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There's a machine that dispenses them on the wall of the photocopying room. They're £2.50 each, which I think includes some credit and then you can put them in another machine to top them up. There's also a machine that turns notes into pound coins.

And I really shouldn't know all of this, I'm only a fresher!

Reply 1581

coldfish

Scipio90

Stupid choir. Singing happy birthday in a ridiculously over-the-top and serious manner at formal isn't clever or funny, it's just showing off. :mad:

I don't get how people could get annoyed at that... I always liked it when they did it.

Reply 1582

Tom

Plymouth charges for printing, photocopying, binding and blank CDs, even given that they insist all coursework is handed in bound, in duplicate, and with a copy on CD.

I was not happy when I found out that's it's not all free like it was at Cambridge. 'Specially given it's not really a financially poor uni, current troubles aside.

Reply 1583

Y__

squeezebox

Out of interest: what is it? :smile:

I've been arguing with that annoying "Simplicity" guy on the "Maths: science or language?" thread, and he says that in "Music of the primes", du Sautoy has proven that the Riemann hypothesis cannot be independent from ZFC, which seems totally weird to me. Unfortunately the UL is the only library in Cambridge that has it...

Reply 1584

Y__

squeezebox

Oh, he's probably having you on - he's a troll. The other week he posted for help on a primary school maths question or something :s-smilie:

Nah, I actually found an internet site that said vaguely the same, and I'm curious :yep:

. Although I've asked a friend who's genuinely brilliant, and he thinks he knows how that argument might go, although he reckons it might not be very convincing/useful.
AND I have to read it since it's by du Sautoy, and our History of Maths lecturer is always picking on du Sautoy because his BBC programme was apparently totally crap :biggrin:

Reply 1585

minimo

coldfish

I don't get how people could get annoyed at that... I always liked it when they did it.

yeah me too! It's a bit like how everyone at Trinity Xmas formal does 12 days of Christmas all fancyish.

------

I had a really, really good evening out with friends tonight. Sadly, I had to come home pretty early to work but no matter. Was still awesomes.

Reply 1586

Zhen Lin

I just overheard the candidate for Women's Welfare joke that the Emma scarf should have more pink, in order to be less sexist. :-|

Also, I think I saw ukebert as I came back to South Court.

Supergrunch

You beat me to that quote (Max Weinreich I believe) - basically our defintions of such things are pretty arbitrary, and depend on all sorts of different factors in each case. It is worth noting, however, that there's often roughly the same amount of dialectal variation in a single language group (at a given hierarchical level) - for instance Japanese is nearly a language group of its own, and has massive dialectal variation, whereas English very clearly isn't and has much less variation.

Perhaps. But there is definitely politics involved. Chinese, by any rational standard, is a group of related and only partially mutually intelligible languages. The Chinese establishment, of course, does not like this view to be promoted because it apparently will encourage separatism. But it is very frustrating to read, even in proper linguistics books (the one I'm thinking of is a book about the phonology of Chinese, but most likely of standard Mandarin in particular), the claim that one can learn other Chinese "dialects" simply by living in the area for a few weeks and getting used to listening to it.

Y__

Nah, I actually found an internet site that said vaguely the same, and I'm curious :yep:

You go to History? I don't think I've ever seen you there...

Reply 1587

ukebert

Scipio90

Stupid choir. Singing happy birthday in a ridiculously over-the-top and serious manner at formal isn't clever or funny, it's just showing off. :mad:

I had that as well. I was at a formal at Downing. I don't mind it much, but only if it's just an off the cuff thing, with people making up parts as they go along. If they've prepared it then it's too contrived.

Zhen Lin

Also, I think I saw ukebert as I came back to South Court.

You probably did :smile:

I went back to Emma with some Guild people after the formal. Downing food is okish, but not fantastic.

Reply 1588

Y__

Zhen Lin

You go to History? I don't think I've ever seen you there...

This is really, really weird. I have missed only one History lecture so far (though I'll probably miss Wednesday's), but I don't think I've ever consciously seen you there...

Reply 1589

Zhen Lin

Y__

This is really, really weird. I have missed only one History lecture so far (though I'll probably miss Wednesday's), but I don't think I've ever consciously seen you there...

I've never missed one. The Emma group is fairly conspicuous nowadays - we're in the front left. I wonder what's the plan for this week...

Reply 1590

Y__

Zhen Lin

I've never missed one. The Emma group is fairly conspicuous nowadays - we're in the front left. I wonder what's the plan for this week...

Ah, I'm usually rather towards the back. Weirdly enough, I always though that the people in the front were the Trinitarians. I think the sewing girl always wears a Trinity scarf?

Reply 1591

Supergrunch

Zhen Lin

Oh, I don't doubt politics are involved. It's pretty absurd to call, say, Mandarin and Cantonese dialects - I've always thought of them as different languages under some kind of Chinese umbrella, and always make sure I point out which I'm talking about.

Also - I have the Marcus du Sautoy book, but it's at home and I haven't read it. (got it as a present) I find him kind of irritating for some reason, and didn't much like what I saw of his history of maths programme on BBC4 - he presented everything from an applied perspective, which turned me off immediately.

Reply 1592

ukebert

But applying Maths is very important :puppyeyes:

Reply 1593

Scipio90

How sad am I that completing a maths question has made my evening? :p:

Reply 1594

Scipio90

Re du Sautoy: did anyone ever see the panel-show programme he presented on BBC3 that consisted of logic puzzles etc? I quite enjoyed it.

Reply 1595

Y__

ukebert

But applying Maths is very important :puppyeyes:

Of course it is, it's just not what you want to read in a book that deals with a pure topic and makes up lots of ridiculous "applications" just to be accessible for the general public (I guess this is what Supergrunch meant?).

Scipio90

How sad am I that completing a maths question has made my evening? :p:

Not sad at all. For mathmos, this is a rather regular occurence :yep:

Reply 1596

Supergrunch

ukebert

But applying Maths is very important :puppyeyes:

Sorry, Uke, but I like my subjects pure... that said, I'm doing a pretty crazy language/maths/biology hybrid these days. I don't know, I've never really liked (or been good at) mechanics, it's why I switched from physics a couple of weeks into my first term.

Reply 1597

Supergrunch

Y__

Yes, that too. Applications of maths are great, I just don't want to be the one doing the mechanics... Actually, as someone who draws up game theory tables to calculate just about everything, I probably shouldn't criticise applied maths. :p:

And yes, I saw that panel show, it was good. Also presented by Simon Singh sometimes I believe.

Reply 1598

ukebert

Scipio90

How sad am I that completing a maths question has made my evening? :p:

Been there. It's fantastic isn't it :o:

Y__

True enough. But if it is designed to be accessible to the general public, apps is a pretty good way to do it. I know that whenever I find a particular piece of Maths conceptually very difficult, if I apply it to something then it suddenly becomes much easier.

Reply 1599

alex_hk90

Supergrunch

I'm (half) Chinese and have always considered Mandarin and Cantonese as dialects. The words are almost all identical (ignoring the conventions of Simplified/Traditional writing), just pronounced differently.