@PauloCereda <3

@cfr <3

@cfr I will soon print this on a tee. :)

@PauloCereda Don't offer one to @DavidCarlisle - he doesn't like it :(.

@cfr David is very mean! :)

@PauloCereda The circular version has better spacing, but one of his other objections is that we have too many ducks. I don't really understand that one, though.

@cfr Nonsense, there will be never enough ducks. :)

@cfr ooh he meant @egreg as the green square. :)

@PauloCereda Isn't the duck your code, by the way? It isn't mine.

@cfr Yep. :)

@PauloCereda Not a very accurate description.

@PauloCereda I have an attribution in the source, I think. But this just uses the result. I wish that TeX SE handled transparent PNGs properly. Then I could use the circle.

@PauloCereda It's a nice duck ;).

@cfr Thanks. <3 It's from my famous cute document answer. :)

@cfr: I once tried to make an object going in the orbit of the duck, but I got it wrong:

@egreg: I should've posted this ad:

:)

@cfr: vvv

@PauloCereda It looks like something MC Escher might have drawn ?

@cfr ooh

@PauloCereda how do paths to binaries work in arara

Matlab is on my local path (set in .bashrc), but I cannot get arara to find it

@StrongBad Good question. It's been a while, but IIRC it relies on the system's path. Maybe you could use the full binary path instead of just the binary name.

@PauloCereda the path varies from system to system and (potentially even) user to user.

@StrongBad Oh you are thinking of a more generic rule to be distributed to users?

@PauloCereda yeah, I would like people in my lab to be able to use the rule.

Some machines have MATLAB installed in the home directory of a user and others in /opt (other still probably /usr/local)

@StrongBad I will think of something, I promise to talk to you tomorrow. :) I need some rest now. :)

@PauloCereda it looks like I just need to export my path. Now just need to get my editor to do that.

@StrongBad A possible way is to add the full thingy in the shortcut, like PATH=$PATH:/path/to/matlab myeditor

Good night, friends!

Honestly, i hate latex. It's so inefficient. Why in the world would i want to type something like \dfrac{1}{2} if I could just type 1/2?

Am I really the only one who thinks this?

@notorious You are using a free tool. If you think you work inefficiently wth it, you are free to use another tool ;-)

@notorious You can type 1/2, but that gives a different result of course. And you want to be able to distinguish between the two outputs.

@TorbjørnT. I'm not sure what you mean by that. I just started to learn it.

@notorious See above, left is $1/2$, right $\frac{1}{2}$

Sometimes you want the first, sometimes the second.

If you want to add a space, you have to do \: all the time? Am I doing that right?

@notorious It's not often that you want to add space, is there? There are also different size spaces, \,, \:, \quad and \qquad.

It seems like I always have to add space after units. Maybe I'm doing all of this wrong sigh

@notorious For writing units, I'd recommend the package siunitx. Add \usepackage{siunitx} to the preamble, then do e.g. \SI{10}{\m\per\s}. See the manual for a complete list of units.

Thanks I'll try it

@egreg I found another case, similar to tex.stackexchange.com/questions/310625/… but where your fix does not resolve the issue. The case I found is similar, but it uses listing package, where if I remove one or 2 lines, the problem goes away. Should I ask new question on this? I am not sure what to do now.

@notorious yes

@notorious $\dfrac$ inline is insane. And for $1/2$, consider for instance $1/2(x+y^2)$ vs. $\frac{1}{2}(x+y^2)$

@yo' To be fair, @notorious didn't say anything about inline math. (I agree with you though.)

@Nasser With listings there are more characters made active. I guess the problem is the same and it's just a matter of finding the culprit

@egreg I see. Should I make new question then? It took me 2 hrs to find this and make the smallest MWE to show it. I used your fix there, but it had no effect. Only fix was to either remove few lines, or change the section title and remove $ from it. These fixed it. I thought to ask first. if I change the current question, it will get confusing since it is accepted anyway.

but I do not get tex capacity exeeded this time. all what I get is a very strange error about missing $ inside the actual listing code!

Overfull \hbox (81.3565pt too wide) in paragraph at lines 87--88
[][][][][][][][]

Overfull \hbox (19.11086pt too wide) in paragraph at lines 96--96
[]  \T1/cmtt/m/n/10.95 (1.255589621432896*(0.9999999999999996*Cos[0.28379410920
83292*t]*[]
! Missing $ inserted.
<inserted text>
                $
l.104 Filling-
              >Axis,

The above is coming from inside the listing itself.

So I am not sure it is the same problem, but it feels like it.

@Nasser Probably an instance of the same issue. I can't guess, my crystal ball is foggy.

@egreg I am just asking if I should post separate question, since your fix for the first one is not resolving the issue with this one or if you think I should post the new case in the same original question below the first example? I am not sure myself if it is same or not since I do not get tex capacity exceeded this time.

@Nasser New question with MWE

Morning all: I guess like me @DavidCarlisle is not at work

@JosephWright true (but in a bit I won't be here either:-)

@DavidCarlisle Oh, sure

@DavidCarlisle Hoping to go out myself, though currently weather not looking great

@JosephWright M1 for me, I'll wave as I pass Northampton (I guess you are there?);-)

'Change your text'

@DavidCarlisle :-)

@DavidCarlisle Yes, at 'home'

@DavidCarlisle Expect mail later re. LuaTeX

@DavidCarlisle Remember to stay on the wrong side of the road.

@egreg it's tricky to get on the wrong side of the M1 since there is a big (new) concrete wall, some people manage it of course.

@Nasser As I commented, don't expect a solution. Sorry, but it could require hours and I have better things to do than digging into listings.

@DavidCarlisle One for you? tex.stackexchange.com/q/312166/2388

@notorious Nobody forces you to use LaTeX. When I was a pupil, I hated to use MS Works etc. to type math content. I was glad to have detected LaTeX

SU is super user, but what is SF in the SE universe?

@ChristianHupfer ServerFault

@JosephWright Ah, thanks

@JosephWright: According to a comment on the 'Top reputation' question on Meta, SU and SF are very hostile

@ChristianHupfer Perhaps: it's hard to tell from 'outside'

@ChristianHupfer Probably I would ask very carefully on those sites, in the same way I do if I'm asking on SO

@JosephWright I've no account there neither

@ChristianHupfer Surely they don't vote very much.

@ChristianHupfer The top rep user on SU, with almost seven year membership, has cast about 2100 votes; the second in rep about 9300. The third user by rep has cast 137 votes: in almost seven years.

@egreg That's pretty much ;-)

just wondering, is packages from the frankenstein bundle something that users should not use?

Just had a student asking for help, her mwe used the dialogue package, which could not be used with recent memoir as memoir and a support package both define \providelength

@daleif dialogs loads moredefs and this defines his commands with \newcommand and so clash with earlier definitions of e.g. makecmd. See mail-archive.com/xetex%40tug.org/msg10057.html

\documentclass{article}
\usepackage{makecmds}
\usepackage{moredefs}
\begin{document}
abc
\end{document}

@UlrikeFischer thanks, I ended up redefining the users setup and removing dialogue, now it looked more the way she wanted (it ended up as a wrapper to description configured using enumitem, same syntax, better look and configurable)

@ChristianHupfer For the three top users in SF, it is 8600, 1000 and 6100 votes (in seven years the first two, in four the third). Apart from a user with about 47000 votes, there are five with more than 10000 (top is 17000). We have 17 above 10000 votes. And SF has almost twice as many questions as TeX.SX

@UlrikeFischer I see @egreg commented, probably we should get Hans to provide an example on luatex list

@DavidCarlisle -- re wordcount and other packages by michael, i thought that was all settled. in 2012, i asked his daughters for permission to apply the lppl, and they agreed. i will forward the message to you privately, and also remind karl (who was cc'ed on the message). more in email. (sorry i didn't know about this before tex live closed.

@DavidCarlisle They believe that everybody knows Lua. :(

@egreg even then knowing lua isn't enough, you need to know the specific lua libraries in texlua

@DavidCarlisle Yes, but better you do it. I just tried to get Hans to show code to manipulate glyph data ;-)

@DavidCarlisle It is in the manual ...

Drat, @DavidCarlisle ran off ...

@DavidCarlisle Back I see

The comment on this is a bit worrisome. If TeXStudio is using biblatex bib fields as its default this will lead to lots more questions of this sort, I fear.

@JosephWright ah I believed egreg's "no example" comment.

@JosephWright will look later, also reply to your mail

@DavidCarlisle There's no example in the bit about the removed primitives ...

@DavidCarlisle I'm sure :-)

@JosephWright I suppose it's arguable that luatex85 could do the more extensive lua emulations but as with shellesc it might be better to have specific "longer term" packages for that going forwards rather than just viewing it as a legacy emulation issue....

@cfr indian running ducks

@DavidCarlisle This one looks outside the 'quick patch' area, really, I agree

@JosephWright I think I have a fix for this one it's horrendously complicated though, it might be better just to make graphics-without-an-x go back to saying it can't do eps. was too late last night and not had time to do any testing today

@DavidCarlisle Sounds OK to me: really no new docs should be using graphics

@JosephWright issue is that pdftex.def makes a lot (too many) changes to the supported options rather than just handling back end code.... in particular it disables bb bounding box key on the basis it makes no sense for pdf and tells people to use viewport, but the graphics version can only set (effectively) bounding box so it falls through the cracks, the redefined key isn't called so you get no message but the internals fail and you get an undefined command error.

@DavidCarlisle So an \@ifpackageloaded test in the driver?

@JosephWright probably not, the driver file might be loaded by color, or a class may load graphics and then a user might load graphicx so you'd have to delay everything to begin document, I think I can just re-jig the code so it gives a sensible message in cases where it doesn't work. Or I could make it work but that means adding more patches to the front end argument handling into pdftex.def (and luatex.def I suppose)..

@DavidCarlisle Ah, right

@DavidCarlisle As long as they're not geese ....

@cfr just classify them as dinner

@ChristianHupfer My professor forces me to use it. I think I just need to get better at it. I noticed that I got a lot faster the longer I was doing it.

@notorious It does take a little getting used to, but once you are, it will almost always turn out to be faster. Furthermore, if you end up writing longer documents with bibliography and references to equations in the text etc., the differences between LaTeX and Word become really apparent.

@DavidCarlisle No! I don't classify everyone I dislike as dinner. Not even everyone who bit me for no reason at all other than I was trying to feed them.

@notorious A prof should never force you to use any kind of software. You should be allowed to use whatever is available. Leaving money out of the scope here.

Suggested edits are not allowed on non-tag-wiki posts on meta sites.

Carnivores think there's a simple solution to everything - just eat the beings you don't like. ^^

is the message I get when trying to grey out my duck guesses

I don't really understand all of the words in the error message :) but it is clear that I cannot edit

@Marijn Which numbers did you guess? Somebody else can edit it for you.

What's the purpose of a drop-down terminal that doesn't work properly?

@Johannes_B Is that a question for Puzzle SE?

@cfr Still getting used to you being green.

@cfr 119 and 120, thanks for editing :)

@cfr No, it is just a question i ask myselve whenever i hit the button and nothing happens.

When I tried to add the command \phone[fixed]{}, it didn't work. Nobody even said that \phone does exist.

@Marijn Done ;).

@Johannes_B I think this depends a lot on the specific situation. For your individual work, yes, but for research as part of a group, for example, it may be appropriate.

@AlanMunn Collaboration is something different. When four people use Word and a single one uses LaTeX, there will be a mix-up.

@notorious Your Professor is absolutely right :-D

@cfr the service here is fast :D

@Johannes_B Also, if @notorious is working in a field where LaTeX really is the norm (like math or physics) strong encouragement to use the tools of the field is really quite appropriate. I don't require my students to use LaTeX because most in my field don't use it either, but if I was in math I would be much more inclined to require its use.

@AlanMunn Sure, though there's also a need for people to think of others they work with. For example, my 1st student has got on with LaTeX well and we've written a paper together in it, but for some other work with the same student we have a (more senior) colleague involved and he's strictly Word-only, so that's what we are using

@JosephWright Absolutely. Unfortunately lowest common denominator wins. :)

@JosephWright Also as I've discovered, non-native speakers produce way more grammar and spelling errors using LaTeX than using Word, because although the grammar checker in Word isn't very useful for us, it does catch a lot of the kinds of errors that non-English speakers produce.

@AlanMunn Seems entirely reasonable

@AlanMunn I am against forcing people to use stuff. If it is inappropriate to force people to use Word, it is inappropriate to force to use any kind of software. My view.

@Johannes_B What area of science are you in? We can make a reductio argument that could show that this extreme position is untenable.

@ChristianHupfer That looks horrible.

@AlanMunn Materials science with sometimes heavy maths.

@AlanMunn My point is: The prof forces a student to use some software but doesn't get him the appropriate knowledge to use it. The student is unsatisfied and hence unproductive. If the prof would have said: I wan't to show you something cool, look how easy it is to typeset the stuff we need. That would be ok.

@Johannes_B Ok, so here's the argument. Suppose you decide to do all your experimental calculations manually. Would this be acceptable to you as a 'software' choice (i.e., no software).

@Johannes_B Koma??? :D

@Johannes_B I agree with that for sure, and I'm not defending forcing people to use software, (as I said I don't at all) but I think there are situations in which it may be entirely appropriate.

@cfr Perhaps you would like to create a "TeX society for the support of donkey's ways" tex.stackexchange.com/questions/312199/i-need-a-tex-donkey

@AlanMunn If a student decides not to use software, that is ok for me. Ridiculous, but ok.

@Johannes_B See I don't think so. Since this is a guarantee for errors (not that software removes errors, but for certain things it definitely can reduce them) and if your name is also on the research (assuming it's part of a research group) then this is simply unacceptable.

@ChristianHupfer The kid of a friend now lives in our town with her father and she is not good in school. I wanted to know what the teachers are failing to get into her head. When i saw that piece, i was shocked.

@AlanMunn Collaborative work is different. I think we agreed on that.

@Johannes_B What piece? The font? Or the Lehrplan itself????

@AlanMunn I think the key point is common sense here. While the software/no software example is an extreme; choosing LaTeX as superior over another system is not what works for everybody. There was a user in my personal Facebook thingie and he messaged me with complaints, that LaTeX is sooo complicated, and so hard. And he is just a master student, not a programmer and .... And he stated, he could all do this easily with Word.

Where is the point of using a system you don't like and getting on my nerves?

@Johannes_B Well in my example, I wouldn't allow it even for someone's thesis work. I think it's unethical to do so. Similarly I wouldn't let a student do all their stats in Excel which is known to have errors. Now whether they use Stata or SPSS or R or MatLab is up to them, but I have a responsibility to have them use appropriate tools for the job. Of course the LaTeX vs Word distinction isn't exactly like that, so on that count I agree more with you, but not with the extreme view.

@ChristianHupfer Well, either my eyes are tired, or the letters are dancing.

@AlanMunn Isn't that the enforcement of common sense (which is quite good i think) and not the enforcement of a certain software choice?

@Johannes_B It looks a little bit like Arial, that's a standard font in Schulverwaltung.

@ChristianHupfer Helvetica, according to pdffonts.

@Johannes_B Well, I don't have the document at hand ;-)

@ChristianHupfer Seems i will be teaching her a bt of stuff. Any advice? Ninth grade, mainly math, chemistry and physics. I can't really help with the rest.

@Johannes_B Mittelschule is Realschule, I assume?

@Johannes_B Yes, it is. I guess the point I was making was that saying you should never enforce software choice is perhaps too strong. For the Word/LaTeX choice I agree wholeheartedly, however, although I can see that in certain fields it's a skill that is approaching common sense.

@ChristianHupfer Not sure. I think so. I don't even know the difference between Haupt und Realschule.

@AlanMunn :-)

@AlanMunn Certainly at one end there is no choice, for example using specialist bits of kit which you have to manage using the manufacturers software (at least unless you've signed an NDA to get enough info to write an alternative interface in say LabView)

@Johannes_B Mittlere Reife, Abgang nach der 10. Klasse?

@barbarabeeton I am assuming you saw my email to ctan (or the response) about wordcount. If there is anything I can do, let me know.

@ChristianHupfer I think this is the kind, where you are done after ninth grade. With possible extra year to get 10. Klasse.

@Johannes_B That's called Werkrealschule in BaWü here, leaving after 9th grade is Hauptschule

@ChristianHupfer The have classes like WTH (Wirtschaft/Technik/Haushalt)

@Johannes_B Yes, what's the problem with that?

@ChristianHupfer Never heard of that before :-)

@Johannes_B When I was in Hauptschule from 1984 to 1989 in BaWü I had Technik for 5 years, Hauswirtschaft for 3 years, Wirtschaft for 2 two years, so this sounds quite familar

@ChristianHupfer The only Wirtschaft i had in school was about economics ;-)

@Johannes_B Yes, that's it. Lower 'Betriebswirtschaftslehre' and Rechnungswesen

@ChristianHupfer Can't remember. Long time ago.

Had my first interaction with the CTAN team about the license on the wordcount package. Got a helpful and informative reply in less than 12 hours. The TeX community never ceases to amaze me.

@Johannes_B I was at a Wirtschaftsgymnasium in my 11th to 13th grade, having Leistungskurs Wirtschaft then

@ChristianHupfer In SA, they practically got rid of that. Leistungskurs. Pah

@ChristianHupfer I once asked her about a little experiment: Somebody driving with a certain velocity on a ramp to jump over a creek; and instead of making it to the other side, the person failed. Why? For me, this was a quite simple schräger Wurf and now i learn, that this is taught in Hauptschule, but not Realschule. Nineth grade, though.

And even in Hauptschule, this is optional.

@ChristianHupfer You know how to reach me. If you have any advice on teaching kids, immer her damit.

Or interesting problem sets, for math, physics, chemistry, etc.

@Johannes_B I am teaching Oberstufe, I am not really good in Sek I

@ChristianHupfer :-/

@ChristianHupfer She might be pretty smart, i think she is just lazy. And doesn't care.

@DavidCarlisle: Something for you, I think: tex.stackexchange.com/questions/312257/…

@UlrikeFischer I'm inclined to put donkeys in the geese category for similar reasons. The thing is, no duck has yet bitten me, which is not something I can say for the others. ;)

@UlrikeFischer: I am working on your donkey image!

@cfr You can make a geese and donkey image -- and write something about biting animals in welsh ;-)

@UlrikeFischer Hmmm... You think that will get a lot of votes from ducks and geese-haters? Actually, I think donkeys in general are far too gentle for their own good. Just this particular donkey was too ungentle for mine! (This was a farm-type thing aimed at kids. When my mother reported the incident, they told her he bit people all the time. Now, I expect they'd get sued.]

\documentclass[margin=1cm]{standalone}
\usepackage{tikz}

\definecolor{c87cdde}{RGB}{135,205,222}
\definecolor{cd5ffe6}{RGB}{213,255,230}

\newcommand{\donkey}{\begin{tikzpicture}[y=0.80pt, x=0.80pt, yscale=-1.000000, xscale=1.000000, inner sep=0pt, outer sep=0pt]
  \path[draw=black,fill=c87cdde,line join=miter,line cap=butt,even odd rule,line
    width=0.800pt] (357.5670,456.7335) .. controls (375.6334,454.2877) and
    (496.2666,447.1348) .. (507.9604,498.8487) .. controls (513.5084,523.3840) and

@UlrikeFischer: ^^

@cfr, @Ulrike: ^^

@PauloCereda disguised donkey or disguised duck? ;-)

@UlrikeFischer oooh I like the second one. :)

@PauloCereda I too. ;-) But I need the code so that I can print it out in good quality.

@UlrikeFischer oh I didn't save, but I can come up with another, hold on.

\documentclass[margin=1cm]{standalone}

\usepackage{tikz}

\definecolor{c87cdde}{RGB}{135,205,222}
\definecolor{cffffff}{RGB}{255,255,255}
\definecolor{cd4aa00}{RGB}{212,170,0}
\definecolor{cffcc00}{RGB}{255,204,0}
\definecolor{ce6e6e6}{RGB}{230,230,230}

\newcommand{\duck}{\begin{tikzpicture}[y=0.80pt, x=0.80pt, yscale=-1.000000, xscale=1.000000, inner sep=0pt, outer sep=0pt]
  \path[fill=c87cdde,line join=miter,line cap=butt,even odd rule,line
    width=1.051pt] (354.5558,276.4041) .. controls (354.5558,274.8067) and

@UlrikeFischer: Have fun! ^^ :)

@PauloCereda ;) Surely that duck is going to have an identity crisis when it grows up!

@PauloCereda one could make a family with duck and donkey ;-)

@ChristianHupfer This is my algorithm: divide the rep to gain by the current average rep per day; 83 days to go. :)

:30006821 It has worked up to now. :)

@PauloCereda Do you still have the cleaned up version of the duck code? I might use it for some nonsense.

@egreg In about the same time I will reach the 100k frontier, perhaps. Let's see, what happens ;-)

@ChristianHupfer Double party!

@ChristianHupfer @egreg is apparently the local longtable expert

@DavidCarlisle You're so slow!

@egreg so offline

@DavidCarlisle I am not sure I am trying to count words in a "technical document". Is it not possible to count words in a pure text document without figures, tables, equations, etc?

@StrongBad it's not meaningful if there is any amount of mathematics and fairly pointless always. Other than meeting pointless thesis requirements why is the word count at all interesting?

@DavidCarlisle Excuses!

@egreg I may have ended up driving on the wrong side of the road answeing questions at the same time

@DavidCarlisle not a thesis, but meeting pointless grant requirements is important.

@DavidCarlisle Which would be better, as you Britons always drive on the wrong side.

@StrongBad just tell them there is 10% less than the specified maximum, if you can't count it they can't either (but it's a while since I had to do that kind of thing:-)

@DavidCarlisle How the funder is doing the word count is probably the better question...

@StrongBad :-)

Wow. First time spying on the chatroom, expecting complicated TeX-code flying everywhere, but only see animal drawings! :P

But wow, the drawings are quite awesome!

@runartrollet We limit discussing about TeX at the bare minimum. We prefer talking about cricket and ducks. :)

@runartrollet Donkeys are the day's hit.

@runartrollet Oh, and don't forget