How to Edit LaTeX with TextMate

Installing LaTeX

The TextMate website lists two ways to install LaTeX. If you have MacPorts installed, then you simply need to run sudo port install tetex. If you don't have MacPorts installed, I would highly suggest installing it, since the alternative officially sanctioned way of getting LaTeX, through i-Installer, is no longer actively maintained.

Installing TextMate

TextMate is one of the most highly regarded editors on the Mac OS X platform. It was popularized by DHH of Ruby on Rails fame and has spawned several copy cats, such as E, a TextMate clone for Windows. You can pick up a copy of TextMate at Macromates. Once you have TextMate installed, enable Cutting-Edge updates by going to TextMate > Preferences > Software Update > Watch For: > Cutting-Edge.

Installing Skim

Skim is the spiritual successor to PDFView. It has many noteworthy features, including, but not limited to note-taking and annotation features, highlighting, and TextMate / pdfsync integration. Once you have Skim installed, activate Skim > Preferences > Sync > Check for file changes. TextMate should already be entered as the default editor.

Configuring the new LaTeX bundle

To configure the new LaTeX bundle in TextMate, go to Bundles > LaTeX > Preferences ... and set your viewer to Skim. Now you should be all set to write LaTeX documents in TextMate!

You're not going to believe this.

I've been hired into a really cool research project involving development for mobile platforms.

The basic premise goes something like this. The university buys me an 8GB iPhone and I get to hack it...

Did I mention this goes towards fufilling my master's degree?

Awesome.

Time Capsule

The University of Washington is preparing a time capsule.

The new capsule will be filled with digital media, carrying images of graffiti and video and focusing on "communication from a global perspective," said Coma Te, a 20-year-old senior who was one of six students who created the new capsule. - Komo TV

Digital media? Will people still have the technology to play h.264 files 50 years from now?

Philosophical future musings

I was talking to Pravin Bhat the other day about how the graduate school vs industry question factored into my future. He asked me, "What do you want 5 years from now?"

Me: "I want to not want."

Pro: "Niceeeee! That was excellent! I want to not want. Hahaha..."

This reminds me of my first year Mandarin final in middle school. One of the questions was "What do you want to do next week?" Lacking the vocabulary required to understand what my teacher said, I retrieved, from my memorized Mandarin repertoire, the answer that shared the most similar-sounding syllables,

"I want to go to the bathroom."

Hilarity ensued, and I got partial credit.

Search Engine usability study

I participated in a search engine usability study today.

Google Code Search was supposed to be the crappiest among the given search engines - the Raphael said he would probably need to assist me during the tasks since they were known to trip up previous participants.

During the trial I discovered the trick to making Google Code Search work. Type in "test" after your query. This brings up test suites related to your result, which means you can figure out how to use the resulting APIs by example.

"You are by far the fastest Googler I have ever seen."

My prize? $30 Amazon gift certificate. Yummy.

Men's/Women's Interest (updated)

I was at the airport the other day, and something about popular media caught my eye.



The Men's interest section at this airport convenience store can be summed up as follows: 10 magazines that feature men on the cover, 10 magazines that feature women.

The Women's interest section has a much simpler breakdown.



UPDATE!

Hypothesis: The default, or innate, attraction mechanism for humans is to be attracted to females.

Does anyone want to test this hypothesis for me?

UPDATE 2:

Thank you Dr. Baily!

Protein Folding

I have this delusion I'm trying to dispel that I've figured out an O(n) -- in the number of nucleotides -- algorithm for protein folding. I'm at the UW genomics department right now looking for protein people to talk to.

T minus 10 days

In my HCI class, we've been prototyping an imaginary interface for 1.5 quarters. Now we have to implement it in 10 days. It sounds tough, but I don't think it will be that difficult, considering that we could simplify the interface much further given our recent video prototype feedback.

Additionally, in my distributed systems class, we've just finished our final lecture and will start our final projects, which need to be ready in 10 days. Ours is called Infomush, but its role in the great scheme of things will be kept a secret for now =).

=========

Monday: Reflective essay on nuclear physics due.

GRAIL: "Most Helpful" Awards

Today Pro held a surprise awards ceremony to celebrate surviving the Siggraph crunch.

I won a little something for being generally helpful around the lab -- editing movies, debugging code, editing papers, and writing scripts in crazy languages that I haven't touched for years.

Why did this happen?

This is the French version of "Who Wants to be a Millionaire?"

The question is "What orbits the Earth?"

A. The Moon
B. The Sun
C. Mars
D. Venus

The guy uses a "poll the audience" lifeline, which is, in itself, surprising. However, the really incredible bit comes when the polls show that the audience's top choice is B. The Sun!

Day 6

This is the 6th day my home has been without hot water, heat, food, and electricity.

Living in the labs isn't so bad, actually.

About this site

Hi people,

This website is a content-aggregator, in web speak it's a "planet." If you give me the address to a feed from your blog, your blog's content will be displayed here. Alternatively, you can tell me where your blog is, and I'll try to find the feed. I can also display a profile pic next to your post if you provide it.

To get listed on this planet. you need to give me your
Name:
Feed URL: (or if you can't find that, your blog URL)
Avatar (attached in email, optional)

Send Email

About using this planet with Blogger:
If you upload your images to Blogger, they WILL NOT appear in this planet, since Blogger blocks outside sites from embedding their pictures. If you want your images to appear, I recommend linking your pics from your UW Dante account instead of hosting them on Blogger.

Here's an example of the Blogger problem. If the lower logo is still visible, press refresh and it should disappear.

Image linked from the internet:

Image uploaded on Blogger:

Flickr geotagging

This is great! Flickr just added geotagging ability to their site. If there's an open API, or a way to scrape this, it could really help out the Photo Tourism project.

Trust your instincts

I was browsing my usual feeds and came across this very interesting article about subconscious decision making vs. conscious decision making. I'm very much the kind of person who believes that deliberate and rational decision making will usually lead to the best outcome. Imagine my surprise when I came accross this: Education Guardian

Siggraph pics

See all of my pics from Siggraph

Railpad is up!

Railpad is up for testing: http://cat.cs.washington.edu

Spot the Diff

So, I finally finished up with my partner on the ray tracing graphics project. We thought we had everything finished until we heard that we would be graded on a pixel-by-pixel basis. We scoured all of the example render scenes and discovered a few abnormalities.

If you have ever played "Spot the Difference," you know what the next 10 hours of debugging was like. Pixel intensities, edge noise, shadow shading ... everything had to be checked.

Update: Jon Su wasn't there to help the other TA's with the pixel-checker, so all of the extra work we put into the project was for naught.

Back to Work

I wasted a few hours watching music videos on youtube. I guess that makes up for all the time I’ve spent away from the TV.

Distractions like these aren’t necessarily bad. In support of my opinion, Bertrand Russell, British author, mathematician, & philosopher says,

“Time you enjoy wasting is not wasted time.”

I really need to buckle down now and learn this Ruby on Rails framework. Our team’s beta release is due in two weeks and we don’t even know the tools yet. Wish us luck!

Whew

I got 96/100 on a project I thought I bombed. Close call... I think the graders were just being nice because I finished the hard part before turning it in incomplete. (I got docked on a smaller part for being late.)

World Object

Typically, you think of the Internet as an object on the Earth. Some interesting thoughts pop up if you think of the Earth as an object on the Internet.