Physics Stack Exchange is experiencing the throes of very bad days. Lots of main and key users (compared to the total number of them) have left or are leaving.
Examples of community destruction, with such users leaving, have been discussed in Physics Meta posts:
Have we lost the necessary cri...
David tackled a difficult interaction with his usual tact and diplomacy, and the (now ex) SE community manager Shog9 said The Physics mods are kittens by comparison.
I was repeatedly amazed by Shog9's ability to be calm, measured and objective in the face of considerable provocation. I'm sure I could never have done the job as well. It's an old cliché that no-one is irreplaceable, but some people are harder to replace than others.
@Knight 1. I have a day job during which I don't visit SE as a rule. My presence here over the end-of-year holidays was an exception. 2. With everything that's going on I'm not in the best of moods, and I don't want to take it out on the users here.
@ACuriousMind I keep getting glimpses of things in some of the "popular MO posts" that pop up on the side of the the SE pages, but it is hard to keep track of everything that is going on. All I can tell is that people are not happy
There's plenty of evidence of bad/low morale. But, if you are unaware of them, I suggest you don't go seek it out and remain happy and enjoy being around
Not just here, but in general life -- seek out the good things you enjoy doing, and don't go looking for the drama and things that will bring you down.
@Knight There is probably a lot going on, and others don't want to take the time, emotional bandwidth, etc. to explain it and go through it all. Not to mention there could be some things that are intended to be more private
It looks like now is not the time to dig into it. I think it might be best to move on for now. If there are things the community needs to know in the future, it will be delivered when necessary
Just you all tell me one thing where would I find people like you all- so kind, calm, informative, strict when needed ? NO matter how much dollars I give no one like this community will ever come to me.
@AaronStevens The only way to really get out of your PhD without your advisor throwing up new roadblocks? Get a job with the company/agency/etc that funds your advisor.
@JohnRennie Right, that's what I thought they ended up going with. Seems interesting, but my work computers are so locked down that I just use Chrome everywhere personally since that's all I can use here
@tpg2114 That is precisely what a post-doc who just left our lab said to me. I said "I don't know how close to graduation I need to be before I start looking for a job." And he said "It is the other way around. If you get a job lined up then people will try harder to get you out"
@AaronStevens Yeah, it really is the best way to go. Going to an agency that funds just gives extra motivation -- when the program manager calls up your advisor and says "Hey, I want Aaron to start soon," that really makes a difference
@tpg2114 Ah ok. Well one of the post-doc opportunities I have been talking with I am pretty excited about. It seems like I pretty much have the position, I just need to graduate.
I am still progressing with interviews with other places just in case though
I interviewed and got a job offer without my thesis started and without a deadline set. I told my advisor and accepted the offer, and was out 6 months later
But the best 2 pieces I got about writing my thesis -- about 80% of the time writing should be spent on the introduction and objectives. If you don't convince the committee by the end of those two chapters, nothing else you write will mean anything
@Semiclassical I actually ended up writing an errata for mine, because some folks at NASA picked it up and had questions they kept peppering me with, so I combined it all together into a set of clarifying notes for them
By 'established' I meant those NASA guys who were asking you for clarifications, all they wanted was to put you down (I think, although I'm very negative over) here
@AaronStevens Since our fields don't overlap a lot, it may not be helpful for you, but I can send you my thesis if you want to see how I laid out the arguments
@Knight No, not even close! They wanted what I had developed inside their code, so they could solve problems better
I figured out how to do something they didn't have the ability to do yet, and wanted to put it in. But they had questions about my work because I didn't explain it well enough in some cases, and in other cases they didn't have the background to know what I meant and I just had to give them some more details or other papers to read
And if you wanted to go through the effort, I can also link you to the two journal articles that got cut up into chapters. One of them became chapters 3-5 and another 6-7. Then a conference paper was the last chapter.
Guys, I have one year left to finish high school. After 4 months, I turn 18. I believe I came up with a great tech product idea with a proper execution strategy. I have a business plan written. Education in Bulgaria is pretty weak in terms of how and what they teach. I'm a curious person and everything that I want to know and looks useful to me, I teach myself. I read books, watch online courses... Anyways, I believe my current idea has huge potential. I have read books on a wide range of fields and I believe I know how to execute it. I don't want to miss the opportunity. I don't know what …
Well, there is no opportunity to develop the idea here in Bulgaria. Should I move elsewhere and continue my one year left of high school there (I don't even think that other countries have the grade I'm entering, even teachers say it's useless). I don't want to miss the opportunity. I truly believe it's a remarkable product idea.
@NovaliumCompany I am completely ignorant of your situation, plans, etc., so forgive me if my comments are wrong in some way. Have you considered finishing high school and then going to college somewhere else in an area that would help you with your goals?
I have considered that (without the college part) and I don't have the patience to finish this dull high school. They don't teach us anything... it's basically a waste of time. (At least in Bulgaria). I don't want to miss the business opportunity, it's the best idea I've ever gotten.
@NovaliumCompany What makes you think you will miss it? And based on what you have said, the fact that your high school experience isn't the best doesn't seem to really make a difference to you, if you are still able to self learn
@AaronStevens Well, it's a huge gap that my idea is filling and it's only a matter of time before someone starts a startup. I'm scared that someone will start it first.
@NovaliumCompany True. I really don't know enough of the specifics, and even if I did I don't have the proper experience to give you useful advice probably. I do hope it all works out though
I do trust them, I just don't think they'll understand me. I have no problem with finishing high school here. I just don't want to miss the business opportunity.
Christopher Tolkien, son and literary executor of JRR Tolkien, has died at the age of 95.
Christopher was involved in the creation of The Lord of the Rings, notably drawing the maps in the back and also functioning as one of the first early readers through correspondence with his father while st...
I guess it's worth starting a Kickstarter campaign. It's the only way. Investors are highly unlikely to invest because they don't invest in ideas, but people do.
Here's my reasoning: The only way to get my startup working is outside of Bulgaria (because there is no opportunity here at all). My parents will allow me to move if my project gets funding. For my project to get funding, there are two options - angel investors or crowdfunding. Since angel investors are highly unlikely to invest in my idea (because they invest in startups and companies, not ideas), my only option left is crowdfunding.
Most investors won't fund you until you are at a place where you don't need funding.
@AaronStevens Confident in what exactly... so I was confident the work I did was good, correct, and I documented it all. I was a little shaky that it was novel and impactful. I was unconvinced that it was enough to graduate
But, I quickly learned that my advisor and department would not let me actually defend if it wasn't ready
@skillpatrol I also didn't tell you -- tpg is my given name, and I went to school with a pseudonym ;)
@JMac It was at the time -- it was my original AOL screename, which was made when I was 14. The 21 had always ended up as my jersey number for every sport, since I had started soccer as a kid when I was like 5.
I kept that jersey number through ... 12 years of soccer and 4 years of track and field -- overlapping sports, obviously
It's what happens when you tell a kid to pick easy-to-remember numbers to attach to a screename.
@tpg2114 I find those kind of screen name relics really interesting. Like it's funny how the 14 sticks around on accounts even after you're no longer 14. I used _10 at the end of my screen names for years, after my sister helped me make my first MSN account when I was 10.
@JMac This is the only one that it stuck around on actually. And I think it's because sometime right after high school, I had signed up for something... maybe early WordPress?... with this account, and it also used the gravitar thing. So when I signed up for SE, it found that gravitar and linked it all together automatically
@skillpatrol That's a complicated question... when I was a kid in the early 2000s, I was. He was superman. And he said he was clean. So I fell for it
As I got older, I kinda soured on the whole thing. I still watch the Tour de France and Paris-Roubaix, but mostly I avoid the road cycling scene
I haven't raced on the road since... 2010 maybe?
I race(d) on velodromes from about 2008 until I was trying to graduate in 2016. I need to get back into it
I also managed a professional women's road/track team for 3 seasons. That was pretty awesome
@JMac There is something magical about the first user name you pick. Like, you're completely free to choose your identity, and this is the first thing you picked. We can pick anew for our next accounts, of course, but it's not the same.
There's some kids that I watched grow up at our local velodrome that are being signed onto UCI pro men's teams last year and this year. I remember when there were 4 feet tall and weighed 40 pounds. I hope they can survive the sport and not let it suck them in
Heh, it's funny when I see a question bumped by community to the front page and go "Oh, I can explain that one!" and it turns out I answered it 2.5 years ago
@ACuriousMind That's how I ended up with a ton of screen names based off "nerdbomer" (pronounced 'nerdbomber'). It's how my sister decided to spell it when we set up my first email, and even though she was making fun of me, the name and the poor spelling stuck for quite awhile. I mentioned here the other week that my parents still call me nerdbomer as often as my real name. Super weird how that kind of stuff can stick.
I don't really think it's so weird. Such nicknames have more immediate meaning to people than birth names, because they aren't just a name - they remind us of the way they were earned, even if it's really silly.
@AaronStevens cc @JohnRennie If you were wondering what got me so down, now the last straw is public.
When all the moderator diamonds have cracked, someone will have to realize that unlike real ones, they can't be formed by pressure alone. — ACuriousMind8 mins ago
Are they going into meetings asking themselves "What would demonstrate to the community that we are listening and don't care?". The series of announcements coming from SE over the last few months has been absolutely baffling.
@ACuriousMind I'm prepared to ... moderate ... any discussion at our current stepping-down announcement to prevent it from needing to be un-featured. That's the job I volunteered to do: to gently remind our strong community to remember to be civil. If events develop which mean that something different happens, we'll adapt. That's what we do here.
I'm prepared to write an answer to that effect where the misguided SE policy is currently public, but I have a different emotionally-draining task to work on for the next few hours.
I think our community typically does a very good job with self moderation, at least in the last few years I've been here. These changes seem to tone-deaf to sites like ours. I doubt our post would need to be un-featured in a day on our site; but now apparently we have no choice. Let the community build itself up... then start taking away all the agency they used to build it in the first place.
@rob Good luck :) Try to do the thing least draining to you.
@JMac We have some choice. Not much, but dmckee's post will not be unfeatured as long as I have my diamond. Between despair and defiance, I choose defiance. And many others will as well, all across the network.
@ACuriousMind Good. I support you on that. I don't know if it will actually do any good; but it's definitely better than just letting this stuff happen. If we actually were using the question to attack SE, it would be different; but literally all the posts are just dmckee appreciation. It would definitely be a slap in the face to see that un-featured due to some basically irrelevant politics.
@ACuriousMind Thanks for the heads up. What's the motivation behind these things that are upsetting so many people? I mean someone has to think these things are good ideas, right?
@AaronStevens Speculation: a corporate instinct to hide unpleasant information, so that people with more money than time see only things that make them happy.
@AaronStevens It depends on the scope of what they are talking about -- ideally, if your advisor isn't horrible, it doesn't invalidate the entire study. Odds are, the work was done for a reason and that is defensible. And if the better way is truly better, maybe it's also more expensive and a key conclusion is you can get decent answers with less better way
Or, if it's smaller in scope like "check out this way to analyze this one datapoint," then check it out and get back to them.
Does anyone know where I can find the OPE for the W(2,4,4) algebra (two fermionic generators of dim 4)? I've looked at a few papers and none of them explicitly address this one. It's called A(6) in a paper of Tepunin and Feigin but even they don't give the OPE in full detail.
Physics Stack Exchange is experiencing the throes of very bad days. Lots of main and key users (compared to the total number of them) have left or are leaving.
Examples of community destruction, with such users leaving, have been discussed in Physics Meta posts:
Have we lost the necessary cri...
