@UlrikeFischer It only works if \- is a parameterless standard macro, not if it's defined with \DeclareRobustCommand. Alternatively it should check \@ifundefined{- } and do nothing if the test returns false (defined), so \@ifundefined{- }{\expandafter\DeclareRobustCommand\expandafter\-\expandafter{\-}}{}
@egreg That isn't a very sophisticated command and is badly missing some checks is rather clear (but as plus one can say that it worked for 13 years ...). I looked up older docu of fixltx2e and it sounds (not quite sure if it is true) as if \MakeRobust was added only in 2005.
@Skillmon It is possible to create a local allocator: the LaTeX team tried this in expl3 but in the end we decided global-allocation-local-use fitted with TeX grouping better
@Johannes_B sorry that a spammer comes still through from time to time, even though I hardened the site and block more domains and use an anti spam API
@StefanKottwitz No big deal, i'll delete in the future as well. But a delete all posts by user X would be nice. It was all the same user and all the very very same nonsense gibberish random letters/numbers.
@DavidCarlisle ;-). But I hope that there are not more of this "robustify \-"-trick around which lead to endless loops with a new latex with its already robust \-. It even doesn't give a sensible error message, simply compiles and compiles and compiles ...
@UlrikeFischer really you can't win, it's worrying about that kind of breakage why we didn't fix any bugs add any features for 20 years, but in the end the pressure to fix things rather than have fixltx2e get bigger and bigger was too great.
@DavidCarlisle Oh I don't mind, it's fun to investigate such errors. I only wished it weren't so difficult to get concrete code from people. They are often so vage "something in some document doesn't work now what should I do?".
Being in Europe, I am missing this one too. But I got to see a good partial eclipse in March 2015. It was in the middle of a calculus lecture, but I dragged the whole class outside for a good look. I'll see if I can upload a picture.
2
We were luck with the partial cloud cover, which made it (relatively) safe to look without protective glasses.
we got about a 70% eclipse in rhode island, and intermittently overcast, but even more spectacular to my mind was the sundog observed just before the start of the eclipse by one of the local observatories.