The most recent 20 comments posted to Making Light by DavidS:

Quick side question here: I'm Jewish, and always thought that standard Jewish practice was avoid drinking water (or other fluids) when fasting. But I know that my family often got standard practices slightly wrong, because the generation two before mine was atheist and didn't want to talk about that sort of detail. Am I mistaken here?

Regarding fasting and safety valves -- absolutely crucial. In any Jewish group I belonged to, it was understood that no ritual was supposed to actually endanger safety. The shorthand here was "choose life" -- it is good for people to be living and healthy, and they shouldn't worship in ways that damage that. It's important that this not only be understood by each individual, but that everyone knows that their companions know it, so that it feels safe to admit you don't feel well.

Also, although Yom Kippur (and some other fast days) are 24 hours, they start at sunset and one often goes to bed early that night. I'm only really aware of fasting from the time I skip breakfast until sunset the next day, about 12 hours. I'm sure it would be much harder to go to bed hungry.

Re: Catnip and stressed cats

We have given our cats catnip during moves, or major house changes, and it seems to help them a lot. The usual response is half an hour of running around batting at the air, followed by contented sleep and less stress upon waking. From the first effect, I assume that they are hallucinating, but it doesn't seem to frighten them.

Of course, your felines may vary.

Don't worry Bingo, it won't work for long.

Possibly dumb question: people have written a lot about the difficulties of getting a manuscript properly formatted for submission. Why don't publishers (or publicly spirited third parties) make Word templates that do this for you? Of course, authors who really care about page layout won't find this satisfactory, but most authors probably would, seeing as it is only a manuscript and not the final version.

This is reasonably common in the world of mathematical journals; see http://www.ams.org/proc/procauthorpac.html for a (LaTeX) example.

Is a-p's-ment when we let the trolls keep their p's?

On further experimentation, this doesn't happen if you are already viewing the thread on which that comment was left. (So my example was a bad one, since you are already on the same page.) Try http://nielsenhayden.com/makinglight/archives/011336.html#347151 to get the effect.

A very low priority bug that I noticed a while ago: Using Safari, turn on the "Larger type" or "Larger type with serifs" option. Then go to a specific comment. (For example, paste http://nielsenhayden.com/makinglight/archives/011348.html#347140 into your address bar or click on one of the "recently commented" links.) The comment in question will appear in your browser, in a small font. A fraction of a second later, the page will render in the large font, and the comment will no longer be centered in your scroll window (and quite probably, not visible.)

In Firefox, I don't get that effect. In case it matters, this is Safari v. 3.1.2.

Erik Nelson, at 99: "why is it that opaques are different from transparents? "

According to the Poynton Color FAQ, "It is complicated to predict the colours produced when mixing paints, but roughly speaking, paints mix additively to the extent that they are opaque (like oil paints), and subtractively to the extent that they are transparent (like watercolours). "

That sounds logical to me, though I have little background in these things.

I wonder about extreme cases. Tile mosiac's viewed from a distance should be almost completely opaque; do they work additively?

Re: Honkies. I recall reading that the term was originally directed at Hungarians, and later generalized to all us white folks.

KeithS: Thanks!

A font request: We have a thread on our blog for people to ask mathematical questions. Yesterday, we got the question "What is the font used in Publications Mathematiques de L'Institut Hautes Etudes Scientifiques?" That seemed like a good question for Making Light so I'm reposting it here. Here is a sample publication (large PDF).

"Has anyone here gotten a negative reaction from an audience for not using Powerpoint? How did you deal with it?"

Mathematician here. Yes, I've gotten flak for not using slides* in talks, and I think some of it was justified. While mathematicians appreciate a well motivated informal talk, they also want to be able to take away a precise summary of my results. If they are just writing down my words, they have to worry that they've missed a nuance.

The best way I have found to deal with this is to write out ahead of time a few sentences which describe my results concisely, but completely accurately. When I get to that part of my talk, I copy those sentences onto the chalkboard while I read them out loud. If I give my audience that security, they are much more comfortable with the rest of the talk being less documented.

* The standard in mathematics is Beamer, not Powerpoint.

When I saw "stephen king" in the sidebar, I thought "Oh neat, another famous author shows up in a Making Light comment thread!" I can't quite figure out what the point of #90 is, but I am willing to guess it wasn't posted by Stephen King.

Regarding zxcvbnm: I would guess that you don't look at your keyboard as you type?

SFO is more convenient to BART than OAK is, but I would bet that OAK is more convenient to the Oakland, 12th St. Station. That ride through SF and under the bay is long.

I haven't read the other ROT13'd comments yet, but here is a (fairly major) hint on the first puzzle:

Pbafvqre gur dhrfgvba: "Vs V nfxrq lbh K, jbhyq lbh ercyl wn?" Guvf dhrfgvba, jura nfxrq bs rvgure n gehgu-gryyre be n yvne, jvyy cebqhpr gur nafjre "wn" vs gur nafjre gb K vf "lrf" naq "qn" vs gur nafjre gb K vf "ab". Ol senzvat nyy lbhe dhrfgvba va guvf sbez, lbh ner erqhprq gb gur rnfvre ceboyrz bs gjb gehgu-gryyref naq bar enaqbzvmre, nyy bs jubz nafjre va Ratyvfu.

Does anyone here know VA? I can see that the precincts that reported are rural, and near the WV border, so I assume they are the most conservative part of the state. What I don't know is to what extent that's true -- is McCain's lead there a worrying sign, or just what you'd expect?

In the oddball news category, Nader apparently gave a press conference this afternoon in which he answered all questions with only a single word. I am tempted to suggest that trolls on probation be similarly limited to only one vowel.

Or, alternatively, a call for medical advice. Mike, have you tried reading these?

Re: Dark City. I walked in on my friends watching Dark City about 5 minutes into the film and was told nothing more then "We're watching Dark City. You'll probably like it." I think that was the best possible way to see that film.

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