rob

@Semiclassical It's better than my suggestion, which was going to be "hooray! i accept! i'll send a completer abstract for my invited talk by [date]"

Semiclassical

lol

I'm not the one actually giving the talk, so no need for that

But the presenter wants me in the audience, since I played a role in it

(He's the philosopher/historian and I'm the crafter of mathematical details)

Huzzah for conference invites on a subject entirely unrelated to my thesis work!

(It actually is really cool---it's a conference in Italy with a lot of names I recognize in foundations of QM)

ACuriousMind

@danielunderwood The Poisson algebra of functions on a symplectic manifold is infinite - dimensional.

Semiclassical

16:52

read that as Poison algebra momentarily

danielunderwood

Sometimes you need to handle poisons algebraically

enumaris

hmmm

ACuriousMind

@Semiclassical maybe it's a pufferfish algebra?

enumaris

ain't nobody respond to my stack overflow post...

Ruth Bader Ginsberg broke 3 ribs...

11 dead in Thousand Oaks shooting

what the f*ck is happening...

Semiclassical

@enumaris yeah, saw that

enumaris

16:57

And just yesterday Session is fired, leaving the Meuller probe vulnerable

Protests scheduled for today

Feels like the media can't even keep up

Semiclassical

the Thousand Oaks shooting is devastating for those involved, but the notion that RGB's age might be catching up with her is scary in the possible scope

Jeff Sessions being gone would be good news for me in most other circumstances, but in the present setting...yikes

rob

@enumaris It was very deft of the Trump team to make this call after the midterms. I feel like firing Sessions the day after is a way to say "screw you guys, y'all forgot about this" to most of the voting public.

enumaris

One expected it to happen sometime after the midterms

but the day after was pretty fast

Semiclassical

"Deft" somehow seems the wrong word, since to my mind it implies a level of subtlety

and him being fired is anything but subtle

rob

The deftness was in keeping it out of the news for the past six weeks.

Semiclassical

17:01

hmm, true

rob

by inventing tax cuts, and caravan boogeymen, and all that other made-up garbage that will disappear now.

Semiclassical

the tax cuts will go away. not sure about the caravan

enumaris

probably use it to build dat wall

Semiclassical

that's so close to trump's natural instincts that I don't see him letting go of it

danielunderwood

So what's their game now? Won't the investigation be in full force after January?

enumaris

17:01

waste some more money

rob

I mean, the physical caravan will go away. But the president will stop claiming that ISIS is in it.

Semiclassical

eh. even that I'm not sure about

i mean, he obv. played it up because he saw it as a good strategy for the midterms

enumaris

@danielunderwood not sure what the game is...not certain how far this admin is willing to go

Semiclassical

but I'm not sure trump needs a strategic reason to demonize the caravan

and I feel the timing is more to do with "You can't punish us for it now, so let's go"

danielunderwood

Oh also there was some stuff with a doctored video and taking away one of CNN's reporter's white house access, but that's just minor news at this point

enumaris

17:05

Jim Acosta

Semiclassical

yeah

enumaris

I mean, I could see Trump actually following through with his threat and having his acting AG start investigating dems as retaliation for Meuller

Semiclassical

yep

enumaris

I could see him having his acting AG fire Meuller on the basis that it's a "witch hunt"

He only needs 34 people in the Senate to turn a blind eye, and he can act with impunity.

danielunderwood

Well the acting AG is evidently against it as being a witch hunt

enumaris

17:08

I think finding those 34 Republicans in a Senate with 54 Republicans won't be hard

One would need 21 republicans to actually impeach the dude

Doesn't seem likely anyways, so I could definitely see him firing Meuller and investigating Dems for political reasons.

And then the game really heats up.

danielunderwood

I'd hope that that's too big of a line to cross

enumaris

One would hope

but I wouldn't be too surprised if it's not at this point

We'll see how far this administration can push the limits

Semiclassical

The fact that the GOP position in the Senate actually got stronger in this midterm is not going to make things any easier in that department

The Dems may be able to conduct investigations, but the Senate is still the body which approves appointments

enumaris

17:30

they're also the body which actually convicts or acquits for impeachment

and there needs to be 2/3 majority as well

so

not very likely

rob

I stand by the assertion I made in 2015 at Trump's policy goals are (a) fame and (b) personal enrichment, and that any actions his administration takes are in service to those.

enumaris

I think going into it that was pretty much it

but getting a taste for power...who knows...

danielunderwood

17:43

@ACuriousMind I forgot to respond when you answered, but thanks!

Captain Bohemian

@Secret you overgeneralized clicking ignore button to conniving a malefactor. I am contrary to you in that if I can find a way to ignore some people annoying me, I would feel it's a success, because those people make wrong accusation of me but can't be talked by reasoning either because they lack empathy or they lack related experience or they are just my enemy or they are just airheaded.

Secret

For me, the only case where ignoring is ok is when you are in a millitary style life and death situation that any delay and you or your mission teamates are dead or worse, or when the opponent is verified to be not engaging with good faith (that includes the trolls naturally)

But as today's discussion showed, Rob seemed to point out something I never knew about, so I am not really sure where that fit in

The hatred of ignoring to the point I kinda actively help facilitate the death of this world just to make sure it is erased from existence, is like the most polarised thing in my worldview, and now something that I hold equally dear to (truth) is challenging that... I guess my brain will be busy for a while to settle this largest feud in existence within my mind

Read: feud = cognitive dissonance

However lunatic and wishful I might sound, I am dead serious when I said I hate ghosting with nuts. IT is one of the reasons I engage with some political parties so that some high order dynamics will influence and eventually disturb US, China and Russia enough, so that the whole world will eventually converge to a scenario that that classmate who ghost blocked me 10 years ago will be forced to confront me to resolve that incident of 10 years ago, as I always like to ramble about

I hate ghosting so much that I am willing to screw everyone's and every existence just to force it to be erased from existence

To hate something so much that you plotted for 10 years to undermine pretty much anything that is common sense in this world and overthrow all status quos, is not a hatred an ordinary person can understand

But anyway, I am getting so lunatic right now, and I don't want to pollute the chat with too much of my iluminati rants, so I will stop here

Captain Bohemian

18:02

I hate my junior high school so much that I feel sinister when seeing students wearing uniforms of that school appearing in front of me. And I find it's a reflex feeling. I feel sinsiter once upon when I see those students. This morning when I went out so early 7:00 am, I saw a boy wearing uniform of that school, I immediately tried to take a roundabout route to keep away from him.

rob

@Secret This level of self-awareness is a good thing --- not everyone has it.

Anonymous

18:39

@Secret It's okay. I guess even these feelings also progress through the 7 stages. Allow yourself you to reach the edge and maybe finally you'd get to "in all probability I can't change this in my lifetime, at least not with paying a huge price". Everyone has such feelings once in a while, for example when they read about the Syria bombings and imagine that if they try hard enough can bring about absolute peace in the world. Such hope is good, but often it's out of our control.

Anonymous

And I dunno why, but your words so reminds me of a tale of human hypocrisy where they believe that they can bring about absolute peace but in that pursuit they finally realize that the way to achieve it is either mass destruction or placing humanity in an eternal dream.

Semiclassical

18:56

@CaptainBohemian Reminds me of a joke I liked.

A man believes that he is a kernel of corn, and goes to a psychiatrist who, after several treatments, finally convinces him otherwise. He leaves the office relieved, until he runs into a chicken on the street. He turns and runs back, terrified of being eaten and asks the psychiatrist what he should do. The psychiatrist replies, “But why are you afraid? You know you aren’t a kernel of corn!”

The man replies, “Yes, but does the chicken know?”

Emilio Pisanty

19:38

@rob thanks for stepping in. Do you know if the user involved saw my message before it was deleted? (I.e., is this something worth following up on? if they saw it then the matter is concluded from my side.)

@Chair because I judged that it drastically changed the meaning and content of the post and I was reluctant to do that.

Also, I judged that there was a nontrivial chance of the OP taking an aggressive stance against that kind of edit to their content and I decided that I wasn't interested in taking part in any potentially abrasive comment-thread discussions.

@Semiclassical have you stopped liking it?

Semiclassical

lol

i still like it

danielunderwood

> runs into a chicken on the street

Is that more common than I had previously thought?

It's happened in my hometown, but I thought that was just because it's a weird place

Bernardo Meurer

20:40

@enumaris Email reminder!

Captain Bohemian

20:54

@Semiclassical but the reason I keep away from students wearing the uniforms of that junior high school, that school and anything related to it is not because I am terrified by it, but I hate that school so much--I don't know if this hatred can be compared to Secret's hatred. And it's over 10 years.

danielunderwood

oh no. The great code challenge has found me

enumaris

21:48

@BernardoMeurer oh yes...I keep meaning to send the email, but I don't have access to my resume while I'm at work. Perhaps I'll send one now without my resume.

so

what's the benefits of Scala?

danielunderwood

It's kind of the standard language for spark

enumaris

hmmm

so someone who's insisting on using Scala is likely to be using spark?

danielunderwood

That's the only place I've seen it used, but I think some companies use it for backend

enumaris

I see...

recruiter asked to present me to a self-driving start up in No. Cal that uses Scala

@BernardoMeurer email sent :D

danielunderwood

Looks like most stuff is either data processing or streaming github.com/trending/scala

I personally try to stay away from JVM languages so I'm no expert though

Bernardo Meurer

22:00

@enumaris Got it!

enumaris

I assume they use it also to build deep learning models...since they are a self driving start up...

danielunderwood

Yeah I think there are some big frameworks in Java that are usable from Scala

But they've had a counterpart in python for everything that I've needed other than maybe CoreNLP or something

I tried to use scala once for android dev...that was a bad choice

danielunderwood

22:19

Self-driving does sound like interesting work though

enumaris

22:57

maybe they use dl4j

cus that's Java

danielunderwood

I was thinking there was another big one for java too, but I can't find it

enumaris

dl4j is the only one I know for Java

but when I talked to the authors

they were pretty adamant that it was for DL model implementation and not research

danielunderwood

I was thinking it was caffe, but looks like that's C++/Python

enumaris

"who uses Java for research?" was their response to me

2

So I think what they want you to use it for is like...after you built and trained a model in tensorflow/torch/whatever then you would port that model over to dl4j for production environments

danielunderwood

ahh I always forget about lua

enumaris

23:16

dunno that one

Run like hell

@enumaris I read you are interested in machine learning and deep neural networks, are you doing your PhD in that field? Do you think it's possible for a guy taking a master in theoretical physics to enter a Phd in the field?

enumaris

@Runlikehell I am not doing a PhD in that field. My PhD was in astrophysics and then I transitioned to the field afterwards. So now I work in that field. :D

You can definitely enter work in that field. I don't know about PhD requirements though.

Run like hell

Oh nice, so it's possible to enter the field even afterwords and with a PhD in a completely different field? Was it hard or do you think there a good probability to complete the transition?

enumaris

if you know what you're doing, it's not too bad

talent in that field is pretty scarce

You're gonna need some hands on experience building models, cross validating models, and testing models

doing kaggle competitions is a pretty good way to do that

or you can just work on something that interests you

danielunderwood

@enumaris torch is lua. Though there's also a python version of it

enumaris

23:25

@danielunderwood torch was originally written in Java??? I thought it was in C++

danielunderwood

Nah lua torch.ch

It's a scripting language that isn't used much outside of game dev as far as I know

enumaris

I'm not familiar with Lua

I saw a lot of C backend

I guess I assumed C++

but maybe it was just C

Run like hell

I'm gonna google kaggle competitions cause I don't know what it is

sorry for the personal question, feel free to ignore them, you work for some company? do they actively look for people coming from your background?

enumaris

I work for an insurance company. If you look at Data Science job postings, you'll often see they want people from quantitative backgrounds. Physics is actually pretty often mentioned.

But they do need you to know your ML stuff.

Most are not gonna pay for you to learn ML on the job

It's quite a new field tho

so it's likely you'll run into a lot of people who don't really know much about ML asking for people who do ML heh

got another interview coming...how many do I really want to do though...that's a question...-.-

I wonder if the openai guy is actually gonna call me on time this time...

danielunderwood

So how do I do the learning of the machines? :D

Run like hell

23:35

Here come the problems with English not being my first language, what do you mean with " asking for people who do ML" ? Is it a reference to me asking questions to you? Cause if it isn't I'd make it saying you run into a lot of people who don't really know much about ML asking about their ML jobs :)

enumaris

lol the latter

a lot of people hiring for ML jobs who don't actually know much about ML

Run like hell

Ah ok got it, I'm really panicking about the alternatives to the academic career, and I kinda decided that I'd just do the PhD and then exit academia, but I'm not sure at all how I could spend physics degree outside it, so I'm looking for these kind of alternatives

I'd do the PhD if somebody takes me to it of course :)

danielunderwood

You always have software as an alternative too

Run like hell

becoming a programmer?

danielunderwood

23:56

Yeah that's what a fair number of people in here do

Run like hell

Sure not as fun as quantizing gravity but yeah it's a solid alternative now that I think about it

danielunderwood

@enumaris were the coding challenges you had to do pretty mathy? As opposed to something that checks your understanding of loops, conditionals, and whatnot. I have one coming up and have no idea what they're going to ask

enumaris

make sure you enjoy your PhD if you do decide to take it

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