User talk:Yanwen

Welcome!

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Measuring heights
Greetings, and welcome to Wikipedia.

You posted a comment at Reference desk/Mathematics that I thought I should respond to privately. The question that was asked looks like a pretty obvious homework question, and it was posted in two different places to elicit answers from each, wasting the time of many Wikipedians. As stated clearly in bold at the top of the page, we don't do people's homework for them. If you had followed the links in my posts, for example, you would have seen that "modern methods" is a link to "tongue-in-cheek", a not-too-subtle hint that the outlandish methods I proposed were not to be taken seriously; however, I also did provide a hint to the expected answer by linking to "trigonometry". This kind of response is one of the ways we amuse ourselves at the expense of those who want us to do their thinking for them. Unfortunately for you, you didn't get the joke.

Sometimes, though rarely, we guess wrong about a question being homework. That's one reason I did point at the "correct" answer, just in case. But it is also a poorly worded question, allowing legitimate room for many different methods to be used, including those offered in jest. This is also a hint, for those smart enough to learn, that when you ask a question you would be wise to ask as carefully and clearly as possible. It is also a gentle reminder that most problems can be solved in many ways, and it's a good idea to learn to think flexibly.

Another hint about the true intent of the responses can be found in the edit summaries for the page. One of my contributions is labelled "between the lines", as in read between the lines: look for the implied message, not the surface one. After you have watched the reference desk(s) for awhile you will begin to catch on quickly to homework situations; but I realize that for novices it can seem puzzling, which is why I contacted you privately.

If you want to respond to this message, just add your message after mine here, indenting each paragraph by starting the paragraph with a colon (":"). I'll watch for a few days.

Again, welcome to Wikipedia, and sorry if our little joke confused you. --KSmrqT 02:50, 14 June 2006 (UTC)


 * You're right, I didn't get the joke. I'm not really a novice though. I've been using Wikipedia for a while now. I look at the reference pages a lot so I already know that there are a lot of people looking for homework help there.--Yanwen 19:18, 14 June 2006 (UTC)
 * Yes, the homework questions are always with us. And usually there is no attempt at clever disguise; the question is posted exactly as given, so that it is obvious that it's homework. I wonder, what becomes of these people when they are no longer in school? Ironically, we are willing to help with understanding homework, which is really far more valuable. Ah well, their loss. I do hope watching the reference desk has been worth your time; the better answers should be educational for a wider audience than just the original poster. Mathematics is such a broad and deep field, we all learn from each other. --KSmrqT 01:52, 15 June 2006 (UTC)
 * Yes,a lot of the questions on the reference pages are from their homework. I think most people are more interested in the answer than how to get them, which is actually the important part.--Yanwen 02:12, 15 June 2006 (UTC)

RE: Userboxes
There's a colossal list of userboxes at WP:BOX, so you should take a look at that first. If you're interested in making your own, I wrote an idiot-proof tutorial here. Bear in mind that that other website has nothing to do with Wikipedia. Have fun. -- Steel 20:18, 29 June 2006 (UTC)
 * Thanks! --Yanwen 21:45, 29 June 2006 (UTC)

RE: your RC tool
Hello! i saw your message on my talk page, but then I saw your user page. Unfortunately, we can't currently give this tool to anyone who has navigational popups installed. We had quite a large problem on the main page when an administrator was taking MWT for a test drive. See here for proof. We recently managed to find that the problem was related to navigational popups being installed (note the dit summary). As soon as we can fix this i'll get you a copy. until then, adios! MichaelBillington 00:40, 30 June 2006 (UTC)

Unit normal vectors
Hi Yanwen. I just wanted to clear something up about your last comment. The expression $${\mathbf N}^{\pm}$$ does not give a unit normal vector. It gives a pair of unit normal vectors differing by sign. When you make a choice of sign you get a unit normal vector. Thus $${\mathbf N}^{-}$$ is a unit normal vector and $${\mathbf N}^{+}$$ is another unit normal vector. For any plane (or non-singular surface) there are always two unit normal vectors which differ from each other by sign. Think of the plane z = 0, then the vector (0,0,1) is a unit normal to the plane, and so is (0,0,−1). To save space you could write $${\mathbf N}^{\pm} = (0,0,\pm 1).$$  Dr Dec  ( Talk )    10:37, 22 August 2009 (UTC)
 * Ahh, I see. Yes, I did notice that there would always be two orthogonal vectors but I wasn't paying attention to it. Thanks for the clarification.--Yanwen (talk) 19:50, 22 August 2009 (UTC)

Predicting number of items in a set
See Reference_desk/Archives/Mathematics/2010_January_6.

Bo Jacoby (talk) 12:39, 13 January 2010 (UTC).

Discussion to move "String" to "String (disambiguation)"
In order to make way for moving Draft:String to article space to take the place as the primary topic, I've posted a proposal at Talk:String to move the disambiguation page currently at "String" to "String (disambiguation)". Your input would be helpful to establish a common consensus on whether or not this move, or something else, should be done. I look forward to your thoughts on the matter. You've been notified because you were involved in the initial discussion that led to the proposal. The Transhumanist 23:26, 16 January 2017 (UTC)