... I *really* hope that this is finally the device I've been holding out for. I have hundreds of papers in PDF format, most produced using LaTeX, downloaded from the arXiv or elsewhere -- but because it's too much of a pain to read on-screen, I end up printing out several papers a week (dozens or hundreds of pages) just to read and then throw away. Stacks of printouts are gathering chalk dust on my desk, because I need to refer to them frequently, and don't want to print out a fresh copy every time I want to do that. People who complain that this device doesn't have a full-color touchscreen with video capabilities are missing the point: this is meant to replace your printer, not your computer.
Also, while I'm not a fan of DRM, it still beats the heck out of the "edition wars" in textbook publishing. Because used book sales hurt the market for new books, publishers charge an extortionate amount of money for new textbooks and constantly release new editions (sometimes with trivial changes, like rearranged exercises) to depreciate the value of used books. All else being equal, I'd rather see $40 electronic textbooks that can't be sold back, rather than $200 hardcover monstrosities that get "revised" every other year. (Of course, while this may be the lesser evil, it's still an evil -- I'd much rather assign a book that's freely available, or available in a cheap Dover paperback edition, than do either of these -- so don't flame me, please!)
On the upside, complexity theory is the only "big O" most CS majors will get in their 4 years of college.
Nope -- but there are better ways to do LaTeX
on
Modern LaTeX Replacement?
·
· Score: 5, Informative
First of all, you have zero chance of finding anything better than LaTeX for mathematical/scientific typesetting. However, there are ways of solving lots of the problems you mention without chucking LaTeX out the window.
Frustrated that you're constantly having to download and install new packages, fonts, etc.? Try the everything-including-the-kitchen-sink distribution, TeX Live. If you're running Mac OS X, there's a great Mac-specific version of TeX Live called MacTeX, which also includes a number of front-end apps for editing, managing bibliographies, spell-checking, etc.
Hate the standard (La)TeX font, Computer Modern? You're not alone. For free, math-capable fonts (most of which are included in TeX Live/MacTeX), check out this illustrated survey. If you want the ability to use OpenType and other installed fonts on your system, as well as foreign language scripts, unicode, and other modern font features, check out the wonderful Xe(La)TeX and its fontspec package, both included in TeX Live/MacTeX (of course)
Want the ability to do real programming in (La)TeX, with a full scripting language? Check out LuaTeX (although it's still very much a work in progress).
Want a good LaTeX front-end/editor? IMHO, Scientific Word and Lyx try to hide the complexity behind a WYSIWYG interface -- but this makes things even more confusing, because the complexity is still there, but now it's invisible, so it's impossible to diagnose why your document doesn't look the way you want. What you really want is a text-editor with built-in templates, push-button PDF compiling, and other TeX-specific features. One of the most popular editors (justly so) is TeXShop, for Mac OS X. A cross-platform program called TeXWorks is in development (led by Jonathan Kew, who developed XeTeX), and promises to bring TeXShop's advantages to all platforms. If (like me) you're wedded to Emacs, there's the fantastic AUCTeX editing mode for all things TeX-related.
Read LaTeX books designed for users, not developers or those interested in the "theory" of typesetting. This means, in my opinion, to stay away from anything with "Knuth" in the byline. I really like Leslie Lamport's introductory book on LaTeX, which you should be able to track down at almost any university library if you don't want to buy it.
Above all, be patient, and be open to learning. It's understandable that you want to do powerful and flexible document processing, without having to learn a whole bunch of commands. Unfortunately, this has a lot of similarity with people who want to program computers without learning a programming language. ("Why can't the computer just understand what I want it to do, in plain English?") Any program powerful enough to do everything you want is also powerful enough to do lots of things you don't want -- and because the computer can't read your mind, you have to learn how to tell it exactly what you want.
CS geeks claim that CS is more than banging out code. Ivy leagues claim that their degree is more than just CS. (Never mind that its a core skill.) Less than half the Georgia Tech grads I've worked with could actually write decent code. My guess that the percentage Ivy league grads ability would be even lower.
If you think it's bad in CS, you should see the crap they're teaching in the architecture schools. All these fancy-pants architects talk about is "plans" and "elevations," whatever those are -- and they can't even do a decent job of hanging drywall!
Considering you'll be doing astrophysics, you'll probably need to learn a lot about general relativity. For a really solid mathematical treatment (not shying away from serious differential geometry, which shouldn't scare you too much if you're a math guy), I like the classic "Gravitation," by Misner, Thorne, and Wheeler.
Geez, what's the matter with New Zealand? If they bothered to read the First, Fifth, Sixth, and Eighth Amendments to the U.S. Constitution, they'd know that this sort of thing is illegal. I thought this was America, but it's almost like these people live in some other country.
The devil can quote scripture for his purpose. That doesn't mean that any particular quote means a damn thing. The utility of the bible depends largely on the maturity of it's reader. Not to get into a flame war here, but this argument leads to even more serious objections. If scripture is just a mirror, reflecting the preexisting morality of its reader, then what use is the scripture? That is, if you require an intrinsic sense of morality to interpret the Bible, why not just cut out the middleman and use this intrinsic sense to determine right and wrong? (This is a classic argument against the claim that atheism leads to immorality.)
4) In order to easier manipulate them, it will try to weaken the members by severing their ties with their families and friends. If anyone comes to me and does not hate his father and mother, his wife and children, his brothers and sisters--yes, even his own life--he cannot be my disciple. Luke 14:26
If your very own brother, or your son or daughter, or the wife you love, or your closest friend secretly entices you, saying, "Let us go and worship other gods" [...] do not yield to him or listen to him. Show him no pity. Do not spare him or shield him. You must certainly put him to death. Your hand must be the first in putting him to death, and then the hands of all the people. Stone him to death, because he tried to turn you away from the LORD your God... Deuteronomy 13:6-10
The instant an event happens anywhere in the world you have hundreds of cameras on it. This is a very, very good thing. Reporters and ground crews are no longer necessary to capture footage, you can get it de novo, unfiltered, unbiased. And then, 12 hours later, Slashdot limps across the finish line! Technology may advance, but at least some things never change.
I know this isn't an answer to your question -- but you say that this is a girl you "like," and you seem to really want to impress her by throwing her the greatest math birthday party ever. Have you told her that you like her, or asked her out yet? If you haven't, and you're hoping that planning this party will help her suddenly realize what a great friend you are, and how well you know her, and that you're the one for her -- well, it just doesn't work that way (except in the movies). Many a shy guy (myself included) has fallen into that trap way too many times, because friendly gestures are far easier than being direct and facing the possibility of rejection. So if I'm wrong, never mind... but if I'm right, maybe you could redirect some of the party planning effort into gathering the courage to tell her how you feel?
If that's way off base, at least here's a party idea: have everyone come dressed up as a liberal arts student.:)
I thought that we had editors to check for this sort of, thing. Maybe William Gibson wrote that post, here? (I love his books, but I get annoyed by the use of extraneous commas, in his writing. Argh... I just did it, again.)
That's not an office. That's a "stick the IT guy in the closet so we don't have to spend money on him" room.
Management: "Yes, but let's tell him that he can design his new 'office' anyway he wants -- that way, he'll feel so 'empowered' that he won't realize he's getting screwed by being stuck in the server closet!"
One of the sharpest critiques of string theory is that it isn't really one theory -- it's many, many theories (something like 10^500), depending on how the hidden dimensions are wrapped up. It looks like this study showed that a certain flavor of string theory (IIA) might not be able to accommodate inflation -- but not to worry, the string theorists say, there are plenty of other flavors of string theory that might indeed allow inflation after all! But therein lies the problem: no matter how an experiment turns out, one can cook up a version of string theory that agrees with it! What we really need is a meta-theory (M-theory?) that tells us *which* string theory to use, but so far it doesn't exist. This is why some critics call string theory a "theory of anything."
I think you hit the nail on the head. People who require Outlook/Exchange for work use Outlook as their client; those who don't generally use Gmail or some other web mail service. There isn't much room in between for a standalone email client anymore.
First, I'm not sure how "representative" these two questions are of British and Chinese education. Perhaps they're comparing a "basic competency" test from a British school to the entry exam for a top Chinese technical school.
Regardless, as a mathematician, I think that the Chinese problem looks "complicated" but not especially interesting. Sure, it seems more impressive than the British one, but they both require nothing more than basic geometry and a bit of trig -- the main difference is that the Chinese problem involves a significant amount of "grinding out" calculations, but it doesn't really require any insight or understanding. It's really not much different than doing page after page of long division, or working out a nasty Sudoku puzzle. It's much more interesting to prove something surprising about a basic geometric figure than to prove something boring about a complicated geometric figure -- that is, unless your sole interest is in cranking out engineers to do "worker bee" calculations like this, rather than trying to learn more about reality and how to calculate unknown things.
I pay money for them to pick up my trash right? They take my trash, zap it into electricity. I have to pay for electricity. So, I'm basically paying to have my trash back? WTF?
Wow... you mean you'd have to pay for someone to haul away what you DON'T want and give you back something you DO want? I can't imagine why.:)
Slashdot Mirror
... I *really* hope that this is finally the device I've been holding out for. I have hundreds of papers in PDF format, most produced using LaTeX, downloaded from the arXiv or elsewhere -- but because it's too much of a pain to read on-screen, I end up printing out several papers a week (dozens or hundreds of pages) just to read and then throw away. Stacks of printouts are gathering chalk dust on my desk, because I need to refer to them frequently, and don't want to print out a fresh copy every time I want to do that. People who complain that this device doesn't have a full-color touchscreen with video capabilities are missing the point: this is meant to replace your printer, not your computer.
Also, while I'm not a fan of DRM, it still beats the heck out of the "edition wars" in textbook publishing. Because used book sales hurt the market for new books, publishers charge an extortionate amount of money for new textbooks and constantly release new editions (sometimes with trivial changes, like rearranged exercises) to depreciate the value of used books. All else being equal, I'd rather see $40 electronic textbooks that can't be sold back, rather than $200 hardcover monstrosities that get "revised" every other year. (Of course, while this may be the lesser evil, it's still an evil -- I'd much rather assign a book that's freely available, or available in a cheap Dover paperback edition, than do either of these -- so don't flame me, please!)
Cheers,
IT
... but wait until T-Pain and Kanye West get their hands on this kind of technology. Wait ... oh God, no!
Cheers,
IT
In other (much clearer, IMHO) words: By this point, almost everyone who wants broadband already has it.
Cheers,
Ari
On the upside, complexity theory is the only "big O" most CS majors will get in their 4 years of college.
First of all, you have zero chance of finding anything better than LaTeX for mathematical/scientific typesetting. However, there are ways of solving lots of the problems you mention without chucking LaTeX out the window.
Above all, be patient, and be open to learning. It's understandable that you want to do powerful and flexible document processing, without having to learn a whole bunch of commands. Unfortunately, this has a lot of similarity with people who want to program computers without learning a programming language. ("Why can't the computer just understand what I want it to do, in plain English?") Any program powerful enough to do everything you want is also powerful enough to do lots of things you don't want -- and because the computer can't read your mind, you have to learn how to tell it exactly what you want.
Cheers,
IT
Too soon, too soon!
CS geeks claim that CS is more than banging out code. Ivy leagues claim that their degree is more than just CS. (Never mind that its a core skill.) Less than half the Georgia Tech grads I've worked with could actually write decent code. My guess that the percentage Ivy league grads ability would be even lower.
If you think it's bad in CS, you should see the crap they're teaching in the architecture schools. All these fancy-pants architects talk about is "plans" and "elevations," whatever those are -- and they can't even do a decent job of hanging drywall!
Cheers,
Ari
Considering you'll be doing astrophysics, you'll probably need to learn a lot about general relativity. For a really solid mathematical treatment (not shying away from serious differential geometry, which shouldn't scare you too much if you're a math guy), I like the classic "Gravitation," by Misner, Thorne, and Wheeler.
Cheers,
IT
Geez, what's the matter with New Zealand? If they bothered to read the First, Fifth, Sixth, and Eighth Amendments to the U.S. Constitution, they'd know that this sort of thing is illegal. I thought this was America, but it's almost like these people live in some other country.
Cheers,
IT
That doesn't mean that any particular quote means a damn thing.
The utility of the bible depends largely on the maturity of it's reader. Not to get into a flame war here, but this argument leads to even more serious objections. If scripture is just a mirror, reflecting the preexisting morality of its reader, then what use is the scripture? That is, if you require an intrinsic sense of morality to interpret the Bible, why not just cut out the middleman and use this intrinsic sense to determine right and wrong? (This is a classic argument against the claim that atheism leads to immorality.)
Cheers,
IT
If your very own brother, or your son or daughter, or the wife you love, or your closest friend secretly entices you, saying, "Let us go and worship other gods" [...] do not yield to him or listen to him. Show him no pity. Do not spare him or shield him. You must certainly put him to death. Your hand must be the first in putting him to death, and then the hands of all the people. Stone him to death, because he tried to turn you away from the LORD your God
Cheers,
IT
They can always fix the bugs in SP4. :)
Cheers,
IT
I know this isn't an answer to your question -- but you say that this is a girl you "like," and you seem to really want to impress her by throwing her the greatest math birthday party ever. Have you told her that you like her, or asked her out yet? If you haven't, and you're hoping that planning this party will help her suddenly realize what a great friend you are, and how well you know her, and that you're the one for her -- well, it just doesn't work that way (except in the movies). Many a shy guy (myself included) has fallen into that trap way too many times, because friendly gestures are far easier than being direct and facing the possibility of rejection. So if I'm wrong, never mind ... but if I'm right, maybe you could redirect some of the party planning effort into gathering the courage to tell her how you feel?
:)
If that's way off base, at least here's a party idea: have everyone come dressed up as a liberal arts student.
Cheers,
IT
This guy deserves to be prosecuted under anti-hacking statutes.
... but it's too bad that the guy who discovered the crime decided to destroy the evidence. Oops.
So true
Cheers,
IT
Cheers,
IT
That's not an office. That's a "stick the IT guy in the closet so we don't have to spend money on him" room.
Management: "Yes, but let's tell him that he can design his new 'office' anyway he wants -- that way, he'll feel so 'empowered' that he won't realize he's getting screwed by being stuck in the server closet!"
Cheers,
IT
HDMI is where it's truly insane -- yeah, let's gold-plate a cable that transmit a digital signal.
You think that's bad? I've seen gold-plated optical cables! (No, I'm not kidding.)
Cheers,
IT
One of the sharpest critiques of string theory is that it isn't really one theory -- it's many, many theories (something like 10^500), depending on how the hidden dimensions are wrapped up. It looks like this study showed that a certain flavor of string theory (IIA) might not be able to accommodate inflation -- but not to worry, the string theorists say, there are plenty of other flavors of string theory that might indeed allow inflation after all! But therein lies the problem: no matter how an experiment turns out, one can cook up a version of string theory that agrees with it! What we really need is a meta-theory (M-theory?) that tells us *which* string theory to use, but so far it doesn't exist. This is why some critics call string theory a "theory of anything."
Cheers,
IT
But it could also be the prevalence of web mail.
I think you hit the nail on the head. People who require Outlook/Exchange for work use Outlook as their client; those who don't generally use Gmail or some other web mail service. There isn't much room in between for a standalone email client anymore.
Cheers,
IT
I'm personally a big fan of the gold-plated optical connectors. What, are you worried that the photons are going to corrode?
Cheers,
IT
"Mother's gone too far. She'd put cardboard over her half of the television. We rented "Man Without A Face" - I didn't even know he had a problem!"
Cheers,
IT
First, I'm not sure how "representative" these two questions are of British and Chinese education. Perhaps they're comparing a "basic competency" test from a British school to the entry exam for a top Chinese technical school.
Regardless, as a mathematician, I think that the Chinese problem looks "complicated" but not especially interesting. Sure, it seems more impressive than the British one, but they both require nothing more than basic geometry and a bit of trig -- the main difference is that the Chinese problem involves a significant amount of "grinding out" calculations, but it doesn't really require any insight or understanding. It's really not much different than doing page after page of long division, or working out a nasty Sudoku puzzle. It's much more interesting to prove something surprising about a basic geometric figure than to prove something boring about a complicated geometric figure -- that is, unless your sole interest is in cranking out engineers to do "worker bee" calculations like this, rather than trying to learn more about reality and how to calculate unknown things.
Cheers,
IT
Well, we might be one planet down, but our Solar System can still surprise.
Uh, Mars?
Cheers,
IT
I pay money for them to pick up my trash right?
... you mean you'd have to pay for someone to haul away what you DON'T want and give you back something you DO want? I can't imagine why. :)
They take my trash, zap it into electricity.
I have to pay for electricity.
So, I'm basically paying to have my trash back? WTF?
Wow
Cheers,
IT