English Language & Usage: Multi-Layered Discourse Room

« first day (2848 days earlier) ← previous day next day → last day (2369 days later) »

Jasper Loy

19:00

@Mitch Three angles in a triangle, not in an arc. The angle is the arc.

Mitch

(webbased so it works verywhere)

but you can export images or take screen shots using your OS's grab app.

@JasperLoy so, just draw a triangle?

Jasper Loy

@Mitch Some people were quite surprised that I could draw complicated geometrical shapes using Shapes in Word. I told them how I did it: I drew line by line and curve by curve separately, one by one.

Mitch

yeah that's how.

Jasper Loy

@Mitch Yeah but you want to label the angle as well you know, with the arc. But Geogebra should be able to do this easily, of course.

Mitch

so maybe you mean the little curve you often see in geometric proofs that spans the angle really close to the corner of the angle?

labeled 'alpha' sometimes?

Jasper Loy

19:03

Yeah, of course you can have a letter beside the arc too.

Mitch

or has a couple short dashes on it, and that shows that it is the same angle as another lttle arc with two dashes on it elsewhere?

Jasper Loy

Yeah, things like that.

Mitch

to show that the two arcs are equal? or just to be able to refer to it in text?

Jasper Loy

Both are relevant actually. But my original question was just about drawing a single arc, which I don't know how to do in Word.

Mitch

for labels, don't bother with the arc, just put the label as close to the corner as possible.

If it's not readable, it wasn't going to be readable with the little arc either

Jasper Loy

19:05

Yeah, that is a workaround. But drawing an ugly arc instead of a nice one is also a workaround. And now I can draw the ugly arc in Word.

Mitch

oh. you figured out how to do it in Word?

Jasper Loy

Well, the Shapes in Word allows you to draw Arcs.

Mitch

so you can do what you want now?

Jasper Loy

It's basically a curve where you get some degree of control. It's just that it doesn't look like a real arc of a circle.

Mitch

oh. it's still ugly? and you want to make it look right?

Jasper Loy

19:07

Yeah, but it's fine. It's not a big deal. Just something I have always been wondering how to do.

Mitch

@Cerberus You got some funny email there mister.

@JasperLoy 1) you can do it in geogebra, but that will take redoing your picture entirely of course. 2) it's by specifying a center of the arc, and then the bounds (geogebra has a pretty good mouse interface) but...

2) can't you do something similar in Word? and then any bad parts you can draw over with transparent paint?

or something?

Jasper Loy

@Mitch Yeah I will have a look at Geogebra some day, thanks.

Of course, everything can be done in LaTeX perfectly, but I was looking for a non-LaTeX way to do it.

The pstricks packages in LaTeX lets you draw just about any geometrical figure.

Feeds

Q: word for a person who lies to make others feel better

can't think of a word besides manipulative - what's a word for someone who, for example, reassures their parents that they are doing fine, by lying to them. reassuring? lol. thanks in advance

single-word-requests

Jasper Loy

@Cerberus This is the Lenovo laptop I currently have: cnet.com/products/…

Mitch

@JasperLoy but you have to calculate by hand the right coords of things

oh but yeah, pstricks is great

Cerberus

20:09

@JasperLoy Ah, OK, that's fairly slow.

You will certainly notice having an SSD and a faster processor.

But you will also certainly notice reinstalling Windows: it will feel much faster if you do that.

Jasper Loy

20:24

@Cerberus Do you know about WPS Office? It is a very good alternative to MS Office and is free to use.

Cerberus

WPS?

I know and use Libre Office.

Jasper Loy

Yes, it is available at wps.com, much better than LibreOffice or openOffice.

The user interface is very similar to MS Office. It was made to resemble the latter.

Cerberus

20:43

Oh, it's the same as Kingsoft.

I remember using that, I think on my phone.

Why is it much better than Libre?

Jasper Loy

More polished interface. And the Shapes and Equations is superior. Harder to draw figures or type equations in LibreOffice.

Cerberus

Okay.

I must admit I don't remember ever using those functions.

Jasper Loy

Yeah, I used a lot of them when I was teaching in schools.

1 hour later…

Mitch

21:51

@JasperLoy Ugh.. MS Equation Editor. I still wake up screaming from my time with that. Create math in LaTeX, cut and paste the image into Word doc. People who read word documents probably don't want to read much math anyway.

haha. I mean that to sting.

tchrist

> Anyone who cannot cope with mathematics is not fully human. At best, he is a tolerable subhuman who has learned to wear his shoes, bathe, and not make messes in the house.

Cerberus

Now, now.

That word "cope" bears defining.

Mitch

22:38

> If we take in our hand any MS Word document, for instance; let us ask, Does it contain any abstract reasoning concerning quantity or number? No. Does it contain any experimental reasoning concerning matter of fact and existence? No. Commit it then to the trash bin: for it can contain nothing but sophistry and illusion.

Cerberus

Perhaps a document explaining and defining the various vague terms in that text would be needed.

tchrist