TeX, LaTeX and Friends

Paulo Cereda

8:31 AM

@DavidCarlisle zz

<3

> Google Hangouts For Consumers Will Be Shutting Down Sometime In 2020

@JosephWright ^^

Joseph Wright

@PauloCereda Not a problem

@PauloCereda I pay for GSuite for my email ...

Paulo Cereda

@JosephWright oh my

@JosephWright I wanna be English :)

@JosephWright Give Bruno enough chocolate and he will come up with a IM written in TeX without e-TeX extensions. :)

David Carlisle

8:49 AM

@PauloCereda google do have a habit of killing off all their projects:-)

Paulo Cereda

@DavidCarlisle it does. :)

David Carlisle

@PauloCereda Felizmente a ferramenta mais importante ainda funciona perfeitamente

@JosephWright so you will be able to talk, but have no one to talk to.

Joseph Wright

@DavidCarlisle Hah!

Paulo Cereda

@DavidCarlisle ooh

@DavidCarlisle ooh that's true

@DavidCarlisle less work for the team :)

Joseph Wright

@PauloCereda Even despite that, we are no more tied to Hangouts/Meet than anything else

Paulo Cereda

8:54 AM

@JosephWright There's still SMS, right? :)

David Carlisle

@PauloCereda or British Airways

Joseph Wright

@PauloCereda Lets be honest, there are loads of solutions

@DavidCarlisle I wonder where we might find an unused pot of cash ...

David Carlisle

@JosephWright under a rainbow?

Joseph Wright

@DavidCarlisle Certainly guarded by an interesting character

Paulo Cereda

@DavidCarlisle ooh

@JosephWright ooh I know ask me ask me

@JosephWright There's even Telegram, if everything else fails. :)

Joseph Wright

8:56 AM

In other news, I'm moving the registrar for texdev.net as my current one doen't let me adjust the DNS

@PauloCereda Like I said, lots of options

Paulo Cereda

@JosephWright Indeed

Paulo Cereda

9:18 AM

My Pokémon game arrives today, yay!

A Harvard study found that adults behave better when teddy bears and reminders of children are near.

Tweeted by UberFacts on December 1, 2018 at 9:17 AM

@UlrikeFischer ^^ :)

Paulo Cereda

9:45 AM

@Skillmon: hi mr. rabbit!

Skillmon

9:58 AM

@PauloCereda Hi, Mr. Duck!

marmot

3:27 PM

@PauloCereda Is that a relative of yours? ;-)

Paulo Cereda

4:35 PM

@marmot I don't think so. :)

David Carlisle

5:35 PM

@PauloCereda do you like my Brazilian Portuguese text answer?

marmot

6:47 PM

@CarLaTeX @samcarter @UlrikeFischer Some users are really cruel :-(

CarLaTeX

7:33 PM

@marmot lol! However, I think this one is more cruel

marmot

@CarLaTeX I know. However, I think a very big part of it is the translation program he uses. What I want to say he sometimes makes statements that are very reasonable but after translation they do not sound appropriate. So I would not read too much into it. ;-)

CarLaTeX

@marmot I hope it was so

Paulo Cereda

7:57 PM

@DavidCarlisle which one?

CarLaTeX

@PauloCereda This one: tex.stackexchange.com/a/462722/101651

@marmot No, I think he is really after me: tex.meta.stackexchange.com/questions/7936/…

marmot

8:16 PM

@CarLaTeX Well, he is also after me, and you have this very fast car. ;-)

@DavidCarlisle I didn't know that zz-zzz-zz is a Portuguese Brazilian word. What does it mean? ;-)

CarLaTeX

@marmot I adopt the best strategy in this cases: just ignore

marmot

@CarLaTeX Yes, but he is also very good at cherry picking. (What I mean is that you write an answer, explain why the OP's attempt fails, and solve the issue. So far so good. But after a while another cherry-picking user comes, takes your code, draws one line in a bit different color, and gets the check mark for it....)

David Carlisle

@marmot it means quack

marmot

@DavidCarlisle Let's see if @PauloCereda agrees with this translation.

CarLaTeX

@marmot It doesn't surprise me, looking at his last actions…

marmot

8:32 PM

@CarLaTeX I guess the main problem are those who accept the cherry picker's posts and those who upvote them. This encourages cherry picking. But I also think that in the internet actions often seem more offending than they are meant to be. Typically it is better to talk to someone in person than writing an email, say. So I guess to some extent we have to live with it.

CarLaTeX

@marmot Such cases are very difficult to fight, you can't leave a message to explain a downvote because there is the risk of a revenge by him. Maybe the only way is to gather a list of such answers and inform the moderators.

marmot

@CarLaTeX I guess after the recent suspension of a user here I am not really in the mood to interact with the moderators. (I am not talking about our local moderators.) There is zero transparency in these actions. (But I also refrain from downvoting.)

CarLaTeX

@marmot I saw the suspension, unbelievable!

Joseph Wright

@marmot Suspensions are not implemented lightly

@CarLaTeX, @marmot Any revenge action by anyone should be flagged: that's the only way to build up a pattern of any undesirable behaviour

marmot

@JosephWright Well, this statement does not make things very transparent, does it? There is a reason why in "the real world" trials are public.

David Carlisle

8:45 PM

@JosephWright bidi question...

0

Q: longtable package: Stretch height of last row on page "RTL document"

I took a look at this nice answer longtable package: Stretch height of last row on page and I need to apply this answer in my arabic document (right to left document). The problem that I can not get the same output in RTL context (the table is not stretched) \documentclass[12pt]{article} \use...

Joseph Wright

@marmot True, but material can be in camera. Here, the thing to bear in mind is there are several people who can see any evidence of issues, and that sometimes it can be pretty awkward stuff.

@marmot Also, some sites have a lot of suspensions, and real issues between people. Those would basically bog-down meta if each case was discussed before any action. So as a network-wide policy, have local mods who are able to review stuff without a public 'trial' is a way of finding some workable balance

@marmot I think you also have to bear in mind that the 'victim' (where there is one) might not be too keen on a completely-public discussion

@DavidCarlisle Oh goody

David Carlisle

@JosephWright so does any of the \pdfsavepos based tikz stuff like \tikzmark work RTL ? (@marmot)

Joseph Wright

@DavidCarlisle I've never tried: we'd need a plain TeX test case, I guess

marmot

@JosephWright This is all true and I have no reason not to believe that all your actions are fully justified and reasonable and so on. It is, nevertheless, not the way justice in the real world works, and this a reason for it. Do I know how to handle this? No. But do I trust some institution behind the scenes of I cannot look? No. (That's one of the main reason for preferring LaTeX over Word, after all.)

Joseph Wright

@marmot One additional thing to bear in mind is that IP addresses/emails are one aspect that is important in some mod decisions. Those are personal data, which can't be disclosed in general, but which can support conclusions about issues.

@marmot The staff only do very limited stuff: mainly handling sock puppet accounts, spam, etc., where it is cross-network, and usually when altered by local mods on one or more sites

marmot

8:55 PM

@JosephWright This is certainly true, but does not prevent you from saying things like "there were 10 users linked to one email or IP address who mutually upvoted each other like crazy". Everyone would get the message, and there is no need to know which precise email address is behind that. (No, I am not that paranoid. ;-)

Joseph Wright

@DavidCarlisle I suspect like much of TeX--XeT this has not been tested/thought of at all

@marmot Except that does tell you who the 'puppet master' was, and that might be problematic if they are for example a well-known person

David Carlisle

@JosephWright really given the naive way it flips boxes it's a wonder any whatsit based thing works at all

Joseph Wright

@DavidCarlisle Yup

marmot

@DavidCarlisle I am actually not convinced that TikZ really uses \pdfsavepos. Indirect evidence: you can compile to dvi and TikZ will still work. (But yes, there has been an issue that in some recent years some things did no longer work perfectly for dvi.)

David Carlisle

@marmot pdfsavepos works in dvi mode. all pdftex added primitives got a pdf prefix even if not pdf related.

Joseph Wright

8:58 PM

@marmot Short-term suspensions are meant to get a message across to individuals not to do the problematic stuff again. Making the discussion public doesn't help with that aspect (the aim is reform not punishment). For permanent bans, I can see things are slightly different (though they are likely to be either due to being sock puppets or out-and-out hate speech)

marmot

@DavidCarlisle I see. Didn't know that.

Joseph Wright

@marmot There's no other way

David Carlisle

@marmot in fact the example in the question is xetex which only has dvi output

Joseph Wright

@marmot Unfortunately, pdfTeX called most of the new primitives \pdf..., which is a pain. For expl3, I've tried to tidy that up in the \tex_...:D names

marmot

@JosephWright Again, I fully trust you. But you may agree that in the end our real world governments work slightly different in that there is some sort of checks and balance in place.

Joseph Wright

9:01 PM

@marmot Of course. All suspension messages to go all site mods plus to the Powers, so there is oversight. We could have a bigger mod team if the community feels that is useful.

marmot

@JosephWright Thanks. I really have no idea about all that. However, I try to find the post which reported the issues of tikz vs. dvi. (BTW, I have a side question: How do you, @DavidCarlisle, @egreg, @UlrikeFischer, @MarcelKrüger and those who I forget if discussions mention that "do that for me questions" get answers "for free". Don't you do a lot of work "for free"?)

David Carlisle

@marmot ?

Torbjørn T.

@marmot There have been a couple of those, searching for tikz dvi on the site will find some.

marmot

@DavidCarlisle Well, I just want to say I appreciate all the work you are doing to keep LaTeX working and to improve it. Therefore, I am sometimes wondering what you feel when you read that "do-that-for-me" askers get answers for free. After all, most users here get a real lot for absolutely free.

@TorbjørnT. Thanks. I believe the basic things are already explained in section "1.1 The Layers Below TikZ". (Not that I understand them.)

David Carlisle

@marmot I actually don't worry too much about that. I only ask for MWE to be supplied if it would help me write an answer not to "train" or "punish" the person asking the question.

2

marmot

9:10 PM

@DavidCarlisle That's a very honorable (and IMHO good) attitude. ;-)

David Carlisle

@marmot of course that means for any tikz related question i pretty much always need a MWe as I struggle to draw a line without a helping example to get started:-)

marmot

@DavidCarlisle You could try to convert them to the picture mode. ;-)

David Carlisle

@marmot I do, yes of course

marmot

@DavidCarlisle "Them" means, of course, both the code and the user. ;-)

David Carlisle

Jan 2 '13 at 16:46, by David Carlisle

@FaheemMitha The new years resolution is to get a tikz gold badge by answering tikz question with tex primitives, picture mode, or if really pushed pstricks, doing quite well so far this year.

marmot

9:15 PM

@DavidCarlisle Will be delighted to see your crystal ball, though. ;-)

Joseph Wright

@marmot He got it from Robin Fairbairns ....

David Carlisle

@marmot your crystal ball is cloudy, mine of course is perfectly clear. \circle{5}

marmot

@DavidCarlisle But does yours work? If so, why is @egreg so far ahead? Is his crystal ball better? ;-)

David Carlisle

@marmot no, he steals ticks and gets undeserved points for suggesting use of %

marmot

@DavidCarlisle Well, this sounds pretty much like "he has a better crystal ball". ;-)

@CarLaTeX Please see here. Indeed, his behavior changed to the negative.

David Carlisle

9:22 PM

@marmot speak of the devil...

egreg

@DavidCarlisle I'm watching you!

CarLaTeX

@marmot I decided to ignore him, I won't reply to that question

David Carlisle

@egreg naturally, where else would you steal answers?

Joseph Wright

9:37 PM

@marmot BTW, over the life of the site, we've had only a handful of suspensions that were not network-wide problem-people (literally less than 6)

marmot

@egreg You should switch to TV, where they sometimes show marmots. ;-)

@JosephWright I guess I can assume that it is a nonnegative integer. ;-)

@JosephWright BTW, thanks for your answer. I do not know what happened there.

Joseph Wright

@marmot Yup, \in \mathbb{Z}+

marmot

@JosephWright I guess suspending \pi users will be a major technical challenge.

Joseph Wright

@marmot :)

marmot

10:02 PM

@CarLaTeX I did.

CarLaTeX

@marmot Already upvoted

David Carlisle

I must admit I gave up on the site design and change a lot now with user css, but..

8

Q: Responsive Design Themes - What can sites customize and how can they get changes implemented?

There have been a few questions here on MSE along with some on various child metas about how fixed/permanent the new site redesigns are. I'm posting a new question rather than answering so that we can have more real estate for dialogue (in answers) and because I was missing all of your pings from...

discussion featured design responsive-design

marmot

@CarLaTeX Can you give me a ride in your nice car to another forum? (Just kidding;-)

CarLaTeX

10:19 PM

@marmot Listen to me, ignore him! Internet is like the real life, there are nice people and less nice people...

marmot

@CarLaTeX Oh, you are saying there is a real life? ;-) (I added an animation for a graceful exit from this "communication" ;-)

CarLaTeX

@marmot ROFL

marmot

@CarLaTeX What does ROFL mean?

CarLaTeX

@marmot Rolling on the floor laughing

marmot

@CarLaTeX ;-)

marmot

10:50 PM

@Sebastiano Done: ^^^^^ Thanks for your suggestion.

Ulrike Fischer

11:13 PM

@marmot yes. All questions here get answers for free. I don't answer "draw it for me" because I normally find the question boring (I prefer other problems) and having to build a minimal document to start makes them even boring, but I don't downvote them and I don't care if something else do (and I sometimes have used answers to such questions, so had actually a gain from them).

marmot

@UlrikeFischer Yes, I fully agree with that. (I was just curious why "do-that-for-me" has the nimbus of being very awkward. Nobody is forced to do things, and for me it is sometimes like solving a cross word puzzle. There is no deeper sense but it helps one to relax. I do not see why one should have to defend this behavior.)

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