TeX, LaTeX and Friends

4:07 AM

A number of questions about South Asian languages just got bumped back on the homepage, and discussion in the comments left me unsure how to handle them. So I posted a question on meta for discussion. Would appreciate your responses.

Skillmon

6:45 AM

Does anybody have an idea why tex.stackexchange.com/a/498884/117050 might have been downvoted? Is the code bad for some reason I don't see?

Skillmon

7:06 AM

Interestingly, Bernard's answer was downvoted once, too.

David Carlisle

@Skillmon i had weird downvote yesterday as well (different question) see marmot's earlier comment in the starred list:-)

marmot

@DavidCarlisle Are you implying you got downvoted by a duck? (\duck[queencrown=olive]) ;-)

David Carlisle

7:34 AM

@marmot no unrelated, this one tex.stackexchange.com/a/474763/1090

marmot

7:51 AM

@DavidCarlisle Well, all I can tell you is that I see this:

Since I am not at all good at hacking html this means that I must have up- and not downvoted this. ;-)

David Carlisle

@marmot perhaps you accidentally caught the wrong button and meant to downvote:-)

marmot

@DavidCarlisle But yes, there are certain users who have a temperament that are very reminiscent of certain contemporary presidents.

@DavidCarlisle I seem to constantly confusing them:

David Carlisle

@marmot 12 down same as me

marmot

@DavidCarlisle Yes, however I seem to be more efficient in finding the other button. is it claws vs. hands?

David Carlisle

@marmot marmots have smaller brains and are more easily impressed?

marmot

8:02 AM

@DavidCarlisle No no no it does not work that way. Recall that the answer to question ratio is much higher for marmots as opposed to humans on average.

David Carlisle

@marmot sorry I got an arithmetic error, can't answer that

marmot

8:16 AM

@DavidCarlisle I get (# of answers by humans) / (# of questions by humans) << (# of answers by marmots) / (@ of questions by marmots). BTW, ducks and koalas also do better than humans. ;-)

marmot

8:43 AM

@Marijn This is certainly not the first rally of this type, another recent example is here. But there had been many examples before where even the answer that did not address the issue of the question got accepted. I guess we have to live with it.

Faheem Mitha

10:04 AM

@marmot Do you use TikZ for your own work? To draw diagrams and stuff.

marmot

@FaheemMitha Yes, I do. Not for everything, though.

Faheem Mitha

@marmot It's certainly very handy. And vector graphics are nice. Scalable.

marmot

@FaheemMitha The thing I probably use most in presentations is a slightly modified version of this great answer by Kpym. It really helps explaining things and can be made cooperate very nicely with \tikzmarknode by LoopSpace.

Faheem Mitha

@marmot Ah. But I would expect you to use it mostly for scientific figures/diagrams. Like Feynman diagrams, etc.

marmot

@FaheemMitha No, Feyman diagrams are IMHO still nicest when drawn with MetaPost. (But if I were ever to write a package/library, then this would be for Feynman diagrams. tikz-feynman is great, but IMHO there is still room for improvement.)

Faheem Mitha

10:12 AM

@marmot I see.

marmot

@FaheemMitha It is also to some extent arXiv's fault of not allowing lualatex, but IMHO the graph drawing routines employed by tikz-feynman are not optimal (but I am not saying I could do better).

Faheem Mitha

@marmot Would LuaTeX help, then?

marmot

@FaheemMitha It can, yes, because it can use graph drawing algorithms that are not implemented in LaTeX, and perhaps never will because they are too complex.

Faheem Mitha

@marmot I see. Do you use LuaTeX yourself?

marmot

@FaheemMitha Not really because I ultimately know I will have to submit it to the arXiv. I could for lecture notes but since these are partly copied from papers I don't.

Faheem Mitha

10:17 AM

@marmot Ok. I've been using it for a little while. It makes things possible that are impossible in TeX.

Does arXiv insist on building everything?

marmot

@FaheemMitha Yes, definitely. And in principle you can externalize the graphics and then upload only the resulting pdfs of those on arXiv. And no, arXiv in principle allows you to upload pdf but I respect them a lot and really like what they are doing so I try to make life as easy as possible for them. This includes adding the arXiv keys to references for better and faster processing.

Faheem Mitha

@marmot Oh, rebuilding everything from source is certainly a very desirable thing to do. And making the source available, of course. That's what any sensible project would do. But I don't understand why they don't accept LuaTeX.

marmot

@FaheemMitha I think these are security questions (but I am not sure). I could imagine that it is harder to prevent users from being able to upload malicious things if they can execute lua scripts. The picture on p. 14 of these slides show the person running the arXiv in a related environment.

Faheem Mitha

@marmot That's a good point, though it's always possible to sandbox things.

marmot

@FaheemMitha As I said, I am not an expert but this may be the reason:

Faheem Mitha

10:27 AM

Right now, it looks like LuaTeX is the future, so I suppose they will eventually get there.

I was reading the history - it looks like there were quite a few failed projects along the way.

marmot

@FaheemMitha I guess you need to convince ^^^^ Paul Ginsparg.

Skillmon

@DavidCarlisle I'm at 19 down. But I'm not a good up voter, myself, only 870.

marmot

@Skillmon Unlike @DavidCarlisle and myself you stopped at a prime number for the downvotes. Good choice!

Skillmon

@DavidCarlisle and Phelype was downvoted, too. Seems really suspicious.

marmot

11:35 AM

@UlrikeFischer Are the magische Wesen paying you well? They should, because without any doubt they can convert lead to gold.

egreg

12:47 PM

@Skillmon I have 117, essentially from downvoting spam. I downvoted a few questions, too.

Ulysses

1:26 PM

Hi everyone. :) Just popping in to let you all know that my TeX Mandalas contest is finishing soon (July 12th), and if you haven't already done so it would be wonderful if you could drop by and upvote your favourite answers to help me pick a winner. Maybe even create an answer of your own just for fun? I've added a small bounty, which will be one of the prizes offered. Thanks in advance for anything you can do. :)
https://tex.stackexchange.com/questions/496414/tex-art-fun-mandalas

2

marmot

1:42 PM

@egreg 117 is not a prime number.

egreg

@marmot Uh, I need ten questions of yours to downvote.

Davislor

If you find thirteen, we’ll downvote each nine times!

marmot

@egreg Or modify mathematics?

marmot

2:10 PM

@Davislor Can you downvote one post 9 times?

Harald Hanche-Olsen

@marmot Given eight sock puppets, yes. But sock puppets are frowned upon by the powers, and for good reason.

marmot

@HaraldHanche-Olsen Sock puppets can modify mathematics? ;-) (Ironically, when you pinged me I was reading this... ;-)

Harald Hanche-Olsen

Sockpuppet (Internet)

A sockpuppet is an online identity used for purposes of deception. The term, a reference to the manipulation of a simple hand puppet made from a sock, originally referred to a false identity assumed by a member of an Internet community who spoke to, or about, themselves while pretending to be another person.The term now includes other misleading uses of online identities, such as those created to praise, defend or support a person or organization, to manipulate public opinion, or to circumvent a suspension or ban from a website. A significant difference between the use of a pseudonym and the creation...

@marmot They don't modify mathematics, they circumvent it.

Davislor

2:40 PM

@marmot For some individuals, we’d find volunteers! (But you’re great.)

marmot

@Davislor Thanks! (I do not think I'm "great" ... and voting is really strange. I am trying to upvote those posts that are nontrivial, at the moment there are two follow-up answers to this great answer, one by me, which are trivial modifications but got as many votes as the original breakthrough post... this would be a problem if votes were not meaningless).

Faheem Mitha

3:18 PM

Nobody told me there was a "Four Weddings and Funeral" (short) sequel.

marmot

3:59 PM

@FaheemMitha Let me guess: it is called "Four divorces and another funeral"?

Faheem Mitha

4:26 PM

@marmot No. Clearly you didn't bother with a search.

It's one of those Red Nose Day things.

I'm guessing you aren't English.

Richard Curtis was a co-founder, so...

marmot

4:59 PM

@FaheemMitha Bingo. I didn't see "Four Weddings and Funeral" either. (Not a fan of such movies.)

Phelype Oleinik

@Skillmon Oh, I stopped trying to understand voting behaviour long ago. It simply can't be understood.

@Skillmon It was an overrated answer anyway :-)

Faheem Mitha

@marmot Such movies? British movies? Comedy Movies? Hugh Grant?

marmot

@FaheemMitha Well, it is the topic. There are definitely good (IMHO) British movies, even Comedies, I liked Monty Python in the old days (at that time they did something new). I am not excited about repetition. (Of course these are not exact repetitions, but there is a class of movies which are very predictable.)

Faheem Mitha

5:15 PM

@marmot You'd probably hate US media, then. It's all about repetition.

Well, not everything. But much of it. Particularly those procedurals.

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