The h Bar

5:36 AM

don't want to lose it, I'll copy it over and destroy users later

@PhysicsMeta And now here is a question which I wanted to ask too.

5:56 AM

What about the questions which get's solved in comments itself?

@007 ?

Rewrite the comment as an answer

like this :physics.stackexchange.com/questions/63456/…

The comment is a link by david ..

@007 Expand it into an answer

that's OK

Hello

@007 , you have passed XII or in XII ?

@nonagon waiting for results of XII

appeared this year

6:00 AM

You gave JEE Mains ?

Got your result ?

One spammer down, $\infty$ more to go

And btw did you notice , the tags of their question (of spammers) is astrophysics . LOL

@007 ?

yes?

So how was your result ? It was supposed to be out today ?

Mains result out by 4pm

6:04 AM

Alright

Boards will be out on 28May

And what other colleges have you applied for ?

CMI / ISI / NISER ?

Spam is really frustrating.

@nonagon and tags also contain astronomy.

Yep

6:08 AM

And only physics SE is getting those ?

Almost certainly not.

I think it is god trying to guide physicists through these messengers

Also, flags and downvotes couldn't possibly keep up with a dedicated spammer with a botnet able to register accounts. Hopefully SE is doing something to address the issue overall.

LMFAO

@nonagon Nope

6:09 AM

At least they think so , those who post

I think we need a spam. Whosoever creates that tag will get a taxonomist badge for sure

@BrandonEnright Yeah, I've emailed the team and requested blacklisting

Yeah but it'll probably have to be some sort of automated algorithm so at best i'd expect it to take a few days of programming and testing to get some sort of abuse countering code in place.

Ha! I destroyed a spammer before it got flagged! Manish:1, Community:100, Spammer:0

Lets hope they already have dealt with this sort of thing in the past :-)

6:11 AM

@BrandonEnright Simple regex

Well a regex for common question subjects and such may work but wouldn't work against a dedicated spammer.

@BrandonEnright Oh, such things crop up every few days on some site or the other

@BrandonEnright yeah

Eventually there's always a way around, but it gets harder and harder

Yeah fortunately we have an active community to quash stuff

Activish anyways :-)

Yep

What I can do is automate myself: Every time there's a new question, test the title against some regex and destroy accordingly

26 spam flags in last 20hrs.

6:13 AM

Every ten minutes, go through the destroyed posts

@ManishEarth so far almost all have contained a phone number. Something like m/\+91\s*\d{10}/

@BrandonEnright Yep

May be you can do something like if a post has 10 spams it automatically gets wiped out from the list . And a moderator's job is to restore that question if he wants rather than delete it

@BrandonEnright Also (love|marriage).*(love|marriage)

@nonagon I'm a security engineer. Ironically when I was in school I did spam and botnet research.

6:15 AM

marriage is a term used colloquially in physics for unification, so you look for a post with both

@ManishEarth yeah one of the times when we really need a CFG rather than a regex :-)

How do you do research ? I mean how does one know that what you're thinking hasn't already been published ?

A: RegEx match open tags except XHTML self-contained tags

@BrandonEnright the other time:

4431

You can't parse [X]HTML with regex. Because HTML can't be parsed by regex. Regex is not a tool that can be used to correctly parse HTML. As I have answered in HTML-and-regex questions here so many times before, the use of regex will not allow you to consume HTML. Regular expressions are a tool th...

@Manish going Fast... removing the spams........

That's it, I'm giving myself a spammer-boom-boom button

6:16 AM

@nonagon well that's a hard question in many fields but there are many areas of different fields where you know all of the other people working in that area and you get to know their personalities and what they like to work on. You can often guess what another group is working on rather accurately

That is a hell of a lot of upvotes for such a rant!

very creative use of Unicode too.

-8 score spam on site. So not all flag it as spam.(it's a 4 min old spam)

@ManishEarth do they all have the astronomy tag?

Yes , the poster is a highly qualified physicist . He knows astrophysics really well . I think . And btw who needs their ex back ?

@nonagon Would you like the vashikaran then? lol

Now I can make spam go boom faster :P

6:24 AM

@ManishEarth NICE! boom destroys the account?

No, just the spam

HAHA , vashikaran

I'd rather not attach the destruction of the account to a script

Having not seen the moderator tools, I assume it saves you a few clicks through the delete process?

if there's a bug, it's a big one :P

@BrandonEnright Well, in this case I'm flagging as spam (auto delete&lock)

6:26 AM

Is it just client-side javascript? Using greasemonkey or similar?

@BrandonEnright So this does it with one click. Deletion is two clicks, flagging is three, delete+lock is three+2 clicks

@BrandonEnright yeah

Destroying an account is three clicks as well

I like the BOOM

At least now all of my marriage problems have been resolved. Thanks Physics.SE!

3

now I have this badge , thanx spammers......

And how they have so many phones ?

they must be rich too . Looks like they solved many people's problems

THe spammers

6:32 AM

Phones nowadays are NOT
symbol of big money . Rs.400 you get a dual sim phone. Get the sim for free.Enjoy!

Q: how To Get My Ex love back +91 9672036473

-3

http://www.astrospells.com INDIAN Famous Astrologer +91 9672036473 LOVE PROBLEMS SOLUTION IN 72 HOURS 100% RESULT WHEN YOU NOT GET BENEFICIAL RESULTS IN ANY WHERE LIKE BABAS, MAULVI, PANDIT, JYOTISH. AFTER THIS CONTACT US ON OUR SITE.Swami ji . & gold medalist .He solve any type of astrological &...

astronomy

He is a gold medalist

and swami ji , also he is

Means he is swami ji as well as gold medalist

May be someone should start astrology stackexchange

Isn't astrology based on 12 months and 12 various signs? Wouldn't that site only need exactly 144 answers, total, ever?

@007 , but each spam post has a different number

@BrandonEnright Just like forces are based on 4 types of interactions , so you need only 4 answers ?

@nonagon And all are mostly new people.

@nonagon actually I think we only need one answer that unifies them all :-)

6:37 AM

:)

@BrandonEnright So you also want to start spamming>?

haha

And they have 101% guarantee .

Means in hundred customers , they treat 101 .

Some black magic .

Are you having Problems in your life ?

@ManishEarth Should I make spam?

Not any more. I got help from some nice guy who left his phonenumber for me.

@007 no

6:52 AM

@007 definitely no spam tag.

haha, was joking ! and you gave a fast reply :)

A: Derivation of self-inductance of a long wire

@ManishEarth This should be a comment but the user doesn't have enough rep for that:

0

For those that might need it, there are "minor" errors in the last solution provided. The ratio should be pi(rxr)/pi(RxR), the "I" should be an "l", and the limits of the integral should be 0 to R.

What's the proper etiquette?

@BrandonEnright flag as NAA

Great, thank you

@ManishEarth why physics.stackexchange.com/questions/63615/… not removed ?

6:56 AM

It is now

Mustve missed it

Alright, bedtime for me. Have a good $\wordfornexteighthours$!

7:54 AM

Marks JEE Mains now online :-)

9:15 AM

A wild spammer appeared! Manishearth used BOOM! It's very effective.

3

@007 How much did you score ?

10:12 AM

@ManishEarth I noticed that the last one was tagged astronomy and astrophysics. Could the spammer (is that an actual person?) be thinking that this is an astrology forum?

@Gugg Nope. He's posting on Ask Ubuntu as well

Which is (also) a southern African philosophy. :)

lol

10:34 AM

@ManishEarth Can I make "'t Hooft" unbreakable, such that it won't happen that "'t" is on one line, and "Hooft" on the second line? physics.stackexchange.com/a/55287/17609

@Gugg not really

you can do something like abuse mathjax to get it I guess

No such thing as <unbreakable>'t Hooft</unbreakable>?

There is the <nobr> tag, but SE strips it out

ChrisF

11:08 AM

Indian phone line spammers are active on the site again. Get your free spam flags here, while stocks last!

12:17 PM

2 days ago, by Crazy Buddy

24 hours ago, by Crazy Buddy

23 hours ago, by Crazy Buddy

1) Have I improved in my English skills (I think you may all know how crazy I was (in my English) when I joined here...)

Nice..! -_-

BTW, Nice quote..! :P

1:13 PM

I think users shouldn't post spam posts in h-bar...

Meh

@ManishEarth Hey :D

Because, the question (including the link address) is active and can be seen (atleast upto 3 lines)

Of course they can post those posts here..

@CrazyBuddy meh

But, mods should remove them at the instance they see it ;-)

@ManishEarth what's wrong..??? :)

There's nothing wrong with it being posted in chat if the context is clear

1:17 PM

I think you get it from my flag..!

@ManishEarth It can be posted.. But, those words like Mr. Black magic, swamiji, +91 (indian number), etc... don't wanna be shown here I think..!

That's why I suggested a removal...

ah

Though you remove those questions, it's still displayed in chat (first few phrases)

sure

I don't see why that's a problem though

@ManishEarth Just a simple suggestion though...

?

1:20 PM

Are these spams allowed in chat then..??? :O

@CrazyBuddy Nope

But if the context is clear (as spam), no probs

Oh my... yeah I get it..! I forgot about the policies in chat rooms :D

3:47 PM

@CrazyBuddy I too would prefer spam not get posed in chat such that the post gets expanded. I don't think we need a rule against it though. Sometimes rules, restrictions, and barriers do more harm than the occasional activities they would ban.

4:00 PM

hi

hi @AlexeiAverchenko

I almost forgot, we have a chat session going on!

So, who's here?

can i please get help with my derivations?

i tried to play with the basic ballistic equation: kallikanzarid.blogspot.ru/2013/05/does-wind-affect-bullets.html

i used first order approximation to the vector norm function, and I don't think it came out right :(

Hm... well, if you post what you did here, I'm sure we could offer some feedback

you mean as a question?

isn't it too localized?

Hi Alexei. There are no closed form solutions for quadratic drag except for the special case of vertical motion.

4:06 PM

@JohnRennie I guessed as much so I tried an approximation

@AlexeiAverchenko I mean here in chat

just repeat my whole blog post here? :)

Hi folks SPAM SPAM SPAM SPAM SPAM ......

Link to it perhaps?

@twistor59 hi ;-)

kallikanzarid.blogspot.ru/2013/05/does-wind-affect-bullets.html

4:08 PM

Hello. Can anybody briefly explain the economics of spam?

oh wait, I didn't realize that was your blog post that I linked earlier ;-)

@AlexeiAverchenko You can also post such things on the main site, but you have to ask something more specific than "what am I doing wrong?"

Or is it forced labour?

@Gugg it's almost zero cost so it can be profitable if even one person responds (and usually someone will, there are a lot of people who can't recognize spam as spam)

@Gugg basically you give me all your money. Now is a good time....

So, it isn't that these phone numbers are extra expensive or something?

4:10 PM

A couple of days ago I'm sure I remember hearing that it was an anniversary of the first ever spam message, on Arpanet!

LOL really they had one even then ?

By the way, a quick reminder: any time you see these spam posts, flag them as spam

in case anyone didn't know, or whatever

@twistor59 Google, Google: geekosystem.com/first-spam-email

Have you activated the stackexchange IT support to try to restrict it?

@JohnRennie Ah :-)

Has anyone read Lee Smolin's new book yet?

@twistor59 We've been in contact with the SE team, they know that this is happening (over multiple sites, in fact) but it's hard to do anything about it because there isn't a consistent pattern in the spam, e.g. in IP addresses, email addresses, account names, or so on

4:14 PM

@DavidZaslavsky I see, tricky

So is this a bot, or is somebody very actively copy-pasting?

They may try some kind of content-based filtering, but that's always risky because it can trap legitimate stuff

@Gugg no idea

@Gugg Could be either

or some Mechanical Turk-like entity

LOL

The email addresses are different, though the accounts are unregistered

on Ask Ubuntu they're using registered accounts.

4:15 PM

@ManishEarth Not always - I saw 3 or 4 registered accounts spamming here

@DavidZaslavsky yep

Mr. Black Magic has played some cons with every minds around, so that all are speaking about him during the chat session..! :P

Maybe we annoyed someone. Downvoted someone's answer?

@twistor59 That wouldn't have aroused Mr. Magic ;-)

I think so...

I'm surprised spammers would target a physics forum. It doesn't seem a likely source of gullible idiots.

4:17 PM

Physics & Astrology

All of his posts talk about solving life problems (tagging his posts in astronomy)

@JohnRennie Speak for yourself. I'm a gullible idiot!

I wonder people are getting confused between astronomy and astrology :P

I thought somebody wanted a new logo for Physics & Astrology. Maybe this is a good time.

@CrazyBuddy With the possible exception of the spammer, I don't think there's any evidence for that

4:19 PM

Anyway, my question got buried in the spam: I was wondering if anyone has read the Smolin book on time. Lubos gave it a glowing review, so it must be quite something.

LOL

@CrazyBuddy You just removed the link to diagram from the question while edit.My edit was there to be reviewed.

@007 Oops... Community rejected that upon my edit..! (you're late..!)

Another book: Can anybody recommend Gordon Kane's "new" book?

@JohnRennie Maybe they watch too much TBBT and expect physicists to be loners?

:P

4:23 PM

@Gugg did you see the Woit review?

I think I did... But I didn't read the old books, so does that review apply?

@ManishEarth New Scientist just mailed me a free 7 day subscription for their dating service for lonely scientists: dating.newscientist.com/s

wtf

lol

@JohnRennie Cool..!

> Find chemistry here!

4:25 PM

Wondering if they'd agree with a non-major..!

@ManishEarth It gave me a good laugh :-)

@Gugg I think there was some suggestion of a bit of supersymmetric sleight of hand in the absence of any experimental support yet

so how should I better phrase my question?

@AlexeiAverchenko by the way, sorry I just don't have time to look at your post now. Perhaps later though.

LaTeX is a pain when you want to include bash code in it

4:26 PM

basically I've checked a lot of times by hand and with wolfram alpha that i've solved the equations correctly

so my question has to be about my particular approximation

@AlexeiAverchenko I suspect you'll struggle to get much interest in it as it doesn't seem a terribly useful approach for us physicists. We'd just solve it numrically.

There might be some mathematical interest in finding approximate solutions, but I don't see they offer any physical insight.

ok, thanks

i'm a mathematician, anyway :)

@Gugg It's probably like this: Some entity has hired a bunch of folks at sub-minimum wage to advertise their product (the product being love solutions). These guys provide their own phone numbers for this. This is why the wording/phone numbers/usernames are the same for some users and different from others.

Such stuff is quite common in India

@twistor59 The blurb reviews by Greene and Gross, are they also updated from before, or are they new?

"AdSense" is actually a job here

(You see posters on trains asking for applications for data entry and adsense related jobs)

4:29 PM

@twistor59 Irony?

@Gugg not sure, but apparently the Witten endorsement got updated

((For those who don't know: adsense is that block of Google ads you see on various webpages. The webpage owner gets some money per click, human-botnetting it is one way to fraud it))

I've read no good reviews on Smolin's book, even from people working in related fields.

@JohnRennie I hate ironing

@JohnRennie that's my impression too. Even Hossenfelder was negative

@twistor59 which you always do..! :P

4:32 PM

@CrazyBuddy what do I always?

I'll probably buy the book just to see how he makes te argument.

1 min ago, by twistor59

@JohnRennie I hate ironing

@ManishEarth So, what happens if I call such an AdSense guy??

It seems odd to take the flow of time as fundamental when everything seems to point in the other direction.

@Gugg This isn't adsense

@Gugg But if you call one of these spammers, they'll forward you to the real deal. That's my guess.

4:34 PM

@JohnRennie It's ironic that Smolin is now promoting time when he sort of kicked off LQG which is pretty much timeless. (the newer spin foam stuff is timey though)

Amongst my pet theories that I'll never be able to make quantitative is that time doesn't flow at all.

It's just that any "thinking machine" must necessarily follow a path of increasing entropy.

@JohnRennie Just frying my brain thinking about that....

Well look at it this way. Anything described by the action principle has a flow of time because the Lagrangian has time derivatives. The human brain is (ultimately) described by a Lagrangian therefore it has a flow of time.

That doesn't mean the action principle if fundamental. It just means you and I have to follow it in order to think.

Wouldn't that make you sweat?

user54412

@JohnRennie I think I once heard Sean Carroll give a talk that hinted at something like that, but he didn't fully flesh it out

4:41 PM

Interesting

@ChrisWhite I've heard the idea expressed in late night drinking sessions for decades, so it's nothing new. The trouble is no-one has ever made in quantitative.

@JohnRennie I can see how we need something like time at our level, but the question is whether this is emergent, and the fundamental laws are timeless. At least those are the buzzwords that I hear people use without really understanding hem.

them

user54412

Astro-bio-chem question for all: to the best of our knowledge, how critical are UV-catalyzed reactions for the formation of key organics in the development of life?

You mean supervenient?

@Gugg sounds like a grocery store

4:43 PM

@ChrisWhite As in the Miller Urey expt?

@ChrisWhite ~~Is your context the Urey Miller~~ what John said

user54412

I just came from a talk about the geo-chemo-bio-physics of Kepler 68 e and f, which some believe to be several-earth-mass planets composed of ~50% water in various phases

@Gugg regarding the economics of spam, it's shameless self-promotion but check out cseweb.ucsd.edu/~savage/papers/Oakland11.pdf

user54412

and there was this notion that we can model the cycles of various volatiles via e.g. clathrates and such in the ice layers

user54412

but if you're actually looking for something more complicated the idea was put forth that you need atmospheric chemisty involving UV

4:46 PM

Well, UV does help for Vitamin D, but that's not really critical for life in general

user54412

true, I do remember that

@BrandonEnright How do you write a paper with 15 people? Did they all contribute 1 page?

Don't most DNA mutation models rely on radiation and especially UV for rapid changes?

user54412

but the speaker showed some picture that presented possible pathways for forming nucleotides, and there were chokepoints that required UV

IMO it is futile to model extraterrestrial life on the basis of earth life, but that's just me

4:47 PM

@Gugg if you're worried about 15 authors, take a look at the Atlas and CMS papers

@BrandonEnright Ah, I see what you mean. Yes, UV is a big player in evolution et al

@ChrisWhite The buzzword you want might be Origin of Life studies.

@Gugg Look at any experimental particle physics paper

@ColinMcFaul Our resident bio-chem-physicist appears! :)

Granted, when we're talking about exoplanets, DNA could be a completely wrong model of life there.

@BrandonEnright Exactly

4:48 PM

You don't need an accelerator for spam-research, do you? Do you?

@ManishEarth I'm not sure I would call myself a bio-chem-physicist...maybe just a run of the mill chem-physicist.

I did take a class on origin of life in undergrad though.

@ColinMcFaul Well, you did mention (somewhere) that your work spans all three

@ManishEarth True. But I feel like I understand the bio part even more poorly than the chem part, and I try to stay away from it.

@Gugg that paper was the culmination of 3 years of research involving infiltrating the botnets and payment processors to monitor their whole operation. The whole system and infrastructure to support sending spam, selling products, and receiving payments is very complex and it takes a lot of people to handle all of the aspects of the infrastructure. You're right though that we had a lot of authors.

@ColinMcFaul Ah, I see

4:51 PM

Regarding evolution of life, there are probably many other means besides UV that could be used such as radioactive isotopes, geothermal, exothermic chemical reactions, etc

My recollection from OOL is that it requires UV and/or heat to catalyze at least some of the reactions.

user54412

that jibes with my vague recollection from organic chemistry many years ago

@BrandonEnright I think it is an interesting paper! It might give me the wrong ideas though. :)

Maybe throw in a bit of multi-level marketing and sit back and let the cash roll in.

user54412

well, organics do have a habit of showing up everywhere

user54412

even the interstellar medium clearly shows spectral signs of aromatics