LaTeX and Mac OS X

Now this should end up as a great resource. Bookmark it if you use LaTeX (or LyX or other editors) on Mac OS X — for that matter, even if you use it on other OSes (as they say, “since LaTeX is not very platform-specific much of the information presented here will be useful to users running other operating systems as well”).

Posted at 2004-09-08 16:07:39 by Richard • Link to LaTeX and Mac OS X
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Caveman diet

An interesting thought from Philip Greenspun:

My brother the M.D. says “If you want to lose weight, don't eat anything a caveman wouldn't have eaten. Meat and fish are okay. Fruits, berries, and vegetables that you could pick up off the ground or out of a tree are okay. Potatoes and grain are not okay. The human animal hasn't had time to evolve to deal with these products of the agricultural revolution.”

Sounds good to me!

Posted at 2004-09-08 12:33:49 by Richard • Link to Caveman diet
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Things I never knew

In the course of installing a new Linux distribution, you always find out new things. I've forgotten most of them, but I expect they're in my bookmarks. However, some I remember:

Setting editing mode for readline

Put set editing-mode vi in ~/.inputrc, and most terminal apps now act like vi! Awesome!

Set DPI for Xft

Put Xft.dpi: 133 in ~/.Xresources to set your fonts to 133dpi (which should also be your screen DPI!)

Set screen DPI

I already knew this, but put DisplaySize 304 228 in your XF86Config file, to specify a screen 304mm by 228mm. The DPI is automatically worked out.

Using the nvidia display driver

It's all explained here. I did have to modprobe nvidia before X would start, though.

Setting up Guile

As well as activating readline support, this handy page has all sorts of tips for the Scheme interpreter, Guile.

That's probably all for now. Some time I'll write everything I ever knew down, so that I can set up a new machine in super-quick time. Every re-install I figure out my X configuration again.

At least it gets easier each time.

Windows, however, still annoys me. Same problem as in January — the XP graphics drivers for this laptop hang the machine after a few random minutes, usually just before installing new ones, or running Windows Update. It's a miracle if the system stays up long enough to do that, let alone do a full restore. And of course, it's NTFS, so I can't write onto the drive from another OS…

Posted at 2004-09-08 11:59:01 by Richard • Link to Things I never kne…
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Mimi

I recently received penis-enlargement spam from one Mr. Tweeters, which was the name of my very first pet, a parakeet who died when I was ten years old. The thought that all spam is sent by a zombie army of undead pets, working from an underground bunker on some remote island, has been bothering me for a few days now. Millions of hamsters, clawing their way out of buried shoeboxes, logging on to AOL!

Always refreshing.

Posted at 2004-09-08 10:32:49 by Richard • Link to Mimi
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eBay mental! Panama Fedora

Hitting eBay selling hard, here is my next: the gorgeous Panama Fedora that Lisa got for my birthday. Anthony gave her the wrong size, so it doesn't fit. *sigh*

Bid!

Posted at 2004-09-08 09:31:28 by Richard • Link to eBay mental! Panam…
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Appalling joke

Q

What's an Aussie's favourite XML Schema Datatype?

A

http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#gDay

Posted at 2004-09-08 04:08:27 by Richard • Link to Appalling joke
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