@barbarabeeton I think you are unequivocally right. The variation is not whether it's mass or count, but whether it needs a plural morpheme in that exact position (in fact it might even be a zero plural like 'sheep'. For example I'm sure he can't say I have more pair of socks that you. Or I have much pair of trousers (compare with I have many pair(s) of trousers (I put the -s in parentheses because I don't have intuitions about whether he can have 'pair' in that context; we both need 'pairs'.)

@barbarabeeton I'm not sure about the zero plural idea though, since it will be restricted to Numeral+of NP contexts.

@AlanMunn -- Ah, another way to think about it. But "much pair" and "much pairs" are both awful. "Many pair(s)" is much more defensible, but not, I guess, definitive. Thanks.

@barbarabeeton well the many/much distinction eliminates the idea that it is ever a mass noun

@AlanMunn -- True. But our power has just gone out, so I have to give up -- laptop battery isn't infinite.

Ok I hope your power is restored soon

@Rmano Similar to the known command \IfFileExists{<filename>}{<yes>}{<no>}

@cis dunno

@PauloCereda Dunno? Aha, bummer!

@UlrikeFischer Update to color coming up

@barbarabeeton Good to know, thanks! FWIW and for future reference it turns out the Trennmuster mailing list that DANTE runs is the correct place to report mishyphenations of German words too.

@barbarabeeton I'm lucky in that as an academic I get some freedoms :) (That includes simply using my own equipment, which is waht I'm tempted to do at work: might simply get the new laptop and attach the work screen, and be entirely independent)

@daleif On the two-factor business, how does it handle logging on to your work desktop? I've never seen two-factor for that

Speaking of paid TeX jobs: le-tex.de/de/jobs.html#jobs_2020-07-16_satz

(From Twitter)

@JosephWright Depends on your definition of work desktop. If I want to access my Linux box from home, I first have to log on to the university network via VPN, which has 2-factor. And then I can access my stuff normally as it I was on our internal network.

I'm not sure they have two-factor for logging into say a Windows Laptop. But for example our webmail needs 2-factor to log into it (unless one never logs in).

Hi all! Have I ever shared my passion for revtex4-1?

BTW: just has another Danish university which closed all their IT infrastructure this past Tuesday due to an "incident", all users have been required to change their passwords. They might not have been as rigorous with 2-factor and VPN as we are.

@yo' do tell

@daleif It does everything by its own solutions (which itself might not be a bad thing) and then people use it (or are told to use it) for stuff it cannot do. And you cannot solve the issues using standard methods, because it does everything by its own solutions.

@yo' .....(memoir maintainer slowly moving into the corner....)

@daleif I meant a physical PC in your office: we get provided one even if we don't use it (I'm using a machine bought on a grant for performance reasons: it's an i9 :))

@daleif Oh dear

@yo' It's very ... interesting (@DavidCarlisle I'm sure has comments)

I've only had little exposure to it because a physics TA gave his students a template based on it, and it could not do anything in Danish and could not be adjusted. I think I ended up doing a memoir equivalent template

@yo' It's a reason we (teh team) need to get more stuff standardised into the kernel

@daleif well, I didn't really want to imply this, but at least in memoir, you have solutions to most problems. revtex4-1 is 10 years old and still in active use.

@JosephWright Since they are on the physical internal network they only use normal username and login. From home: VPN required to see file servers etc.

@JosephWright yep. I totally agree :)

@daleif Ah, right

@yo' I still discover memoir code that are 15 years old, that ought to be changed. But it might break stuff.

@daleif We are trying to keep off VPN as there's limited capacity: for simple file access we have a system called File Director (ivanti.co.uk/products/filedirector), so VPN is reserved for e.g. accessing the finance system, logging into the cluster (can't directly SSH from outside), etc.

@daleif Yeah. (I don't mean it's all easy. It isn't. But this extreme level of non-standardazation including things like \let\twocolumn\@undefined is not making it easier.

For example there will be a small breaking change in the next memoir release (prep for 2020/10/01 format update), the memoir commands \AtBeginFile and \AtEndFile will behave slightly differently.

@yo' is revtex4-1 really much in use? It will break with the next latex and they will have to adapt it.

@JosephWright We had that as well, then Corona hit and everyone worked from home so a lot of people were on VPN all day long. After a while they increased the VPN capacity.

@UlrikeFischer it is still in use by quite many; I meet it regularly on support. (Difficult to tell the precise numbers, so it's only my impression.)

I'd normally just log in to my box, get what I needed and then log out again and stop the VPN. Less resources.

@daleif I see why the IT people like File Director: it looks 'just like' Windows Explorer, so there is no complexity to the file operations (compared to say STFP)

@UlrikeFischer Yes, I think it's still about

@yo' exactly, but then again, users have to understand that revtex is NOT a general purpose class, it is very specific in its use and thus cannot be expected to be configurable. A lot of people just don't realise this

@daleif As I understand it, increased VPN capacity was not an option here, and I suspect we've paid a lot for File Director so want to get it used

@daleif Very true: I get the same with achemso (which says up-front it's for submissions to the ACS)

@JosephWright I've never heard of File Director. Here I think there will be a push towards OneDrive and SharePoint.

@daleif well, but then (as is the case here) the user needs to create a solo supplementary; it contains 20 lines of text and a figure*. And I didn't manage to place the figure* on top of the first page. And as \twocolumn[{\begin{figure}[H]... can't work as \twocolumn is disabled, I'm lost.

@daleif We have those too

@daleif We've gone for OneDrive for communal files, like marking sheets, etc., but I think we've got File Director as it means 'core' files attached to people's profiles are still on-campus

@daleif yes that is a problem in various places that people don't distinguish between special classes/biblatex style/templates and general purpose stuff.

@UlrikeFischer They just don't know and most will never read a manual, why read a manual when you can just google.

@daleif Looking at ivanti.co.uk/resources/v/doc/infographics/…, I suspect the plan is to migrate the 'back end' to OneDrive, but not have to say 'your Documents folder has moved from X to Y'

@JosephWright the general rule here might be the traditional: no-one have ever been fired for suggesting a Microsoft Solution. And thus MS wins every big project

ah got it, but that's a heck of a solution.

@JosephWright man that page is annoying with its messaging

@daleif Yes, it's sad: I miss the days when university IT was expected to be Unix-based and written by universities

@daleif Well yes

@JosephWright We ran a diskless Unix/Linux setup for approx 25 years. First Unix, later thin Linux clients. Then everything was moved to Windows as the local IT departments was centralised (I got to stay because of my LaTeX knowledge which the IT department could no longer garantee that I could offer the math department)

It was a lot easier to only have to install stuff on some linux servers. Now they have to deal with getting Windows to install stuff automatically, which does not always go too well.

@yo' ???

and considering manuals, I used a trick that's not documented in the revtex4-1 manual.

\usepackage{float}

\begin{document}

\renewcommand\thefigure{A.\arabic{figure}}

\onecolumngrid
\begin{figure}[H]
  \hsize\textwidth
  \centering
  \includegraphics{}
  \caption{}
  \label{}
\end{figure}
\twocolumngrid

@JosephWright I think people wuld have been more accepting of thin client using the linux desktops we have, now, the old ones were not that great. So I understand why most people chose to move to Windows.

@daleif ^^^

@yo' what exactly is the problem in that example? I get the same with and without the two grid lines and the \hsize (I used \rule\textwidth{3cm} as the image)

@daleif Indeed

@daleif For a lot of 'office' tasks, a ChromeBook would work; for 'research' computing, less 'managed' PCs are best anyway ...

@JosephWright I never bothered me as I'm a CLI user, but most people prefer point'n'click

@daleif Add \lipsum afterwards (sorry it'll take me a while to prepare a MWE, there's confidential contents in the project)

@daleif I use a mix: it depends on the task

@daleif Anyway, at the moment I'm at least lucky that despite our 'IT lockdown', on my own machine I can do what I like (it can access 99% of the work data)

@yo' erh, is revtex4-1 suppose to be loaded with a specific option here?

Like twocolumn?

Then I see your issue

@daleif yeah. (sorry, I didn't indend to debug it here, so I didn't really check the MWE rewquirements)

@yo' the naïve MWE just didn't show any problems.

@daleif yeah, twocolumn plays a role here

@daleif MWE: overleaf.com/read/bymvpnybypkz

@yo' it does not seem that the float package is needed for that. It works fine without the H

@daleif that's interesting and unexpected :)

wow, it's actually enough to use figure*

I haven't at all thought of that, thanks @daleif !

@yo' All I did was to see what happened if I added a few %

@daleif yeah, I realize this, but still it was useful :)

@samcarter_is_at_texnique.fr I quite enjoy the "ducksoftheyear" ;-)

@UlrikeFischer Nice to hear! :D

I am using this code: tex.stackexchange.com/a/503646/63097. Do you know how I should write an arrow that points from one diagram (on the left) to the other (on the right)?

I also want to write something on top of that diagram

@UlrikeFischer I suspect I have something wrong with PDF resources :(

\documentclass{article}
\usepackage{pdfresources,l3pdf}
\usepackage{l3draw,l3color}
\ExplSyntaxOn
\color_model_new:nnn { BarTone } { Separation }
  {
    name = BarTone~555~GN ,
    alternative-model = cmyk ,
    alternative-values = { 0.1 , 0.2 , 0.3 , 0.4 }
  }
\color_set:nnn { BarToneTest } { BarTone } { 0.5 }
\pdf_uncompress:
\ExplSyntaxOff

\begin{document}

\ExplSyntaxOn
     \draw_begin:
       \draw_path_moveto:n { 0cm , 0cm }
       \draw_path_lineto:n { 1cm , 1cm }
       \draw_path_lineto:n { 2cm , 1cm }

@UlrikeFischer ^^^ Doesn't work as it fails at the initialisation step; I think the color part is OK, so it must be the PDF part

@UlrikeFischer , @DavidCarlisle Think I will look at page color soon: keeps popping up

@JosephWright Which shows the overall silliness of this sort of lockdown... :)

@JosephWright you probably trapped into my changes to make the pdf resources "opt-in". I will check

@AlanMunn Well yes

@AlanMunn Being a lab-based scientist, the whole thing is nuts. Instruments just don't work in locked-down mode: they wanted us to have to log in individually to the PC controlling a machine, but it has to be powered down each time you log out, and that takes 45 minutes!

@UlrikeFischer Thanks

@JosephWright Thankfully we haven't moved to this sort of thing (yet). But there has been a shift to all-Microsoft all the time.

@JosephWright Yes, this is what happens when the bureaucrats run the world

@AlanMunn Luckily, we have a sensible local IT guy, and we can show that it's impractical

@AlanMunn The issue we have is that probably 90% of the PCs on campus do just need an office set up, etc. But 10% don't ...

@AlanMunn A friend from the media school had a nightmare discussion a few years ago. He got a grant for a suite of Macs to do TV stuff. The finance people were like 'but you could tender for PCs, that would be cheaper', etc. He had to explain that Macs are used in industry and the entire point of the grant would be lost if he didn't buy Macs

@JosephWright I discovered recently that the Exchange server (which I access using imap not using Outlook) does junk mail filtering which I can only see the results of by using the web Outlook interface. I discovered this more than a year after the shift.

@JosephWright Yes, that kind of thinking is really terrible.

@AlanMunn Yes, that is 'interesting', isn't it

@JosephWright I'm still trying to figure out if that a bug or a feature for me. Mail I never see.

@AlanMunn We have some quarantine thing that holds one set of messages from a conference I booked: luckily my post-doc is also checking those mails

@AlanMunn He got it sorted in the end

@JosephWright it looks good if you do it like this:

\RequirePackage{pdfresources}
\DeclareDocumentMetaData{uncompress}

\documentclass{article}
\usepackage{l3draw,l3color}

@UlrikeFischer Yup, that sorts it

@UlrikeFischer I've messed up \color_select:n somewhere ...

@JosephWright but I think I should add some test here, so that it doesn't error if the resource management are not available, but only gives a warning.

@UlrikeFischer Would be handy

@JosephWright ? I tried in your example and it seemed to work fine. What happend for you?

@UlrikeFischer If you change \color_fill:n to \color_select:n, the tint value gets printed; will fix shortly

@UlrikeFischer Oh, I remember: I had one fix in the format (l3color-base) which means I need to rebuild my dev format!

@JosephWright I don't see this.

@JosephWright that could be it, I did rebuild the formats.

@UlrikeFischer Quite: just a few rough edges, will be sorted on the next CTAN update

@UlrikeFischer The interface look good now? I think it's quite smooth for separations

@JosephWright it looks very nice imho.

@JosephWright I need to think about it. Probably I should simply define the dictionaries, even if they are later not used at all.

@UlrikeFischer Indeed

@UlrikeFischer What's the plan for porting all that stuff back to l3pdf? As it's hook-dependent, is it going into the 2e repo? ltpdf?

@JosephWright well actually it is what happens, but the definition is in the extra backend code and as this doesn't get loaded always. I should probably move it to the module for now. (Getting the order right is currently is a bit tricky. It will get better if more is in the kernel and one can know, what is loaded first.)

@JosephWright good question. It is certainly not "pure expl3" code, beside the hook code there is also still zref used. Some parts can probably go into l3pdf or so, but it will also depend on the question of the naming of the commands.

quack

@PauloCereda A DUUUUUUUUUUUCCCCCCCCCCKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKK

@JosephWright oh my

@JosephWright that was quite the reception. :)

@JosephWright you just ordered your MacBook, didn't you? :)

@UlrikeFischer Ah, zref, yes: we'll have to address that

@UlrikeFischer I guess I need to do \int_bitset... first too

@PauloCereda Not yet: still weighing it up vs the XPS ... XPS has nice thin bezels, smaller chassis, fast; Mac has 4 USB-C ports, better screen, better sound, can get 32Gb version, a shop to shout at when things go wrong, ...

@JosephWright yes, but this imho a major task - we need to sort out how we want to extend the label/ref system.

@UlrikeFischer OK, so perhaps we need to look at the old xpackage code, zref, etc. and bring ideas together to allow us to do a move for the spring?

@JosephWright XPS is the better tier, but lower tiers like mine had a very, very fragile chassis, keep that in mind... :(

@PauloCereda Oh I know: one issue with current XPS is I managed to drop it, and the screen is a little loose, with a knock-on effect on the charging port (I have to fiddle around with the connector to get it to charge)

@PauloCereda Lesson: buy a carry case

@JosephWright Ouch, sorry to hear.

@PauloCereda Also, Apple offer 3-years accidental damage cover within budget

@JosephWright ooh good ol' Apple Care? :)

@UlrikeFischer I guess that affects some of the stuff I want to do for l3draw too, but not all of it

@JosephWright yep. The nice thing about the XPS 13 (if that's what you plan) is that it fits nicely and snugly into many 12" cases (the display border is only about 3mm)

@yo' That is of course one thing: a modern "13 inch" is more like a 12 inch laptop in the past

@yo' That's one reason I'm torn: the XPS is defo smaller than the Apple for the same real screen szie

@JosephWright yep. I was surprised by this

@yo' I suspect Apple will do the same with the MacBook, or they'll call the next one "14 inch" and make the screen bigger but keep the chassis the same size: that's what happened with the 15 -> 16 shift

@JosephWright well, don't ask me what I would prefer: I don't really enjoy Apple, and I fell in love with the XPS :)

@yo' If Dell offered 4 ports, it would be easier ...

@yo' XPS!

Although I cannot afford either one...

@JosephWright Hub?

@JosephWright mine has 3, not too bad

@yo' I'm writing this on an XPS, so I do know the feeling, but there are advantages to the Mac too

@PauloCereda the thing is (1) displayport, (2) USB, (3) charger

First world problems

@PauloCereda Well yes, I just feel it's a bit cheap on a £2000+ laptop ...

@yo' oh

@JosephWright oh you plan to get something yet more expensive than I have then

@yo' I already have an Apple display adapter, so that does HDMI + USB-A + USB-C from one USB-C port, and it should allow pass-through charging

@yo' I've got budget for a top-of-the-range machine, so I will use it

@yo' Money has become available, or at least it looks that way

@JosephWright yeah, that's one thing I didn't get. I use all 3 ports regularly

but my colleague has a monitor that allows you 3-in-1: DP, PD, USB hub. On a single cable. Having only one cable running to the chassis is like a dream come true.

@yo' Actually, probably a bit below £2000: I don't want a touchscreen, so that limits me to the not-quite-top-end machine

/leaving the room

@yo' I'm looking at dell.com/en-uk/work/shop/laptops/new-xps-13/spd/…

@JosephWright touchscreens are only nice if you love spending hours on youtube or social. Or if you draw on screen during calls/talks.

@yo' Absolute top-of-the-range is dell.com/en-uk/work/shop/laptops/new-xps-13/spd/…

@JosephWright that's actually very close to what I have

@yo' My work have bought me a pen-based second-screen to test out for exam marking, etc.: that I do like, because I can choose when to use it

@yo' Ah, right: 9300 or the previous one?

@JosephWright lemme check. It was bought here, and we're 1-2gens behind

@yo' Ah, right

@JosephWright but you're right, 9380

@yo' Nice machine:)

NB Dell XPS 13 9380 13,3" FHD /i7-8565U/16GB/512GB SSD M.2/Intel UHD/W10P,

@yo' Pretty close, then, yes: I'm just looking at the 10th gen processor

@JosephWright as I said, I'm very content. Note that I don't store any work-related data (beyond one working TeX live)

@JosephWright I have yet no real idea regarding the coredict error. Creating the properties is easy, but the code to fill them is backend dependant in this case and this code is then missing too if I don't find a way to force the loading of the backend files. I wanted to avoid to use package options.

@JosephWright and a 1TB drive I suppose

@yo' That too: my current 256Gb is a bit tight

@JosephWright when the system itself nears 100G... (IIRC)

@yo' It's more the 50Gb+ of TL + a VM for Linux (and TL) + WSL + ...

@JosephWright haha :D

@JosephWright the biggest thing I store now are the COVID audio+videos for the church. I still wanna process some of them as independent youtube videos, so they're still lying here...

@yo' I absolutely love my touchscreen. At the begin I also thought it is only for drawing but actually it is a bit like with phones where at first people said that you don't need this fancy touchscreen - a palm keyboard is enough. I'm using a mix of touch, mouse and keyboard constantly.

@UlrikeFischer I'll take your word for it; when I've used a touchscreen PC, I've found it very awkward

@UlrikeFischer but I suppose you work a lot from the laptop, right? I prefer the workstation with a 23 (at home) and 26 (in the office) screen in front of me. Then I use the small screen only for calls (people's faces on small, work on large)

@yo' I'm wondering about that: get a cable to attach the new laptop to my work screen, for which I'll also need an external keyboard

@JosephWright czc.cz/…

@yo' depends, I have normal pc (without touchscreen) and a small laptop with touchscreen which I use in the evenings or when I'm away, and I'm getting very well along with it.

Is it possible to force all gloassaries entries to be displayed with the command /printglossaries even though they are not used with commands such as \gls in the doc

??

@JosephWright good plan ;-)

@yo' I only need HDMI :)

@UlrikeFischer What do you have?

solution is here: tex.stackexchange.com/a/367114/63097

@UlrikeFischer Well, it's been my position for some years, but even more so now small laptops are very hard to upgrade (gone are the days of adding RAM)

@UlrikeFischer Leaves me torn, though, as the XPS is almost perfect: if it had 32Gb as an option with 4 USB-C, I wouldn't be thinking about the Mac I suspect

@JosephWright I got this, and I don't regret. Especially when you go to an unknown place, having all the currently used connectors ready helps :)

@JosephWright an rather old surface 3 pro. It fits me quite well -- only the space is too tight, and it could be a bit faster.

@yo' I've got a VGA adaptor and the HDMI one, and I don't get exactly loads of invites to talk )

@JosephWright :)

@JosephWright yes, it is really nice. But it has only one usb port ;-) So I have to use hub if I want to attach more than my mouse.

@cis You're missing some wordarts.

Sorry it was a bad joke.

Wordart is this:

@daleif -- Maybe there are advantages to having used a computer before Google existed. (Unheralded consequence: I don't necessarily believe it's true just because it's on the Internet.)

@yo' Wordart is sure way for getting good cash tips when assisting rich ladies on cruise ships in writing their diaries. I heard that from a guy who gave computer lectures there... notes written in LaTeX. ;-)

@yo' And I categorically reject WORD anyway. If anything, Libre Office Art. But actually not even that. I only use the Libre Office Calc table calculation sometimes.

@cis You get a choice?

@JosephWright I was just working on the pdfresource error and saw a curious warning with l3draw: pdfTeX warning: pdflatex-dev.exe: Misplaced \pdfrestore by (327681sp, 0sp)

\documentclass{article}
\usepackage{l3draw}
\begin{document}

\ExplSyntaxOn
     \draw_begin:
       \draw_path_moveto:n { 0cm , 0cm }
     \draw_end:
\ExplSyntaxOff
blub
\end{document}

@UlrikeFischer Oh drat

@UlrikeFischer I'll take a look: must have messed up a box

@UlrikeFischer Are you sure that's with teh dev format and matching files?

@JosephWright I got it with dev and with the normal format, but I'm not sure if everything match. Let me check.

@UlrikeFischer I only get it with mismatched files

@JosephWright I still get it, which branch of expl3 are you using? I have currently color-models.

@UlrikeFischer I'll rebuild everything here

@JosephWright In what way?

@cis Our admin is all Word-based

@UlrikeFischer I've just done a full rebuild, and all is well: are you sure you've not got an odd file?

@JosephWright It's just habit. Companies buy Windows and MS Office because they can then deduct them from tax as necessary expenses. It would have little or no advantage if they used the cost-free Libre Office.

@JosephWright I just deleted everything from expl3 and it was gone and now I reinstall to check again.

@cis Dont think it's quite like that for us; have you tried for example using Endnote with Libre Office?

any idea about how I could write an arrow from the left to the right diagram here: tex.stackexchange.com/a/503646/63097?

Like something from the left red circle to the middle of the right green circles

but not necessarily that starts on the circles and ends on the circles

I just want to show that we convert one graph into the other

and not that there's a connection from o to i1 or 2

@JosephWright there is clearly something wrong here. I see a 0 in the output and it also shows up in the \showoutput. It disappears if I remove the new backend file. I will try to track it down ...

@UlrikeFischer Cool

@JosephWright it behaves again after I carefully rebuild every format. I must have forgotten one previously.

I managed to do it with \node and \draw