Midnight Pub

hello, pub!

~fallenriver

I've heard about the place from a friend and got a key a while ago but I didn't quite have the time nor the energy to properly "enter" the place. After a completely sleepless night, I've garnered up the energy to finally sit down for some good tea. Probably not the usual drink for a pub but I don't feel like drinking this early in the morning :p

I'm normally a LaTeX kind of guy (I like my fancy symbols) but I also find plain-text to have a lot of character in itself.

I'll try to get some sleep now, see you another night people!


oldben

Cheers, fellow LaTeX guy. What’s your field? Mine were literature, Asian studies, and cultural studies. I'm an editor now, but I still use LaTeX with some clients---mostly doing economics papers for publication.

reply

fallenriver

Hello! I'm in computer science, and a relatively math-heavy side of it, so LaTeX is pretty much my go-to tool for writing anything related to that. Other than that, I find LaTeX just easier to work with these days. Of course, creating some figures externally and importing them as graphics is usually easier but formatting text is just so much easier in LaTeX imo.

reply

oldben

It's amazing (and comforting) to me that we're still using a format that's been around for nearly 50 years, if you count TeX as the beginning. I'm ready to keep using it for another 40-50 if I'm blessed to live that long.

I once commissioned some book illustrations from a TikZ wizard, but I agree that just importing graphics is usually the most efficient thing.

In my department, I didn't have any companions taking the way of plain/structured text. I got into LaTeX through LyX, and I can hardly remember how I discovered that. Maybe I was searching for thesis formatting advice? Maybe it was installed on a Linux distro I was playing with? Maybe I saw it on a game-studies academic's desktop at a conference?

Most of the humanities is missing out, fiddling with Word, often not even using heading styles effectively, and getting awful results, particularly on theses.

reply

fallenriver

I agree completely. The reason that I use LaTeX as opposed to Word these days is the seemingly endless complaints I have about its philosophy. Anyway, in the realm of science and engineering, LaTeX is very much alive which is very nice. Like with all other technologies, using it comes down to knowing when not to overengineer what you can get out of it. For me, this comes down to using it for good automatic layout design and citations. Of course, sometimes the layout turns out really weird but in that case changing it is an order of magnitude easier than fixing a word document lol

reply

rav3ndust

Hi, and welcome!

You'll find our fellow Pubbers are a pretty chill group. Musings on whatever happens to be on folks' minds, without all the nonsense you'd find on what I call the 'corporate web'.

~bartender, mind pouring me a bit of that tea, as well? There is never a bad time for tea!

reply

fallenriver

Thank you for the warm words! I'm reading some old posts right now, I hope you're doing alright, or at least better than yesterday.

reply

rav3ndust

you're very welcome! always nice to meet some new faces here in our cozy Pub. :-)

much better on this end. August was a brutal month for our family, but as always, we soldier on. hope things our well on your end, as well!

reply

inquiry

Pleased to read you!

reply

fallenriver

<3

reply

detritus

~bartender, do you have english breakfast? neat!

Tea is a very popular drink here at the pub, this is not your regular drinkin'-n-brawlin' kind of pub. We do have some fights every now and then, stay alert!

Oh, and welcome!

reply

fallenriver

Thank you! I'm not the brawler type anyway, neat!

reply

tffb

yes! there was a digital layout/game a pubber made when The Midnight was founded. Showing pool tables and pubbers and text boxes throughout. Thick pixel rendering. I forget who made it, or the url. Someone find! :D

reply

tffb

odd, I almost made an entry (in fact, I did, but deleted it) titled "hello, pub" last night

hello! I love tea, as well, tho coffee is the name of the game for me

and, pubbers and ~bartender, guess what(?!) I have tethering back on my data plan, so "regular" web + cli use can commence!

t

reply

fallenriver

I see! Had a coffee (thanks ~bartender, really good batch) because, yeah. Drove for ~2.5 hours, and almost back home after a very long while.

I think I'll be a regular of this place :)

reply