
LaTeX coffee stains - shard
http://hanno-rein.de/archives/349
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dmvaldman
I've been trying to think how to express my fascination with this software.

The only thing I can think of, is that this piece of ingenuity would never
exist in a post apocalyptic future where humans have evolved into exacting
machines.

This software is, in this sense, a win for humanity.

~~~
yuan
I resent your speciesism insinuating that simply because you are born human,
you are somehow superior to machines.

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prodigal_erik
Nice that Rein didn't cop out and embed images. I'm a little surprised that
adding arbitrary closed outlines to PostScript output was the most
straightforward way to do it. I would think you could algorithmically mask out
a portion of an ideal ring (because the cup wasn't resting flat and saturation
across the rim wasn't even).

I also didn't realize until now that DVI can only natively encode characters
and aligned rectangles in black, and that's why so much TeX work requires
PostScript support downstream.

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ludwig
Nice. I'm getting flashbacks of the time I managed to get a big coffee stain
on one of the pages of my application to MIT. This was at the post office,
minutes before the final deadline >.<

I simply wrote "sorry!" right by the stain, and mailed it off. I've no idea
what influence this might've had, but it didn't seem to hurt since I got
accepted anyway :)

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levesque
Those aren't very convincing coffee stains.

~~~
die_sekte
I think what we _really_ need is a coffee stain plotter.

~~~
viraptor
It it like a coffee vending machine that overflows the cups?

~~~
die_sekte
I think it would have a bit more precision.

Some people would like intricate coffee stain patterns, me thinks.

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rubidium
Reminds me of the U of Chicago Physics prof who took an interest in coffee
stains. I believe he even has a full font of coffee stains; perhaps that could
be the next step.

[http://indianapublicmedia.org/amomentofscience/ring-
around-t...](http://indianapublicmedia.org/amomentofscience/ring-around-the-
coffee-2/) for public article about the research and [http://www-
personal.umich.edu/~rddeegan/PDF/Coffee_Rings_1_n...](http://www-
personal.umich.edu/~rddeegan/PDF/Coffee_Rings_1_nature.pdf) for the Nature
article about it.

As is, this addition to LaTeX is a bit redundant for me... all papers I have
soon enough have this feature anyways.

~~~
lnguyen
Sid Nagel (experimental) and Tom Witten (theoretical)

Papers <http://jfi.uchicago.edu/~tten/Coffee.drops/> News
[https://mrsec.uchicago.edu/research/nuggets/coffee/stories.h...](https://mrsec.uchicago.edu/research/nuggets/coffee/stories.html)

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alatkins
Computer Modern & coffee stains. What a beautiful combo :-)

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adulau
Interesting. I hope there will be an option for tea stains (and especially for
Lapsang souchong or strong Assam) in this document class.

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julius_geezer
Clearly the next thing we need is a package to add blood, sweat, and tear
marks.

~~~
jgershen
Or furiously scribbled, illegible notes from your advisor.

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kraemate
What's the appeal of coffee-stains on documents? Anyone care to explain?

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GrandMasterBirt
Fuck, I can't upvote more than 10 times. Deserves lots more. The intro text
pwns any "awesome intro text" I've ever seen.

