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8:00 AM
~, sweet ~
 
Morning, @Raphink
Or better: bonjour
 
Hallo
 
Given my inability to express myself coherently last night, I think I should say: "Good moaning". However, it might not be until Paulo arrives that anyone gets the reference.
 
Well there's fully history here
 
8:22 AM
@AndrewStacey I've seen so many episodes of that show that I should have remembered it, but it's been to long since the last time (had to search YouTube).
 
8:42 AM
@TorbjornT I, on the other hand, have seen very few (at least in their entirety) but certain aspects of it are embedded in my conciousness. Possibly due, in part, to the fact that certain parts of our media won't let us forget who our real enemies are. Cue quote from Yes, Prime Minister about our chief defence strategy being to thwart the French.
 
9:05 AM
@AndrewStacey 'allo 'allo! :-)
 
@PauloCereda: you're not sleeping?
 
@Raphink I woke up a few minutes ago. :-)
 
early
 
Indeed. :-)
 
@PauloCereda: No sorprese thare. (*mentally considers the ensuing conversation and decides not to continue in the same vein*) Take a look at my "answer" to Stefan's post on meta about the data explorer. Any suggestions you have on implementation or design would be gratefully received.
 
9:15 AM
To those looking to get the rep cap badges: judaism.sx has debates on whether it is even possible to get the fanatic badge given shabbat restrictions. You guys have an easy time. judaism.stackexchange.com/questions/7594/the-fanatic-badge
 
@BrunoLeFloch: is judaism.sx only for Jews?
 
@AndrewStacey Ah nice! I'll take a look. :-)
 
10:04 AM
Is anyone else having issues with the "Add comment" thing? Hitting "return" isn't working for me at the moment, and I find I have to press the "Add comment" button twice. I'm on FF7.0.1 on Linux, in case that's important.
(Also, I've just installed SCIM so that might be a factor.)
 
@Raphink Not in principle, just as christianity.sx is not restricted to Christians, but in practice, I think that most users are of the given faith (or rather, one of the denominations thereof).
@AndrewStacey I don't know, but it reminds me of a question on ux.sx ux.stackexchange.com/questions/11660/… (... yes, I've spent the past three hours browsing random questions on /.*\.sx/)
 
@BrunoLeFloch: that said, it's not really hard to get the fanatic badge if you really want it. Nothing prevents you from making a bot with your login cookie to visit the site every day.
 
@Raphink they thought about it. But it isn't that simple: isn't that cheating and lying to get a benefit (not in line with the Jewish faith, I'd guess)? Also, setting up a script to run specifically on Sabbath means means that you are trying to circumvent the commandment: there is precedent, with lights or heating turning on automatically upon entering rooms, but that pertains "essential" things. I'm not saying that getting a fanatic badge is unessential :).
 
10:22 AM
Heh
I for one am not a legalist
(not an israelite either, although I'm jewish)
 
@Raphink I just find it quite fun to see people getting lost in details (same with open/free licenses).
Sorry, got to go for a nap (read "I'm falling asleep").
 
10:51 AM
@JosephWright A user in the GuIT forum asked about "pH": what's the recommended way to use it?
 
11:03 AM
@egreg Written in the body font: it's a sort-of abbreviation (usually described as 'potenz hydrogen', but this can vary)
 
12:01 PM
@JosephWright So it's not exactly like a unit.
 
@egreg No. pH is unitless. It is the negative value of log 10 of an the equilibrium constant for proton formation. That equilibrium constant (Ka) is itself unitless.
You'd say 'Sulphuric acid has a pH of about -3'.
 
@JosephWright So it should be typeset in the current font?
 
@egreg Yup
No-one is really sure what the 'p' means :-)
 
@JosephWright I've taken the liberty of reporting the conversation in the forum
 
@egreg Fine
 
12:58 PM
@egreg pH isn't the unit but the name, isn't it.
It is "Pure water has a pH value of 7." not "Pure water has 7 pH."
 
yes
you'd write pH = 7
so it's the variable, not its unit
like pH_{H_2O} = 7
 
@Raphink Exactly. That is what I meant.
 
yes
 
The question is: how to format it then? Normally variables are italic, but $pH$ would logically be the same as $p\cdot H$, i.e. p multiplied by H.
So, maybe \mathrm{pH} ?
 
Yes, I tried that, but it looks a bit funny.
like @egreg and @JosephWright said, it should be typeset in the text's roman font
maybe it's just the kerning that I find a bit too large
 
1:03 PM
@Raphink Oh, yes, in the normal text of course. I was just thinking about math mode. However, it doesn't really appear there, does it?
This reminds me on 'dB', which isn't an unit either.
 
dB is quite different though, as it is used as a unit
a bit like %
while pH is merely a convention for a variable name, like \mu in a way
(correct me if I'm wrong on this)
 
Yeah, but both % and dB are only pseudo-units then.
 
they're non dimensional units
 
@Raphink No, you are right.
@Raphink % = 0.01, so just a factor
 
yes
just like dB, only the factor calculation for dB is a bit more complex ;-)
 
1:06 PM
@Raphink Indeed.
 
(factor in the large sense obviously, dB is not really a multiplication factor)
I got angry at Rabbit from Winnie the Pooh for that ;-)
as after counting 7 carrots, then 10 potatoes
he told Roo that you could also count things that were not the same
and he went on to count all kinds of veggies altogether
but heh, veggies are the same if you consider the veggies set
so Rabbit is lying to the poor children learning to count, telling them you can mix units in an addition, when in reality he switched sets for the needs of his counting example ;-)
now I'm wondering how to explain that to my 2 year-old daughter without confusing her even more ;-)
that you cannot add carrots and potatoes, but you can still count them together if you consider them as veggies :-)
and see @MartinScharrer, that's the weird thing with pseudo-units like %
people expect that x + n% = x * (1+n/100). No real unit would behave this way ;-)
 
@Raphink :-)
 
@MartinScharrer If you use it as a variable, I'd say \mathit{pH}.
@Raphink dB is an SI unit.
 
@egreg I was thinking about that.
 
@egreg: I didn't say it's not a unit, I said it's a dimensionless unit
(I said non-dimensional actually)
 
1:22 PM
How come I just got notified of a comment flag in a chat-room on an SE site that I've never (to my knowledge) visited?
 
@AndrewStacey: I've been notified about chat-rooms I've never visited, too, in the past.
 
@egreg Really, I don't think so. It isn't a unit, it is the logarithm of a ratio. A ratio is unit-less.
[[Image:SI Brochure Cover.jpg|frame|right|Cover of brochure [http://www.bipm.org/en/publications/brochure/ The International System of Units]]] The International System of Units (abbreviated SI from ) is the modern form of the metric system and is generally a system of units of measurement devised around seven base units and the convenience of the number ten. The older metric system included several groups of units. The SI was established in 1960, based on the metre-kilogram-second system, rather than the centimetre-gram-second system, which, in turn, had a few variants. The SI is declare...
 
@Raphink I talked about this in my last lecture to future elementary teachers and I will expand the topic during the course: it's abstraction.
 
Doesn't include decibel.
 
@egreg: Abstraction is a great subject for sure.
 
1:24 PM
@AndrewStacey You have a general chat room account, but it is still strange.
 
@MartinScharrer Yes, the bel is not in the SI, but there's debate about it; the current similar unit is the neper. See bipm.org/utils/common/pdf/CCU15.pdf for reference.
Actually the neper isn't an SI unit either. See Table 8 in bipm.org/utils/common/pdf/si_brochure_8_en.pdf
But both the bel and the neper can be used and given SI prefixes.
 
2:18 PM
@egreg This does get a mention in the siunitx manual. The only 'non-unit' I support (i.e. one that is not in a BIPM table) is %, for reasons of realism :-)
@MartinScharrer Ah, be careful. Radians have units base units 1!
So being unitless does not prevent units!
 
@JosephWright AFAIK, Radian and Degree are not an units as well, but factors: 1degr = 1/360, etc.
 
@Raphink It's the key for approaching the study of the real world with mathematics. Returning to the ground, I find it wrong to teach "you can't sum apple and oranges", because addition is performed on numbers, not on objects.
 
Which makes them pseudo-units, which is also the reason they aren't part of SI.
 
@MartinScharrer I'd prefer to say that 1 degree is π/180 or 2π/360.
 
@MartinScharrer No, they are 'Table 3' units: bipm.org/en/si/si_brochure/chapter2/2-2/table3.html
 
2:25 PM
This was migrated from StackOverflow, but the OP had also posted the same question here. Close this one?
1
Q: Set fonts in graphs equal to tex document

ruben baetensI am writing my phd in LaTeX and i am generating all my graphical content in Python with the matplotlibpackage. For my TeX document, i am using a math-supported font -- e.g. Kurier Light Condensed -- and i would like to use the same font in my plots. What is the easiest way to use the same font...

 
I did read all of this stuff to get siunitx right
@TorbjornT Yup, vote to close
 
@egreg I meant 1/360 of the full cycle, where the full cycle is of course 2pi, so yes, 1degr = pi/180.
 
@JosephWright Yep, I've done so.
 
"(b) The radian and steradian are special names for the number one ..."
In other words: "pseudo-units" !!! :-)
But from the formatting perspective they are of course units.
 
@egreg To me, apples and oranges are units, so it's wrong to sum them. But it's fine to sum them if you consider that they're both part of a bigger set, namely fruits.
 
2:28 PM
@MartinScharrer The tables are clear that they are part of the current SI
 
@Raphink I remember now when "Mol" got introduced in chemistry: 1 Mol + 1 Mol = 1 Mol !?
 
errr
 
@JosephWright Ok, point taken. I actually meant part of the base units.
@Raphink It confused me at first, but is actually simple: If you have 1000 apples + 1000 oranges and combine them one by one you have 1000 apple-orange fruit salads.
 
sure
but you changed the unit in the meanwhile
the = is not really true, mathematically
because there's a change that happened in the middle, which is a chemical reaction
 
The "unit" is the number of elements, so 1.
 
2:33 PM
well say
2 Mol of H2 + 1 Mol of 02 = 2 Mol of H2O
That's fine, but the unit is not the same on both sides really. It's not the same thing you're counting on both sides of the equal sign.
 
Seems to me as if you're all a few bananas short of a fruit salad ...
 
@Raphink No, they aren't really units.
 
@MartinScharrer This is a perfect example of how to misuse math symbols. :) Put simply, the relation with moles in chemical reactions cannot be modeled with addition.
@Raphink It's not an addition, see my message above.
 
3:06 PM
@Raphink @Bruno No. The pprimary target audience is observant Jews (akin to "enthusiastic users of TeX, etc."), and also "anyone interested in learning more," and, of course, like any other SE, it's open to the public. In practice, most of our contributors are Sabbath-observant. Personally, I don't care at all about the Fanatic badge and wish people would concentrate on more important issues.
 
@IsaacMoses I must confess to being curious as to how you tracked down this discussion! But that's not really important. I took a quick scan through some questions at your site, as I would class myself as "someone interested in learning more" (both as an aid to understanding my own faith more and as having spent some delightful times as a sort-of guest of a Jewish community), but have to admit that I came away wanting a glossary! I think I now appreciate more what newcomers to TeX think ...
... when we start going on about \expandafter and "primitives" and the difference between \def and \edef!
 
@AndrewStacey I monitor this search. Yeah, we have a serious accessibility issue due to terminology. It's compounded by the fact that there's no standard Hebrew->English transliteration scheme, so it's not always easy to just search for a term.
... unlike in TeX or any other technical SE, where the underlying literature tends to be in (heavily jargonized) English, and most unfamiliar terms have clear, canonical spellings (often because they're from formalized constructed languages).
 
3:42 PM
@IsaacMoses Reading those, I think that my conclusion is "this isn't the site I'm looking for" (to be clear, I'm not really looking for a site on Judaism, I was merely keeping as close to the misquote as I could). But that's not a criticism. I'm fully in favour of lots of "expert" sites and very few "general purpose" ones. From a casual glance, I'd rate your site higher than, say, maths-SX and put it up with MathOverflow in its scope. For myself, I'll just have to find a good book to read!
Meanwhile, I'll cheer from the sidelines and wish you and your site well.
PS I wouldn't worry about the attention that the fanatic badge gets. Yes, if all your questions end up like that then you should worry, but one or two slightly silly ones are okay - take a look at our most popular questions!
 
@AndrewStacey Unlike MathOverflow, though, we definitely welcome basic questions! Even if you have trouble understanding some of the content, if there's something about Judaism you're curious about, please do feel free to ask, and you're likely to get at least one interesting, well-sourced answer that you can understand. ...
 
@PauloCereda Doh!
 
... People tend to be pretty good at picking up on the level of expertise of the asker and tailoring the level of jargon in their answers accordingly.
@AndrewStacey Thanks!
@AndrewStacey Yeah, I know it's not a big deal. Most of our questions on Meta are indeed more consequential.
 
4:03 PM
Andrew Stacey: "the most famous cobordism is, perhaps, the “pair of pants” (it was named by an American … I hope)"
 
@Andrew: Fantastic TQFT logo!
(It kinda reminds me of Batman)
 
4:26 PM
@egreg On the kerning and font switching question, I was playing around with xspace to see whether you could use it to insert the kern, but as you said in your comment, each character needs a different kern. How does TeX figure out the kern for a particular character pair?
 
@AlanMunn TeX has a table in the TFM file for that
... "manually" set by the font designer
 
@Patrick So is there a way for a package to tap into that info?
 
No. You can't read or write the info
You have to create a different (perhaps virtual) font to do that
 
A warning to people using TeXMaker, and possibly TeXStudio: It doesn't spellcheck things inside of arguments, like say, footnotes.
 
@Patrick So any solution would have to use either a specially built table or a compromise value.
 
4:32 PM
@AlanMunn Yes. (As far as I know, but I am 99.9% sure)
... I was thinking about this setup:
8
Q: Grouping with {} inhibits kerning across group boundaries

WyzardI'd like to write a word in bold followed by a comma and a non-bold word, like this: \textbf{why}, blah If I just write why, TeX inserts a kern to shift the comma a little closer to the "y". But when I write {why}, (even without the \textbf), TeX doesn't insert the kern; apparently kerning do...

right?
 
@Patrick Yes. I think I'll post my xspace solution just for fun. For the couple of places that it makes a difference, it probably just makes sense to manually add a kern.
 
@AlanMunn Please do so! If it is good, you get an upvote from me :-)))
(goota go)
 
5:09 PM
@AlanMunn The problem is that you always add a kern, even when it's not needed (or is even bad).
 
5:33 PM
@egreg Only for the comma, and yes, that's why the value has to be a compromise. I'm not recommending the solution, as I hope i made clear in the answer.
 
6:11 PM
@AlanMunn The result with an m is really bad, I believe. I've added another "manual" solution.
 
6:31 PM
keming the frog!
oh wait...
 
6:46 PM
Ok, how is this for strange: Adobe doesn't copy Greek characters put in with math-mode, but WILL copy Å put in via siunitx just fine. Stupid adobe.
 
7:07 PM
@Canageek It's normally picked up from a text font
 
7:18 PM
@PauloCereda That's Kennit, the frog that misinterpreted a keming.
 
7:36 PM
@egreg Oh my bad. ;-)
 
The bodegraph package seems to miss-configured by default. It needs a gnuplot/\jobname/ directory by default, which isn't there of course: tex.stackexchange.com/questions/31150/bodegraph-on-ubuntu-10-04
 
7:56 PM
@MartinScharrer It's in line 38. I suppose the author wanted not to fill the working directory with .table and .gnuplot files. And he states on p. 5 of the documentation what must be done for avoiding the problem. But it's not very clear that such a subdirectory is necessary to begin with.
 
@egreg Thanks, I just used \tracingall and egrep to find a possible fix. I will mention your comment to the OP of that question.
 
You used @egreg to find a possible fix? Ah, egrep.
 
@Patrick I actually called egreg, 'egrep' twice at the beginning :-)
 
@MartinScharrer I looked for gnuplot/ in bodegraph.sty: less $(kpsewhich <name>) is my inseparable friend.
 
@egreg seems to be a handy tool :)
 
8:06 PM
@Patrick I'm better than egrep, of course. :)
3
 
egrep won't hit the daily rep cap so often, i suppose
 
egrep is the extened grep (*g*lobal *r*egular *e*pression *p*rint), which was actually once an ed command.
 
@egreg at least you're faster then egrep
 
Maybe I program my own version of egrep: It will then be called MS egrep :-)
 
I'll write an extended *g*lobal *r*egular *e*pression *g*uesser :)
 
8:09 PM
@egreg I have kpseless aliased to less $(kpsewhich $*) for just this purpose. Also, I have kpsegrep, kpsecd, and kpsevi.
 
That's what I have:
$ type kless
kless is a function
kless ()
{
less `kpsewhich $1 || echo $1`
}
 
@AndrewStacey I have an lgrep alias to grep the latex.ltex file :)
 
@AndrewStacey I always think "I've to define my aliases" and never program them.
 
@egreg Yeah, same here.
almost
BTW: 132/150, 18 days to go
 
@MartinScharrer 99/150
 
8:13 PM
@MartinScharrer @egreg do you stop once you've got it?
 
We'll do a big celebration for you. I'm thinking to a surprise party. Oops. :)
 
Or do you strive for the (virtual) 300
 
@Patrick Oh, no! It's big fun to be here!
 
@Patrick To get the Platinum badge 'Demigod'?
5
 
your account image will be in gold then
or platinum
 
8:16 PM
@Patrick There's the famous guy on StackOverflow that earns 100000+ rep a year. We're amateurs.
 
@egreg Yeah, John Skeet, but there are a lot more people which vote on StackOverflow and a lot more questions to answer. So you can't compare it.
 
@egreg Bigger audience, more votes
@MartinScharrer I wonder if he does anything except answer questions
 
OK, amateurs, good night :)
(then I ask myself what I am, a tiny fly on the window not worth looking into anything with a backslash?)
 
@Patrick Why? You can always compare to Paulo. :)
 
With my soon-to-get tex.se t-shirt I can hang out with you guys :)
 
8:34 PM
@PauloCereda I was just talking about you. :)
 
@egreg Oh. :-)
I'm surprised that I actually know how to tie the laces of my sneakers. :-P
Oh I'm not worthy of hanging out with you all, for I am a shirtless poor soul.
(dramatic song playing in the background)
Yay, I won a good answer badge! (clears throat) in meta (clears throat) for my drawing.
 
@PauloCereda No dramatic song! It's the first horn concerto by Mozart.
 
8:50 PM
@egreg Great choice! :-)
 
@PauloCereda Well, the next piece will be Debussy's Clair de lune. :(
 
@egreg Ah that piece brings me good memories of Victor Borge. :-)
 
@PauloCereda But did he refer to Debussy or Beethoven?
 
@egreg I think it is Debussy. :-)
 
@PauloCereda Beethoven's Mondschein Sonate is waaaaay better.
 
8:56 PM
@egreg ah no doubt! :-) I played it in a recital at the conservatoire, long time ago.
@egreg: it was very good to see Leonid Hambro playing with Victor Borge one of my favorite melodies, Waltz in D flat major op 64 n1 from Chopin (the minute waltz). It's very funny to see them playing different parts of the song at the same time, since the melody is quite symetrical. youtube.com/watch?v=gWrqtJTEmBk
 
9:10 PM
@PauloCereda Very nice indeed!
 
:-)
wow, math.sx has a tag.
 
@PauloCereda We don't have that problem :-)
'My teacher asked me to explain how \futurelet works'
'My dog ate the delimited argument'
4
 
@JosephWright LOL!
 
@JosephWright lucky you guys
 
@DavidZaslavsky indeed! ;-)
Someday, we'll end up with a tag. :-P
2
 
9:23 PM
lol
April Fool's joke perhaps?
 
Good idea! :-)
 
 
1 hour later…
10:28 PM
@PauloCereda I surfed for a while around YouTube looking at Victor Borge sketches: very funny.
 
@egreg ah he was a genius. :) I have some of his shows on DVD. He was a master on improvisation. I love his faces on this one: youtube.com/watch?v=tvUbrbFdJ8g
 

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