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1:40 AM
Reading a Hot Network Question's title completely out of context can be surprisingly confusing:
6
Q: Where to find microwave on the road in the US

easymoden00bI'll be driving almost non-stop (no hotels). I have some frozen curry and other things I'd like to heat up as I travel on down the line. Where is it possible to use find a microwave to use?

 
 
7 hours later…
9:05 AM
@JosephWright yes I worried (and re-worded) that compatibility warning a few times, how to say you can load it without error and it will break all your documents in a nice way:-)
 
9:22 AM
@DavidCarlisle Yes, I understand. What I mean is that it's not a 'stand alone' thing: still needs LaTeX2e
 
@JosephWright ah yes there is that, will reword a bit.
 
9:39 AM
any one here who buys books online to ask something? I saw this book, new, someone selling it for on,y 75 cents. But it is 120 dollars book. Is it scam if I buy it? worried
textbook for school.
 
@Nasser Sounds very cheap
@Nasser I get the odd one online but usually have to pay a reasonable amount
 
You think it is scam?
 
@Nasser Old edition?
 
No. latest. please see
 
@Nasser I'd avoid, then: almost certainly not right
 
9:42 AM
I can buy it using paypal. I am worried if they do this to steal credit information or something?
 
@Nasser Not if it's a legit PayPal login
@Nasser I'd be very suspicious here: they can clearly charge more than they are asking
 
@JosephWright here is the same book at amazon. You see the price!
I'd love to buy it for 4 dollars. I need it for class. But worried it is scam
 
@Nasser I don't believe the price I'm afraid
 
but if I pay with paypal and it scam, I only lose $5 right? they can't steal credit card info from paypal.
 
@Nasser No, but make sure it's really PayPal and not a site mocked up to look like it
 
9:46 AM
@JosephWright wow, good point !
 
@Nasser there are two issues, it may be a scam and they try to steal from you, but even if not and they just take the stated money and give you the stated book, it may be a stolen copy, so it's a matter of ethics as much as anything. It's like buying goods cheap from "the back of a lorry" the question is do you ask where the goods came from.
 
@DavidCarlisle I'm surprised they are so cheap even if it's a knoc-off
 
@DavidCarlisle sometimes one can find good bargins online. I found books that sells at amazon for $100 for $20 elsewhere. but this one is way too cheap, and it says new also, that is why I am worried.
 
@Nasser yes true, but...
 
this is strange, the book says it is coming from ebay. But I went to ebay now and can't find it this cheap. wow, it is more expensive at ebay also!
I saw all at ebay, do not see the $4 one there.
half.com is now part of ebay
Here it is, found it at half.com, please see product.half.ebay.com/…
it says 75 cents there
I am worried this is all scam.
 
10:00 AM
@Nasser Don't buy it, then!
 
 
2 hours later…
12:17 PM
The last post was messaged 2 hours ago.
 
@PauloCereda Where have you been?
 
@egreg Half-dead in SP. Arrived 5AM today. :)
 
@PauloCereda Just in time for beginning work.
 
@egreg Pretty much. :)
@egreg: yesterday, after the event, we went to a pizzeria. A friend ordered a pizza called "Roman". What have the Roman pizzas ever done for us? :)
 
12:48 PM
@PauloCereda They gave us aqueducts... :^)
 
@StevenB.Segletes For a moment I read aqueducks. :)
 
I of course am presuming you were quoting M. Python. So I took up the script where you left it off.
 
@StevenB.Segletes :)
You are absolutely right. :)
 
yo'
1:15 PM
@PauloCereda LOL
 
@yo' Hi Tom! :)
 
yo'
@PauloCereda hi :)
 
@yo': Tom I think you asked me something yesterday, was it about Python?
 
yo'
@PauloCereda yep
but it's fine for now. I realized it's easier to go with python + tikz, at least for the time being :)
 
@yo' Oh. Sorry. :(
@yo' oh, I missed. Could you ask it again? :)
 
yo'
1:17 PM
@PauloCereda well, I was looking for reliable and easy drawing and keyboard/mouse event library. Think of a simple 2D game
 
@yo' Ah I see. Let me ask a friend of mine which is a Python evangelist. :) Hold on. :)
 
yo'
btw, good news: My supervisor got a keyboard for his 1.5-year-old son; we wants the boy to learn to play the piano one day :)
s/we/he/
 
@yo' Yay!
 
yo'
@PauloCereda it's so cool :) (well, my supervisor is a cool guy:D )
 
@yo' mine is too. :)
@yo': Tom, suggestions: PIL or pygame. :)
I know nothing about them, though. :( Maybe @percusse can expand.
 
yo'
1:27 PM
@PauloCereda ok, I've heard of pygame before, seems very popular. Thanks!
@PauloCereda :)
 
 
2 hours later…
3:32 PM
I just had an awful lot of fun using google translate trying to understand the matter of the linked picture/pdf. As it is obviously written for typewriter users, i don't recommend following the rules straight ahead for use with LaTeX and instead make it logically and look good. The recipient will thank you. — Johannes_B 13 secs ago
 
yo'
4:13 PM
@PauloCereda letter arrived! :))))))))))))))
 
4:40 PM
Some kind of duplicate, i am not a MikteX user, so i cannot say anything more on the topic.
8
Q: problems installing mathtools

ScoobySnacksThere have been a few questions regarding installing this package in the past, but they now seem to be out of date. I'm using MiKTeX 2.9 and TexMaker. When I try \usepackage{mathtools} in TexMaker it will try to install the package for me but will fail. I took the advice given in this thread: How...

11
Q: Windows Miktex can't find mathtools.sty

PThomasCSWhen I try to compile my paper I get the error: ! LaTeX Error: File `mathtools.sty' not found. Other packages are successfully found and automatically installed, but mathtools.sty is not. I just reinstalled windows 8.1 and Miktex 2.9 with TeXWorks Version 0.4.5. The paper compiles properly on m...

1
Q: How to install mathtools package?

athosI'm new to Latex so forgive me if the questions are dumb... I was trying to right left-top corner superscript, someone recommended mathtools package on this forum: Left and right subscript. So I downloaded mathtools.zip from CTAN, unzip it, there's an "mathtools.dtx". In the package there are d...

 
@Nasser Don't buy that book anyways. There are newer/more correct ones anyways.
@PauloCereda PIL is more popular but I have no idea about any of them unfortunately
 
@percusse that is required textbook for a class. Do you recommend better one?
 
@Nasser What kind of robotics?
 
@Nasser I guess if it's required you have little option, although I wonder what that actually means (we don't 'require' any texts, and those that are recommended are always in the library)
 
@percusse it is a class about learning about robotics dynamics in general. @JosephWright it is required, i.e. we need to have it, since HW"s and exams can come from material in this book.
 
4:56 PM
@Nasser That's sad to hear. Because it's really a brick and quite expensive.
Even Seth mentions once in a while that you might consider newer books.
 
@Nasser I don't see how exams can come from a book! (You need to know the learning outcomes to pass an exam, not the text of any particular book.)
 
@JosephWright For example; you are responsible from Q2 to Q30. It will be very similar to one of those
 
@percusse We're specifically not allowed to require any particular texts. Logic: if it's required as part of the course, we should provide it (in the same way we do chemicals, etc.). We are after all teaching topics, so should give in the lectures plus the library resources sufficient flexible information on the area.
 
@JosephWright our school library have only one copy of this book, and it is already taken out. so students are forced to buy expensive textbooks, if they want to follow the lectures and pass the course !
 
@Nasser Like I said, anything recommended for us is held in multiple copies (I've been told by our librarian she works on 1 copy per 10 students for a core text)
 
5:06 PM
@JosephWright , well, if the class has 30 students, I do not see how the library can buy 30 new books for each student, that will cost a lot of money for the univ. Sometimes, they have one reserved copy, but that is only for 2 hrs, and can only be used in the library. so it does not work, if I need to take it home and study from it.
 
@Nasser Like I said, we have a ratio of 1:10
 
@JosephWright We need an ebook deal. It's really ancient practice to require the library have multiple copies etc.
 
@Nasser So three copies for 30 students
@percusse Not really
 
@JosephWright but each student want one?
 
@percusse Class of 100 means 10 copies in the library, one reference-only, 2 or 3 on one week loan, rest on four week loan. Course takes 12 weeks: are you really saying students can't borrow and return in that time?
@Nasser Not all of the time
 
5:08 PM
@JosephWright Almost 100%.
They never return
 
@percusse Like I said, one reference only
@percusse Fines on 1-week loans are big if you don't get them back
@percusse As I also said, we don't require any one text, so for a core chemistry area over different books/editions we've got lots
 
@JosephWright Since two weeks before exam, you can forget about all copies. It doesn't matter how many. If you say that people should take it and xerox it and then pass it on yea maybe.
 
@percusse I'll be lucky if 50% of our first year buy the recommended core texts (total of about £150)
 
@JosephWright That's why nerdy ones are invited to parties prior to midterms and parties suddenly :P
 
@percusse I know what I see in the library: most of the time there is lots of choice
@percusse Not my experience :-)
 
5:13 PM
@JosephWright When I was in undergrad I never managed to get a single copy of mechanics of materials or mechanics of continua books. Never.
Hence I downloaded almost all ruthlessly.
 
@percusse Just before the exams is not the time to be reading books anyway
 
@JosephWright In an ideal world yes. In real world about 3-4 days are the optimistic estimate.
 
@percusse No, you miss my point. Just before the exams you should be reading your notes: they cover what's actually likely to come up. You read the books for interest early in the term.
 
@JosephWright I got that part. But what is also a very common practice is that the instructor makes people responsible from parts of the books that are very few in the libraries.
I know at least in US, NL, TR, GR
Then people go berserk mode and do all kinds of stuff such Xeroxing, copyright piracy etc.
Even scanning the book to PDF and having a 1GB book.
 
@percusse I can only comment on my experience: as long as the academics tell the library a book is 'core' they make sure they have a decent number of copies
@percusse Completely daft: no book will have everything as-expected by any one academic for e.g. exams
 
5:19 PM
@JosephWright If all the hypotheses are satisfied that is the way to go. I completely agree but the system never works that well. Instead they can cut a deal for an ebook and let people buy the cheaper option from the campus website.
 
@percusse I'm not saying you shouldn't expect to buy the core texts, but for chemistry for example we have three (organic, inorganic, physical), so over a degree we are talking <£200 total.
 
@JosephWright Sure. Mechanics of materials, mechanics of continua, robots, agricultural machines bla bla. It is really a fortune.
 
@percusse I very much doubt it
@percusse No general text covering first/second year in a single volume?
 
Third year reference text for almost all mechies.
 
@percusse We get all the general chemistry texts aimed at the US: they don't have enough in for the entire degree, but cover the first half happily for £50
 
5:23 PM
That's just one book
 
Another whopper for ME third year (at least in the US):
 
@PaulGessler Eek: For us the 'buy all three together' on amazon.co.uk/Organic-Chemistry-Jonathan-Clayden/dp/0199270295/… is the full set
 
5:40 PM
@JosephWright my experience is similar to yours, I don't think I needed any books as an undergraduate, a couple we could pick up as backup if needed, the lecture notes were supposed to cover everything you needed to know.
 
@DavidCarlisle :-)
@DavidCarlisle We got given the (then current) core set as a 'sweetner' for going to the uni. I went to, but I could have managed happily without them
 
 
1 hour later…
6:46 PM
There's SuperBowl tomorrow!
 
@PauloCereda Too late in the night for me. :(
 
@egreg Indeed, it's already late in the night for me, so it's even more late for you. :(
I'll make a sacrifice to watch... that... team... with... those... colours.... OK I'll watch because of Katy Perry. :)
 
7:09 PM
@PauloCereda you've been warned: theonion.com/articles/…
:-)
 
@PauloCereda haha :-D
 
@PaulGessler Go Cardinals!
 
@PauloCereda what about the Mighty Ducks?!
 
Does anyone here know a good way to make graphs that I can easily change the scaling and labels on the axes with?
 
7:16 PM
@PaulGessler oooooooh! I forgot about them!
 
@Anthony Plots, you mean?
 
Yeah, sorry.
 
@Anthony If so, pgfplots would be my recommendation
 
I haven't look at it too much, but how do I specify my the scaling on the axes?
 
@Anthony You can for example apply an expression to the axes: I do this routinely
 
7:17 PM
I'll look at the link you sent. I see you wrote it. lol
Thanks.
 
@Anthony :-)
 
What do you mean apply an expression? Is that in this link?
 
@Anthony Not sure (I'd have to re-read what I wrote). Do you have an example of what you want?
 
I just need to make a few plots for a physics class I'm taking- I can look right now what they are in particular, but I just want to make sure I know how to do something like that before I start trying to do it all. Maybe I should just use Excel... Let me look at what I need to do really quick.
 
@Anthony I do lots of plots with expressions as it avoids needing Excel
 
7:22 PM
Alright, for instance I have a problem where I measured input and output amplitudes as a function of frequency, and I need to plot their ratio using a log scale for frequency.
 
@Anthony If you can give me 10 min I'll pull up an example
 
It would be greatly appreciated.
 
7:33 PM
\documentclass{standalone}
\begin{filecontents*}{\jobname.txt}
a b c
1  2 2.0
2  4 2.5
3  6 3.0
4  8 3.5
5 10 4.0
\end{filecontents*}
\usepackage{pgfplots}
\begin{document}

\begin{tikzpicture}
  \begin{axis}
   \addplot[only marks]
     table[y expr = \thisrow{b}/\thisrow{c}] {\jobname.txt};
  \end{axis}
\end{tikzpicture}

\end{document}
@Anthony ^^^
 
@JosephWright - Looking at it, I'm a little confused, what does it change the scaling based on?
 
@Anthony You asked for an example using a ratio of two columns: I can add a scaling too
 
@JosephWright Did you calculate with different rows already? Such as summing up or getting the average? Had such a task here: Durchschnittswerte mit pgfplots Luckily the Openleaf compiler supports Perl within LaTeX
 
\documentclass{standalone}
\begin{filecontents*}{\jobname.txt}
a b c
1  2 2.0
2  4 2.5
3  6 3.0
4  8 3.5
5 10 4.0
\end{filecontents*}
\usepackage{pgfplots}
\begin{document}

\begin{tikzpicture}
  \begin{axis}
   \addplot[only marks]
     table[y expr = 100 * \thisrow{b}/\thisrow{c}] {\jobname.txt};
  \end{axis}
\end{tikzpicture}

\end{document}
@StefanKottwitz Can be done, but more tricky
@StefanKottwitz I have an example where I need some calcs and a regression, for which I read everything, do some work, write a second table and use it for plotting
 
@JosephWright Which feature or tool did the calcs?
 
7:41 PM
@StefanKottwitz That was all pgf-based maths
 
@JosephWright Very interesting, I'd like to see it at some time
 
@StefanKottwitz Needs a bit of a data: will mail
 
@JosephWright Great! Thanks!
 
8:17 PM
@JosephWright Oh I see what you mean
 
@yo' yaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaay!
 
@JosephWright Thank you!
 
@Anthony No problem
@StefanKottwitz Mail any use to you?
 
@JosephWright Sorry to bother you again, but is there a way to give it unevenly space x-values, like 10,20,50,100,200,500,1000... and plot this logarithmically? I suppose that I could manually take the log of each, and just use those as my x-values, but then how do I leave blank spots?
 
@Anthony pgfplots offers linear and log axes
 
8:29 PM
@Anthony what Joseph said, and for the first part, you can search for samples at in the manual IIRC
 
I'll look, thank you!
 
@Anthony ^^^
\documentclass{standalone}
\begin{filecontents*}{\jobname.txt}
a b c
1  2 2.0
2  4 2.5
5  6 3.0
10  8 3.5
20 10 4.0
\end{filecontents*}
\usepackage{pgfplots}
\begin{document}

\begin{tikzpicture}
  \begin{axis}[xmode = log]
   \addplot[only marks]
     table[y expr = 100 * \thisrow{b}/\thisrow{c}] {\jobname.txt};
  \end{axis}
\end{tikzpicture}

\end{document}
 
Thank you!!!
 
@Manuel Sometimes it happens that SE asks for a check; IP changes, for instance. It often happens to me when on the train, if I lose connectivity for some moments.
 
8:47 PM
@JosephWright Yes, it's interesting too see calculation saved and used, I just looked for something with pgfplotstable instead of using an external script for calculating data over several rows, such as summing up all rows with equal first value
 
9:02 PM
@egreg That's weird, I mostly connect from one place, only from my laptop. Yet TeX.SX has doubted about me two time in the last two months IIRC. Good to know, anyways.
 
@Manuel I had the same, only in the train, could be quick IP changes when roaming between GSM cells, perhaps your provider rewetted IPs
 
9:15 PM
@Manuel I saw no spam for several weeks, so a minor nuisance like having to type in a number a couple of times in a month doesn't seem too heavy.
 
@StefanKottwitz Okey. @egreg It was just like a “global call” to see if it was usual or just me. I don't have any problem, really. I found it kind of funny.
 
9:31 PM
Accepting @DavidCarlisle's answers today got me a palindrome (if you can accept the comma in the way of things :-))
 
@PaulGessler sorry they were not great answers really, If I had more time to think about that stuff perhaps we'd get xor out of cold storage, it worked quite well at one point but probably if we look again we'd redo a lot of it as the memory constraints are rather different
@PaulGessler soon be 10000, you may need a few downvotes though if you want to hit 10001
 
@DavidCarlisle I thought the first one was good, the second I was less enthused about, but I know this stuff is in flux. Based on the comments following I decided to accept.
@DavidCarlisle indeed; rep capped today though. But one picture mode solution tomorrow and I expect I'm golden! haha
 
@PaulGessler "flux" as in we worked quite hard on it 10 years ago but put it to one side for various reasons, mostly not connected with tex:-)
 
@DavidCarlisle I keep saying
 
@PaulGessler maybe you should have held off the green tick, and maybe one of the others would comment Joseph could (he has a different view as he joined later) or Frank but Frank's not on site so often these days
@JosephWright OK so plan is, get latex 2015 out before TL2015, then sort out inputenc in xe/lua tex then fix all undocumented features in longtable, then finish xor. It'll all be over by Christmas?
 
9:40 PM
@DavidCarlisle now the onus is on @JosephWright or Frank if they want to steal the tick from you :-)
 
@DavidCarlisle :-)
@PaulGessler One for Frank, definitely
 
@JosephWright but don't distract him, or we'll never make item one in the above plan
 
@DavidCarlisle Not about to
 
@JosephWright I seem to remember that Psmith decided you were going to finish xor? Or was it David who was chosen? ;-)
 
@PaulGessler Me
 
9:42 PM
:-)
 
@PaulGessler The LaTeX3 'assign to' process is quite simple!
@PaulGessler Probably right in the sense if it is to happen ...
 
@JosephWright well, whoever tackles it, I'm sure it will be well-done. I know this is a process that takes time, especially given that you're all volunteers.
 
@PaulGessler xor actually works at the moment, it's just a question of getting it 'finished'
 
@JosephWright (not intending to be snarky, legitimately asking) works meaning the same state as when I asked about grid typesetting some months ago? That is, implemented but not stable enough for use in real documents?
 
@PaulGessler Broadly
@PaulGessler xor can do grid setting, for example
 
9:52 PM
I'm only asking because I'm trying to stay abreast of that development, and wasn't sure if I'd missed something. The grid is something I'm really interested in trying out for myself.
@JosephWright ok, maybe I need to take a look at xo-grid again then. Thanks!
 
@egreg both made the same (amstex) comment, do you think we should edit the title to say amstex or does that alter the question too much?
 
@DavidCarlisle Well, the OP is wrong in his/her assumption
 
@egreg yes OP are usually wrong about things, but a "how do you process amstex documents" question/answer might be useful (if it's not a dup)
 
@DavidCarlisle Possibly. I don't recall having seen AMS-TeX recently.
 
Next time for Word vs TeX nonsense; I'll have this one
 
10:08 PM
@DavidCarlisle There's one question about running AMS-TeX on TeXworks.
 
@percusse nice! (skimmed to the conclusion but saw the mangled equation on the way; will read later)
 
@PaulGessler The equation turns out to be OK. It's the track changes chaos that every Word proponent puts on the table that is laid out properly.
Oh, and if you forget to enable Track changes, then your changes are completely lost. This is because Word tracks actual changes rather than comparing two versions like a sane version system like Git would do.
That's my favorite too
 
@egreg I just searched for amstex.tex and no good questions, why don't you answer the current one, I might even vote for you.
@egreg oh you did it already:-) voted..
 
@percusse People at my office don't know how to use Track Changes properly, so inevitably we get revisions of some old document inside a new document copied and edited for some different purpose. It's great. :-)
 
@DavidCarlisle While you wander, I work. :P
 
10:17 PM
@egreg It's just that you are so old you could remember what to do.
 
@DavidCarlisle I even read “The Joy of TeX”, featuring dr. Treemunch.
 
@egreg I read that once once too:-) and spent some time on the lamstex sources, did you ever use that?
 
@PaulGessler I think track in track changes is a noun.
 
@DavidCarlisle No. I wrote to the company asking for the manual, but received no answer.
@DavidCarlisle I was interested in the macros for commutative diagrams, but without any example or hint it was impossible to draw them.
 
@percusse sorry, I don't get you there... maybe I'm thinking too hard, lol
 
10:24 PM
@PaulGessler As in shit happens :)
 
@egreg yes I think we only had the sources as well (I think, it was a while ago:-)
 
I just discovered MetaPost.
I am never going to pass my midterm.
 
10:43 PM
@twirlobite that's good then, you'll get thrown out and have more time to study metapost?
 
@twirlobite Do you know that you can even integrate Metapost code in LaTeX?
 
Great, you scared the youngling....
 
11:16 PM
@DavidCarlisle ummmmmm
@egreg yeah...I have heard bits about that, but I don't really understand the process/workflow yet. Have to read the documentation properly. Mainly, I am interested in it because it will let me draw diagrams with more ease?
 
@twirlobite Better TikZ, generally.
 
currently, that's where I am stuck in my workflow: I write notes by hand, and then come back home to typeset them (and in the process, also review), but drawing the diagrams in TikZ has been a...mixed bag
@egreg Better to use TikZ, or Metapost is better than Tikz?
also, not sure why my chat username is different from my tex.SE username
 
@twirlobite TikZ is better.
@twirlobite Did you change your name?
 
@egreg yeah, long ago
@egreg TikZ is so annoying to use with having to draw curves using the default control-points/Bezier method...
 
@twirlobite Curious. I looked on Stack Overflow and there's not, but there's a general profile with the twirlobite name
@twirlobite Library hobby. But yes, for certain tasks Metapost is easier.
 
11:21 PM
@egreg here, i'll show you a recent diagram I drew up
yes! i came across the hobby library...
@egreg omg hobby is amazing
what am i doing with my life...
 
11:36 PM
:)
 
cfr
Is it possible to use an expl3 counter so that it works with \ref?
 
@PauloCereda guess what we are planning to eat tomorrow (hint: it's an anagram of kudc)
@cfr not sure what you mean but I assume the answer must be yes
 
@DavidCarlisle Oh no!
You mean. :)
@DavidCarlisle: leave the poor hwyaden alive. :)
 
@cfr Hmm, not really.
 
@PauloCereda that could prove difficult
 
11:48 PM
@DavidCarlisle Oh no, the duck has ceased to be!
I had a Roman pizza yesterday. :)
Whatever that means. :P
 
@egreg must be yes and not really presumably both mean, you've got to define \@currentlabel to the count value?
 
@cfr: Hi! :)
 

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