I feel like trying out the empty set symbol. Not sure why, I think I just like it. I found out on wikipedia that the symbol was introduced by Bourbaki (specifically, it was Andre Weil's idea) and that it isn't meant to be a greek letter F turned a little sideways at all, but that modified danish letter O. Oh right, get to the point Colin. Starting a new forum topic with a digression can't be a good sign.

I heard Ben say that he was going to post this forum topic, but since he hasn't got round to it yet I may as well do it. I'm not convinced myself that it's a good idea, but it's probably worth asking. Yesterday evening, several of us were hanging round the common room for some reason. David Elworthy strolled up to us and floated the following idea. Apparently, near to University House is the CAPITAL Centre (you'll love it when you find out what that acronym stands for). They are an unconventional lot, because their big idea is education through wrestling. I'm not sure whether they've approached anyone in the maths department, or whether it's just an idea that some of the staff have, but David Elworthy was wondering if it would be possible to teach any maths that way. I think his premise in telling us was that if there were any good ideas to be had about this, the maths society would probably have them.

I may as well admit that, for the moment, I for one am feeling a bit cynical about this. As Tom is always telling us, maths can be awesome, but is it awesome in a way appropriate for the ring? Supposing we were to try to put on a match for teaching maths, who would the wrestlers be? If they each represented a mathematical concept, some of them might have pretty trivial roles. Perhaps the wrestlers should be mathematicians; characters who find themselves in a possibly bewildering mathematical fight, and who have to bash what is around them. But what would we teach? It would have to be something a non-mathematician could understand. We have plenty of ideas that seem plainly intuitive to us, but then again it's probably a safe bet that we were all familliar with the complex numbers before any of us met each other. Spaces with an arbitrary dimension and number systems where 0=12 are mundane concepts for us. What could we explain to people? If we wanted to try projective geometry, the sky might come in handy. I've a vague impression that the definition of compactness might somehow translate into some sort of analogy. What do we think?

Phew, long post, eh?

Long post indeed...

I have to say, I'm not entirely sure what you're proposing old thing- are we supposed to be educating the unclean and unmathematical masses? Or is this a full-on maths degree initiative?

If the answer is the former then I would say there are already a multitude of plays that do the job splendidly- Tom Stoppard's Arcadia (currently being performed at warwick I believe) is a great example of pop-maths well explained in a compelling theatrical setting. But that's written by like a total genius of awesome power, I'm not sure we could compete to be honest...

If it is the latter then I'm stumped. I love maths and theatre, and if there were a way of combining the two in a way that doesn't seem contrived or rapidly turn to handwaving (both of which, in my opinion, even the mighty Arcadia is guilty of to some extent), I would love to be a part of it: but I'm just not sure it's possible.

I will think on.

Shit, is Arcadia about maths? I know someone in that, he's been bugging me to go see it for weeks :)

tl;dr

Okay, own up: who sneaked the group action picture into my first post and how? How long has it been there?

What do you mean?

It's happened again, although not quite as bad this time. If you read the first post, you'll spot the word toaster appearing out of nowhere. I certainly didn't type that. Who's mucking about with my forum posts? I don't mind much but I don't seem to be able to do that myself, which means that it must be something only the exec can do. Does it bother you that you can narrow down the list of suspects to maybe three or four?

It's just a bug in the forums Colin, that's why no one really uses drupal anymore.

You know, whoever's done it this time, that's not really fair as I can't do that back to you. Also, I can't remember exactly what I wrote originally and I can only correct the post by manually editing it back to what it was before. Please tell me that the post can somehow be reverted?

Excuse me, the person who's derailed my thread is the person who mucked about with my original post, thank you very much.

Right, it's back to normal.

Hmm. I was a little worried when I noticed that the last post on this thread was by the one remaining fake version of my account (not counting Owen's, which he hasn't remembered to change back yet; that account was never meant to be a convincing fake anyway). I thought it had gone silent for good. But then I saw that someone's reverted the first post back to what I originally wrote. Thanks for that. I'm not really sure what's going on here, but there's something I ought to have pointed out some time ago. If I haven't picked you guys up wrong, some of you are surprised that many people are reluctant to post on the forums. Given that there are threads like these around, that shouldn't be a surprise. Would you post on a forum where there appeared to be a good chance your posts would be vandalised and your account faked?

Yup

Double post lol

clearly everyone here is happy to toast on a forum where their bread might be vandalised so i don't see a problem

No I wouldn't. Although I did once, but I was one of the ones doing the vandalism back then. Then I stopped because its lame.

The term vandalism kinda implies that the object in question has some value. This is absurd, obviously, as all things on the internet are automatically useless and unimportant. I think more people will be put off by certain members acting like douchebags over stuff

"Good chance" is a bit of an overstatement, in my opinion. :P

Ohh UNLUCKY Colin - ANOTHER fake account.

Let's have a look at what you could have won. Ohh she's 15, she's Filipino, what a shame. Take her back, boys.

Oh dear.

Oh dear oh dear!

Oh dear oh dear Oh dear oh dear Oh dear oh dear Oh dear oh dear Oh dear oh dear Oh dear oh dear Oh dear oh dear Oh dear oh dear Oh dear oh dear Oh dear oh dear Oh dear oh dear Oh dear oh dear Oh dear oh dear Oh dear oh dear Oh dear oh dear Oh dear oh dear Oh dear oh dear Oh dear oh dear Oh dear oh dear Oh dear oh dear Oh dear oh dear Oh dear oh dear Oh dear oh dear Oh dear oh dear Oh dear oh dear Oh dear oh dear Oh dear oh dear Oh dear oh dear Oh dear oh dear Oh dear oh dear Oh dear oh dear Oh dear oh dear Oh dear oh dear Oh dear oh dear Oh dear oh dear Oh dear oh dear Oh dear oh dear Oh dear oh dear Oh dear oh dear Oh dear oh dear Oh dear oh dear Oh dear oh dear Oh dear oh dear Oh dear oh dear Oh dear oh dear Oh dear oh dear Oh dear oh dear Oh dear oh dear Oh dear oh dear Oh dear oh dear Oh dear oh dear Oh dear oh dear Oh dear oh dear Oh dear oh dear Oh dear oh dear Oh dear oh dear Oh dear oh dear Oh dear oh dear Oh dear oh dear Oh dear oh dear

I SMELL, ERGO COLIN SMELLS, FOR WE ARE THE SAME PERSON.

I hope it won't come to this, but if neccesary I can delete this thread. No one needs it anymore, because although it was never mentioned on this thread, both Tom and Owen have taken to the idea that I brought up a couple of months ago now, and I understand they are working together on some sort of script. Whether that is precisely what they are doing, or whether it is something slightly different, the idea of a maths play has moved off the forums now, so if I decide things are going too far, removing the thread is an option. Pull yourselves together guys.

Wow.. to the person above me.. it's alright to impersonate users, but you shouldn't impersonate someone then threaten to delete their thread! You better edit your post before the real Colin reads this, and worries that his thread will disappear

Actually I think we do still need this thread, because I am working on a rival script which will beat the pants off whatever tom and owen come up with.
It's about educating people how to use forums properly, in a play format (obviously).
The main character is a guy called cōlin (he's from germany) who joins a maths society and with the best of intentions starts using their forums for academic support and merriment, but he ends up taking them way too seriously so everyone takes the piss out of him for it.
That's as far as I've got I'm not really sure how it's going to end, sort of hoping the guy will realise everything on the internet is a Joke and not to take anything written on t'internet seriously, any ideas?

How about "cōlin discovers 4chan" ? :D

Perhaps he should be a toaster?

I'm struggling to see where the edit is. The link nearly eluded me but this time my ability spot the difference is failing me.

P.S. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/netiquette
(don't you dare muck about with that link) I read that perhaps a month ago, under the impression that maybe the reason I was being teased was because I was breaking one of the rules of the internet. The article, and the links from it, proved quite reassuring to me. You might find the case is different for you.

But that article hardly contains any useful information.

Indeed. Could you be a bit more specific on what exactly you found reassuring?

Common characteristics- "TOAST is YUMMY. Amen."

common characteristics: altered the page so that it duly reflects the paranoia of civil liberties with respect to the derivative of a discrete random variable

nice.

you have been busy team.

Okay, own up: who sneaked the wrestling video into my first post and how? How long has it been there? If you read the first post, you'll spot the word wrestling appearing out of nowhere. I certainly didn't type that. Who's mucking about with my forum posts? I don't mind much but I don't seem to be able to do that myself, which means that it must be something only the exec can do. Does it bother you that you can narrow down the list of suspects to maybe 497 or 496?

Wrestling is awesome, more importantly why is the page border broken?

Because your resolution is too low :P (that said, so is mine).

It didn't used to be, nice avatar btw.

Well at least my script blocker did something right.