Annoying Questions I'd Like Answered...

Sigil · Post by **Sigil** » Fri Aug 16, 2013 8:20 pm

DragonChild: When I was using latex, I used TexnicCenter as my editor. What you need to understand about latex is that it is not a WYSIWYG editor. At the beginning of your 'document' you define, using tags, how the information after it is supposed to be formatted. Afterwards you put all of your information in as plain text (again, annotated with tags). Once you've done all of this, you compile the document, and it will output a document in the format you want, PDF being one of them (depending on your editor/compiler).

Latex is very powerful for certain applications, it allows you to make several separate text documents, and reference them in a master document to add it to the final product. This allows you to keep your information separate and organized. In the Tome PDF for example, each of the classes before compiling is a separate document, but becomes a single pdf at the end.

What Latex is NOT very good for is pictured. You can get a few pictures in without too much trouble, but if you're going to want a lot in your document latex is probably NOT the way to go, shit will drive you crazy.

DragonChild · Post by **DragonChild** » Fri Aug 16, 2013 8:41 pm

Just so I understand it, you do stuff like

"TITLE" WARDEN "/TITLE"

And then define at the beginning that "Title is 18 size font underlined", and can change that around, right?

Because that's what I thought it did and is basically exactly what I am looking for.

Thanks for the help.

...You Lost Me · Post by **...You Lost Me** » Fri Aug 16, 2013 9:49 pm

There's a LaTeX tutorial on YouTube I found really useful, and you could look there, but I don't think there's anything LaTeX can do now that Word 2010 can't.

Maj · Post by **Maj** » Fri Aug 16, 2013 10:44 pm

Admittedly, my computer is old, so my programs are, too... But I've always just installed the plug-in from Acrobat that gives MS Word a button that will turn documents into PDFs.

Ed · Post by Ed » Fri Aug 16, 2013 11:12 pm

I used LaTeX through college, but I still find it sort of dense after years of using it. These days I'm a big fan of InDesign, if you can get ahold of it. I get it through work, but by itself it is pretty pricey.

Sigil · Post by **Sigil** » Fri Aug 16, 2013 11:24 pm

DragonChild wrote:Just so I understand it, you do stuff like

"TITLE" WARDEN "/TITLE"

And then define at the beginning that "Title is 18 size font underlined", and can change that around, right?

Because that's what I thought it did and is basically exactly what I am looking for.

Thanks for the help.

That's the gist of it, except you define it first. You can also define custom tags and tag groupings, which is nice. So you can totally have a \babfeat or \skillfeat tag that you defined previously for different types of feats (or whatever). For example in the Tome PDF source you have:

Code: Select all

\newcommand&#123;\babfeat&#125;&#91;7&#93;&#123;
	\noindent\minitabular&#123;\multicolumn&#123;2&#125;&#123;l&#125;&#123;\parbox&#123;3in&#125;&#123;\textbf&#123;#1&#125;&#125;&#125;&#125;
	\minitabular&#123;\multicolumn&#123;2&#125;&#123;l&#125;&#123;\parbox&#123;3in&#125;&#123;\small #2&#125;&#125;&#125;
	\minitabular&#123;\raggedleft\textbf&#123;\small \textbf&#123;+0&#58;&#125;&#125;& &#123;\small #3&#125;&#125;
	\minitabular&#123;\raggedleft\textbf&#123;\small +1&#58;&#125; & &#123;\small #4&#125;&#125;
	\minitabular&#123;\raggedleft\textbf&#123;\small +6&#58;&#125; & &#123;\small #5&#125;&#125;
	\minitabular&#123;\raggedleft\textbf&#123;\small +11&#58;&#125; & &#123;\small #6&#125;&#125;
	\minitabular&#123;\raggedleft\textbf&#123;\small +16&#58;&#125; &&#123;\small #7&#125;&#125;

Which defines \babfeat to be a thing, and defines the formatting that happens to the text that appears within the six sets of {brackets} that appear immediately after it.

Code: Select all

\babfeat&#123;Blind Fighting &#91;Combat&#93;&#125;&#123;
You don't have to see to kill.&#125;&#123;
You may reroll your miss chances caused by concealment.&#125;&#123;
While in darkness, you may move your normal speed without difficulty.&#125;&#123;
You have Blindsense out to 60', this allows you to know the location of all creatures within 60'.&#125;&#123;
You have Tremorsense out to 120', this allows you to ``see" anything within 120' that is touching the earth.&#125;&#123;
You cannot be caught flat footed.&#125;

So now that automatically gets formatted to look the way the blind fighting feat looks in the PDF

Chamomile · Post by **Chamomile** » Sat Aug 17, 2013 2:07 am

Grek wrote:2008 at the latest. What you're looking at in terms of a timeline is

2006: Aliens kill all/most of the governments in their decapitation strike.
2008: Central power has finally been unified in the United Earth Central Command, which is lead by a panel of the top surviving generals/heads of state from all the world powers.
2010: Alien tech integrated into the resistance effort. Alien efforts turn toward converting the populace.
2011: First alien cyborgs found, tech stolen for use by resistance. Both types of cyborg turn against the resistance.
2012: Alien cyborgs purged, mostly. So is everyone who is even remotely allied or affiliated with the invaders.
2013: Aliens retreat, needing to get reinforcements.

Would it be sufficient to establish that just the protagonist isn't KoS? Because you could easily do that by having X-COM interrogate all the superhumans they catch before executing them, and then have the announcement that the aliens have retreated come just as he's about to get executed.

First of all, thank you for responding. Secondly, though, these two bits have the same problem, specifically that I don't want my story happening until at least fifteen years or so after the X-COM project has taken over, but I also need the city-states and other nations of the world to not acknowledge X-COM's right to rule as a general principle (the reason for this is that a significant chunk of the story's emotional themes rest on the younger generation of mid-to-late teens or so considering themselves global citizens loyal to X-COM whereas people from the age of 21 or so on up typically still consider themselves citizens of the United States or whatever, and want typically want to re-establish the old nation as a sovereign entity upon whom X-COM is reliant rather than the other way around).

But upon reflection, this begs the question as to what exactly X-COM has been doing for the past decade if they weren't consolidating control over the cities and warlords. If they couldn't do it before, what would make them think they could do it now? Maybe they could and they just didn't under the old director, and the new guy wants to take the opportunity to create a global government (conveniently run by him) while he still has the chance.

Also, if the X-COM project just barely stopped shooting people last Tuesday, it makes any augmented human arguing that they're trustworthy look like gullible morons, and that argument is pretty much the crux of the first half or so of the story.

Chamomile · Post by **Chamomile** » Mon Aug 19, 2013 1:31 pm

If the island of Hawaii (not the entire state, just the actual island) sank into the Pacific, how much would sea levels rise in Japan and California?

sabs · Post by **sabs** » Mon Aug 19, 2013 1:41 pm

Chamomile wrote:If the island of Hawaii (not the entire state, just the actual island) sank into the Pacific, how much would sea levels rise in Japan and California?

a millimeter, tops.
The island is 5000 square miles, with the highest elevation point being 3 miles. But, most of the island is less than 1/2 a mile above sea level. So, we'll round to 2 miles, for roughly 10,000 cubic miles of volume.

The Pacific is 63million square miles. Adding in 10,000 cubic miles of volume isn't going to do jack squat.

Stahlseele · Post by **Stahlseele** » Mon Aug 19, 2013 3:31 pm

Now if it all fell into the sea at once, the resulting tsunami could be a bit more impressive.

sabs · Post by **sabs** » Mon Aug 19, 2013 3:50 pm

Yes, if you picked up hawaii somehow and dropped it back into the sea, the Tsunami would wipe out most of Japan, coastal california, most of Vietnam, burma, etc.. Korea might only survive because Japan stopped it.

It would be impressive.. but just sinking? No shits would be given.

Chamomile · Post by **Chamomile** » Mon Aug 19, 2013 4:33 pm

I thought as much, but thought I'd double check. Thanks for confirming.

EDIT: Although I hadn't particularly planned to drop the island, it occurs to me that it might be cooler to do so since it's all running on space magic in the first place. But here's a question: When you say "wipe out" do you mean like Hurrican Katrina levels of devastation or do you mean coastal cities would actually be gone? In other words, if I set a story within a decade of the event on the west coast of America, will it be "they never even bothered rebuilding that one part of town" or Mad Max?

Shrapnel · Post by **Shrapnel** » Mon Aug 19, 2013 4:53 pm

sabs wrote:It would be impressive.. but just sinking? No shits would be given.

Yeah, the only people who would care about Hawaii dying would be anyone who eats pineapples. And Stitch.

sabs · Post by **sabs** » Mon Aug 19, 2013 6:36 pm

We mean, Mile high Tsunami wave rolling across the pacific traveling at 500 mph ish. And then Washing over LA, San Francisco, Tokyo. All sorts of awesome.

It might not be a mile high. But the Largest Tsunami we know about was 1750 feet high. So, 10,000 cubic feet of land smacking into the ocean with any kind of force would probably create something at least a 1/2 mile high wave.

Stahlseele · Post by **Stahlseele** » Mon Aug 19, 2013 7:48 pm

remember the tsunami that washed over japan and fukushima?
washed away is what you are looking for in effect.

DragonChild · Post by **DragonChild** » Wed Aug 21, 2013 4:35 am

Thanks for the help with Latex so far. It's going to save me a lot of time making sure I get formatting right, but oh boy is it going to be a pain to learn fast...

Cynic · Post by **Cynic** » Thu Aug 22, 2013 1:27 am

So does anyone know how to differentiate between a charge only usb cable and a charge/sync usb cable? The ones that you hook up a phone to that is. I have a phone that uses a male usb to male mini usb connector So basically the stuff you plug in most of the android phones.

Ideally, if there's a way to tell by just looking at the connectors that would be perfect.

name_here · Post by **name_here** » Thu Aug 22, 2013 1:32 am

There are charge-only USB cables? Why?

Sigil · Post by **Sigil** » Thu Aug 22, 2013 2:35 am

Cynic: In theory such a cable would only require the two outmost contacts on its connecting ends, the middle two contacts are data throughput. In practice, it's possible that even charge only cables are manufactured using standard heads because of costs. You could make such a cable just by removing said contacts (on the large end for ease) with some tweezers or something.

Name_here: Some devices automatically see normal cables as data connections, and will only trickle charge on them. A charge only cable can grant a quicker charge time in these cases.

DragonChild · Post by **DragonChild** » Thu Aug 22, 2013 4:28 am

Solved it.

Starmaker · Post by **Starmaker** » Thu Aug 22, 2013 7:28 am

name_here wrote:There are charge-only USB cables? Why?

Sigil wrote:Name_here: Some devices automatically see normal cables as data connections, and will only trickle charge on them. A charge only cable can grant a quicker charge time in these cases.

Also because you might not necessarily want to stick your device into an alleged charger though a connector that might transmit some data on the side.

Shrapnel · Post by **Shrapnel** » Fri Aug 23, 2013 1:26 am

Okay, so Jon Pertwee was my favorite Doctor. Like, really favorite.

Anyway, I really dig his style, and I want to know if there is somewhere I could go and get for myself a reproduction of the Third Doctors outfit?

hyzmarca · Post by **hyzmarca** » Sat Aug 24, 2013 2:34 am

Shrapnel wrote:Okay, so Jon Pertwee was my favorite Doctor. Like, really favorite.

Anyway, I really dig his style, and I want to know if there is somewhere I could go and get for myself a reproduction of the Third Doctors outfit?

This might help.

http://www.bbcamerica.com/anglophenia/2 ... rd-doctor/

Does the set of all sets that do not contain themselves contain the set of all sets that do not contain themselves, and should it?

John Magnum · Post by **John Magnum** » Sat Aug 24, 2013 3:02 am

The set of all sets that do not contain themselves doesn't exist by the axiom of foundation.

Cynic · Post by **Cynic** » Sat Aug 24, 2013 3:43 am

I don't know enough about sets but couldn't the axiom of choice actually give a yes answer to hyzmarca's question?