@AndrewStacey another happy user:-)

@PauloCereda: How can I write comments in my arara yaml files?

@DavidCarlisle Absolutely! MathML is the best thing since sliced TeX.

wow it seems like a hectic day in TeX.SX. I missed all the fun.

@JasperLoy that infamous question and chat too :)

If my blog login was not broken I'd write something general about voting. It will need to wait until I can get hold of Rebecca C., but she's off until May :-(

@JasperLoy And I would love to see that it stays like that

@JasperLoy My own is fine: ultimately I can always grab the raw DB if I have to. But my login for the community one is bust, and for some reason the 'reset password' e-mail is not working

@DavidCarlisle Over 6,000 pages with MathML and counting.

@JasperLoy Indeed but still there is no need for that unless the question really insults or completely off with some demand. For me no upvotes is a clear indication that the question lacks something. Because luckily we have a great moderation power and really bad questions are handled pretty fast. So(only in TeX.SX) downvotes are useless.

@JosephWright Do you want me to post it for you?

@AndrewStacey Feel free to write something: @PauloCereda's flow chart was pretty good

@JosephWright I have something that I'm working on that is related, but slightly from the other side. It sounded as though you already had something that you were trying to post but couldn't.

@AndrewStacey Just some thoughts, nothing written

@JosephWright I'm not convinced that I would be able to write that one well.

@AndrewStacey Drafting something as we speak :-)

Is writing \lambda_\text{mfp} bad form? Should I do \lambda_{\text{mfp}} ?

@Canageek Yes

If you load any math extensions, they may break with the former syntax. Only the latter is supported

@JosephWright Awwww, why would they redfine something from AMSMath?

@Canageek Nope, not \text, _ and ^!

@JosephWright ....aren't those core parts of TeX?

@Canageek You can make them math active and use them as functions. See for example breqn

There are good reasons for that

Also I think I will continue to be bad, as I'm already getting pains in my right hand from all they typing I'm doing.

@JosephWright Also, could you explain to people why not everyone uses LuaTeX or XeLaTeX?

@MarcoDaniel Hm good question! I think it's #

@Canageek It's a fair question, I suppose, but your reply is also sensible. There are a lot of places where only pdfTeX is available/realistic.

@JosephWright Ok, good, I wanted to be sure I wasn't just being stubborn.

@PauloCereda At the moment I am trying to install fedora. Ubuntu fails 4 times.

There needs to be !XeTeX and !LuaTeX tags

@MarcoDaniel o.0 So you go with a RPM based system. sigh I guess

@Canageek I try it out.

@MarcoDaniel Good luck. Remeber, if that isn't hard enough and you want more abuse there is always Gentoo

Slackware?

@Canageek Do you use Ubuntu

@MarcoDaniel are you trying the latest 11.04 with raid settings?

@AndrewStacey I love Slackware, sadly I can't use my current workflow.

That has been prone to errors, at least my co-workers have experienced it with 11.04 where no problems occured for 10.04.

@MarcoDaniel Not right now, but I have in past. I've also used OpenSUSE at work.

@zeroth No. My first try was 11.10 and after this I tried 12.04. I tried the boot options noplymouth and nomodeset and modeset.radeon=0. Everything failed. However Fedora in low graphics mode works.

@MarcoDaniel, ok, so no raid settings and ati graphics? Is it only the graphics that causes problems?

@MarcoDaniel Never tried with a RAID array. If you need help I hear LinuxQuestions.org is VERY helpful, founded when the founder got sick of seeing all even moderatly easy qustions answered with RTFM

@zeroth Yes

Is there a way of denoting the end of a subsection? So if I want to go on a digression and then return to a topic?

@MarcoDaniel have you tried blacklisting the ubuntu default graphics driver? Thus returning to the vesa driver or equivalent? Often it is a matter of incorrect setup in initial xorg.conf.

@zeroth How can I do this?

@MarcoDaniel, that is i expect Ubuntu default driver to use the more complicated flgxr (something like this, i cant exactly rememeber the name.. )

@MarcoDaniel A file called: /etc/modprobe.d/blacklist.conf exists in which you can place module names which is not needed.

However, you should first try to rename the driver in the xorg.conf file!

Only after you have tried that, can you turn to the blacklist method.

Or so would I recommend. :)

@zeroth I will try it.

@MarcoDaniel, good luck. Also a look in /var/log/Xorg.0.log often reveals if modifying xorg.conf could solve the problem.

@zeroth Thanks

@Canageek I wouldn't use a subsection for that purpose. If a section is divided into subsections, then so it be.

@egreg I'm back to typing out class notes, so I'll just make "Star collapse" Subsection "Neutronization" Newsection "Return to Star Collapse"

@JasperLoy I've had Ubuntu fail a number of times. Buy cheap, little used OEM hardware.

@Canageek If it's really a digression, then it could be in italics, with a run in title.

@JasperLoy Do you mean Fedora or Ubuntu? After I start Ubuntu installation disk (whether "try ubuntu" or "install ubuntu") I get a black screen. It seems that my monitor shut down.

@egreg I am not putting whole pages in italicts

@egreg Do you have a bitbucket account by any chance?

@JasperLoy This is a known problem of Ubuntu in combination with iMac and radeon. Eg askubuntu.com/questions/39562/radeon-module-boot-problems

@egreg This is what I'm working on bitbucket.org/brownml2/origion-of-the-elements/src/53f3547740e7/…

@Canageek So it's not a digression. :)

@egreg Well, it is a deviation from the main topic for a lecture or two.

@Canageek You may use a frame: \usepackage{mdframed}

@egreg I'll keep that in mind. I'm almost done (13 handwritten pages left) and the exam is Tuesday, I was just wondering if there was an easy way.

@JasperLoy Eh, if you want real pain just compile from source.

@Canageek What's the part in question?

@egreg Pretty much any section heding with (Part II) or that is a slight variation on an eariler one.

In this case I have the section on star formation, then subsection on heating vs cooling, then a subsub section on ionization of hydrogen gas, then I go back to the top level section of star formation

The "Ultraluminous Supernova" doesn't really seem a digression; why not putting it into a single paragraph at the end of the section?

@JasperLoy I tried it. At the moment I am trying to install the alternate-cd.

@egreg Point, but I want the index for when I'm studying

@Canageek Just don't number it: \setcounter{secnumdepth}{2}\setcounter{tocdepth}{100} and use \paragraph to get a run-in title.

@egreg Will consider it. Also: This is easily the longest latex document I've written at 1462 lines.

@Canageek May I say that it isn't the prettiest document I've seen? :)

@egreg It is ugly as sin, I'm aware, I'm not trying to pretty, I'm trying for useful. It already takes me about a day to type of each week of class notes.

Well, an afternoon

@egreg You should see what happens if you try and compile it with microtype on and all those \sfrac commands.

@AndrewStacey See e-mail

@egreg My best looking one is my thesis, by far. The only problem with it is some of the labels in my NMR figures were far to small to see properly when printed, but alaws, I didn't have the energy to remake all of them.

@Canageek In the first formula of Section 3 the \sfrac is simply wrong; use \tfrac if you don't want a big fraction.

@JasperLoy Nope, just avalible.

@egreg What is tfrac?

@JasperLoy mirror.ctan.org/macros/latex/contrib/microtype/microtype.pdf has an explanation of how it improves things, along with a very cool example where you can hit a button to enable various microtype features and see what they do.

@Canageek It's a command of amsmath; it builds a "textstyle" fraction. When you write "has units of 1/T" it should be exactly like this: has units of $1/T$. That kind of fractions is only good for recipe books. :)

Huh, will try it on my next forumla.

and all are defined with genfrac

@egreg 1/T is ugly as sin! \frac{1}{2} would be better. Also, 1/2 doesn't make it clear where the fraction ends and the next term begins.

@egreg I'm also mostly writing this since I have to think about each thing I type then, so I'll remeber it more on the exam (Tuesday). I'll probably never look at it again after that, and neither will anyone else.

@JosephWright no sign of it yet. I'll check again in the morning.

@AndrewStacey OK

@Canageek It's not so bad. But consecutive \[...\] should really be \begin{gather*}...\end{gather*}. Regarding $1/T$ it's simply how it's been written for decades.

@egreg Yeah, but when I'm studying \frac{1}{T} works so much better.

@egreg Also gather? Never heard of it. Also, that is one of those scary star functions.

hides from the astrixes

@JasperLoy No, star, asterisk. One of those scary functions with asterisks.

If you remove the * the equations are numbered.

@egreg What does that do differently?

That does look easier for long blocks.

@Canageek The spacing is better.

@egreg Really? Wish I'd known that ages ago. I've got stacks and stacks of formula in a row in half my documents. sad geek

@JasperLoy Nah, only if I look at them again

@egreg Man, this is way easier, as it saves me dozens of [ ] which are far slower to type!

@Canageek Read The Fine Manual. ;-)

@egreg The what?

@JasperLoy Ah, not quite fine, but sure.

@egreg Which manual? There are so many.

@egreg Huh, they are a lot more scruntched up with gather, is there a way to get it to leave a bit more space between the bottom descender and the next formlua?

@Canageek That's how they're supposed to be. Don't worry. texdoc amsmath is your friend.

@egreg Yeah, but when I'm studying and trying to pick one equation off the page?

WHY ON EARTH IS GATHER* WHITESPACE SENSATIVE? TEX SHOULD NOT BE WHITESPACE SENSATIVE

@Canageek Every math environment is "space insensitive", but it's not very clear what you mean.

@egreg Put a blank line in gather*, it fails

! Paragraph ended before \gather* was complete.

@Canageek \\[2ex]

@egreg But WHY? I can always add blank lines in TeX....

@Canageek You cannot have empty lines within gather, align, etc. for the amsmath environments.

@zeroth grumbls

@Canageek Spacing by hand is reserved to very special situations. Trust the standard spacing.

@Canageek, however you are allowed to write newlines by starting with %

@egreg I don't want it by hand, I just want it a bit larger. TeX crams things together too tightly, so my eyes can't easily pick things apart.

But only a milimetre or two

@Canageek The bigger problem are your lines which are too long.

@egreg o.o? Most are like, \kappa \propto \sqrt{R} \\

@Canageek But they disappear because of the long text lines.

@egreg What long text lines? What things dissapear? Just the vertical spacing is too large in the forumla section. The paragraphs are fine.

@Canageek Well, everybody is entitled to their ideas. :)

@egreg Yeah, yeah, I could change it from 2cm margines to 2.5 (1 inch) I guess

@egreg There, 2.54 cm margins on all sides: bitbucket.org/brownml2/origion-of-the-elements/src/358d18b38aa6/… doesn't help with page 38 at all

crud, how do I put a harpoon on something?

@egreg YAY TEXDOC AMSMATH. Man, I love this texdoc thing, no more searching through the list on the HTML file

No wait, that has both top and bottom

Back! :)

Short mass. :)