Earlier today, I went to a local copy shop and had my diploma thesis printed. This afternoon, I will hand it in. The title is
Loop subgroups of Fr and the images of their stabilizer subgroups in GLr( ) and discusses a group-theoretical result. I assume that very few readers care about the content of the thesis, but maybe some are interested in a few assorted LaTeX hints. I m also publishing the
full TeX source code, maybe someone can make use of it.
Less chatty varioref
I m using the
varioref package, in conjunction with the
cleveref package. This provides a command
\vref fig:S3S4l which will expand to, for example, to Figure 1 on page 11 . But if the referenced figure is actually on the current page, the next page, the previous page or the facing page (in two-side layouts), it will say so: Figure 1 on this page.
This is very nice, but I assume that the reader of my thesis is able to find Figure 1 when it is visible, i.e. on the current or facing page. One can remove the referencing texts with the commands
\def\reftextfaceafter ,
\def\reftextfacebefore and
\def\reftextcurrent . But because
varioref puts a space between Figure 1 and this text, we will get a superfluous space even before punctuation.
The remedy is the command
\unskip, which removes this space again. So I use in my preamble:
\def\reftextfaceafter \unskip %
\def\reftextfacebefore \unskip %
\def\reftextcurrent \unskip %
Palatino and extra leading
I chose the Palatino font for my thesis, using the
mathpazo package. Various sources (such as the
KOMA-Script manual) suggest to use 5% extra leading:
\linespread 1.05
Counting figures independently from chapters
I don t have too many figures and tables in my thesis, and I want them to be numbered simple 1, 2, ... By default, LaTeX would say 1.1, 1.2, 2.1, ... This can be fixed using the
remreset package and these commands:
\makeatletter
\@removefromreset figure chapter
\renewcommand \thefigure \arabic figure
\@removefromreset table chapter
\renewcommand \thetable \arabic table
\makeatother
No widows and club lines
LaTeX already avoids these, but I wanted to get rid of them completely. This can be done with:
% Disable single lines at the start of a paragraph (Schusterjungen)
\clubpenalty = 10000
% Disable single lines at the end of a paragraph (Hurenkinder)
\widowpenalty = 10000 \displaywidowpenalty = 1000
Struck table lines
I had to typeset tables with some lines struck, and I could not find a ready command for that. I used the following definition, based on the code for
\hline. Note that it probably does not adjust well to other font sizes and needs to be adjusted manually:
\makeatletter
\def\stline %
\noalign \vskip-.7em\vskip-\arrayrulewidth\hrule \@height \arrayrulewidth\vskip.7em
\makeatother
Title page in one-sided layout
According to the KOMA manual, the title page as set by LaTeX is not meant to be the cover of a publication, and therefore has to be set with the margins of a right page i.e. a larger right margin and a smaller left margin. But when printing cheaply, one often just put a transparent sheet on top of the print, so the title page
is the cover. You can convince KOMA that you are right by using
\KOMAoptions twoside=false
\begin titlepage
...
\end titlepage
\KOMAoptions twoside=true
Not flushing the page for chapter heads
LaTeX would put the list of algorithms on a new right page. I found this a waste of paper for my few algorithms, and preferred to put the list right after the table of contents. You can override the LaTeX behavior using:
\tableofcontents
\let\cleardoublepage\relax % book
\let\clearpage\relax % report
\let\chapter\section
\listofalgorithms
This code also reduces the size of the heading to that of a section. The same trick also works with
\chapter.
Math in headings vs. PDF bookmarks
LaTeX with the
hyperref package creates nice PDF bookmarks from your chapter and section titles. Unfortunately, PDF bookmark names can only be plain strings, while the titles in the document might contain some math symbols. You can make both happy with
\texorpdfstring:
\section Stabilizer subgroups in \texorpdfstring $\GL_r(\Z/2\Z)$ GL\_r(Z/2Z)
Setting lines for the signature
The diploma thesis contains a small note which I have to sign, saying that I created it on my own etc. Below that, I put two labeled lines for date and signature, using the tabbing environment:
\begin tabbing
\rule 4cm .4pt \hspace 1cm \= \rule 7cm .4pt \\
Ort, Datum \> Unterschrift
\end tabbing
After Wired attempted to
redesign Craigslist,
(with predictably bad results) a
opinion piece (paywalled)
in the WSJ suggests that Craigslist's look is what users really want.
I'd take that a step further...
The original design of HTML 1.1 and its presentation in early web browsers
gave users what they really wanted. Black and white text, that goes all the
way across the screen, is readable on any screen, and scrolls all the way down
to the end of the document. Links. Maybe some images.
No foofaraw of sidebars and mastheads; no bother with zooming to make the
content part of the page readable, no need to search the cluttered page to
find the print button so you can read the whole article without clicking
"Next" 10 times.
We didn't know it at the time, but that was a subtle part of the early
appeal of the web circa 1994. The minimalism sucked you in, it made the web
feel like one coherent, unified thing, unlike the constellation of
corporate edifices occupying much of it today.
In Craigslist, early Google, somewhat in Wikipedia, I see echos of that
minimalism, filtered through all the ways that have emerged to enhance, and
pollute the original vision of the web.
So, how long until a resurgence in web design minimalism?
PS, It's really no accident, nor is it entirely due to laziness that my
own site looks like it does.
The new 0.7.6 release of 
Right now, your government is probably engaged in the discussion
of the 
Do you like Debian? Do you like GNOME? Are you free on February 27-28?
If so, please reserve your week-end, because you are going to help us do a massive cleanup in the insane amount of bugs submitted against 
A few months ago I did an interesting discovery about using my cellphone to go on the internet via bluetooth. I had this strange situation before where it just stopped working, and after revisiting all configs it worked again.
What really happens is that my cellphone somehow crashes, after which I power cycle it by removing the batteries. The phone then boots again, but here is the twist: the service channels in the phone are re-allocated and apparently in a random order!
This implies that the RFCOMM channel configured in the /etc/bluetooth/rfcomm.conf file is possible wrong now!
Solution: just browse the services again with sdptool browse, adapt the file and it should work again!
... is over (for almost a week now), and it was a blast again.
If you went to one of the distro devrooms, I would appreciate it if
you were to reply to 
Back in the 
It might be quite premature, but in 
Should universities switch away from hosting their own email and join the Google bandwagon?
