Htam::Diary.Theme(sysop)

This Friday, I included $\LaTeX$ support for RSS feeds by using images.  A while ago I installed MathJax, which displays equations beautifully using JavaScript on my website, but of course cannot be displayed in feeds.  I will included the same sample text at the bottom of this post.  Come to my website if you are reading it via RSS to see what you're missing.  Generated images cannot properly substitute for MathJax.

Steve and Tammy invited me over for dinner.  6 other people were there.  Now I can say that I've had meals with church people this entire week.  In fact, for 8 days in a row now: 3 gatherings, a lunch with the Changs, a lunch with Alex Chang, a lunch with June Chang (Han), and two lunches with Steph.

Let $G(x)=\sum_{n\geq 0}g_n\tfrac{x^n}{n!}$ be the exponential generating function for $g_n$.  Suppose it satisfies $G(x)=\tfrac x2(1+\exp G(x))=x \Phi(G(x))$ with $\Phi(z)=\frac12(1+e^z).$  By Lagrange Inversion, we get $\frac{g_n}{n!}=[x^n]G(x)=\frac 1n[z^{n-1}]\Phi(z)^n$ $=\frac{1}{n2^n}\sum_{k=0}^n\tbinom nk[z^{n-1}]e^{kz}$ $=\frac{1}{n2^n}\sum_{k=1}^n\tbinom nk\frac{k^{n-1}}{(n-1)!}.$

This Tuesday, I continued reading all day long.  (I did not go out to jog like I've been doing Tuesday an Thursday mornings, since I am extremely sore from volleyball.)  However, I also spent little bits of time doing other things.  Actually, yesterday I started coding a better (private) interface for adding Non Sequitur links.  And today I finished it.  I have a JavaScript bookmarklet that takes the URL of the current window and send it to my website, where I could type in a title and it is now stored in the database.  Every time I post a diary entry, it will pull the earliest non-used link and include it at the end of the post.  I had to figure out the ASCII value of the ampersand in order to correctly send the entire URL including the query string as a whole.  This post makes it sound like most of my day was coding.  But it was actually a very quick effort.  Really, most of the day was spent reading math.  It's just less interesting for my readers I'm sure, so I decided to not talk about it in depth.  Let me know if you'd rather hear me talk about symmetric functions, RSK algorithm, and representations and characters of the symmetric group.

This Saturday, I woke up late again because last night, for two nights in a row, my neighbour is hosting a loud party.  This time I got woken up at 10 and couldn't sleep well until starting around 3, despite wearing earplugs (for the second time in my life).  I still got up at 7, but it is definitely not 5 like I planned.

Bible study was great today, we also kept the fan on (no one complained), and so I was able to stay through the entire meeting to the end.  That is pretty nice.  Afterwards, I sang (and harmonised) with Steven for a little bit, then people went to lunch at an Indian restaurant.  Since I did not want to try Indian food, I figured I would just take off to go buy some groceries (I ate my pastries so I won't be hungry).  But then I realised, instead of driving all the way to Arcadia to buy groceries, I might as well go to Gardena.  So I went to the Chiu BBQ.  I did not eat much, but it was good to talk to Chris a day early.  I didn't know he would be back, otherwise I would have told Steph I was coming.  All five of them were surprised to see me.

In the evening, I spent an hour or two programming Non Sequitur, an implementation of an idea I had this morning.  I will keep a list of random links that I like, and they will automagically (due to my programming) appear at the end of my diary posts.  Today the inaugural SYSOP post will not be non sequitur, for it will be a meta-link to a page dedicated to my (new) links collection titled Non Sequitur.  Starting tomorrow, hopefully it will be an outlet of random and interesting links.

This Wednesday, I got up at 5 something again, and worked quite a bit in the morning.  As such, I can go to school for lunch on time now, since I would be "tired" from working on math and needed a break a bit before then, it makes it perfect for me to walk to school and eat lunch as a break.

As some of you may have noticed, in some previous posts I used some $\LaTeX$ code.  I decided to install MathJax, which renders these using JavaScript.  I don't think we could embed JavaScript in RSS feeds, though, so for now you'll have to click on the link to come to my website to see it rendered (beautifully).  I'm considering image alternatives so it would work in RSS (which is probably where my "main" reader base is at).  Anyway, enough talk, here is an example from my homework. 

Let $G(x)=\sum_{n\geq 0}g_n\tfrac{x^n}{n!}$ be the exponential generating function for $g_n$.  Suppose it satisfies $G(x)=\tfrac x2(1+\exp G(x))=x \Phi(G(x))$ with $\Phi(z)=\frac12(1+e^z).$  By Lagrange Inversion, we get $\frac{g_n}{n!}=[x^n]G(x)=\frac 1n[z^{n-1}]\Phi(z)^n$ $=\frac{1}{n2^n}\sum_{k=0}^n\tbinom nk[z^{n-1}]e^{kz}$ $=\frac{1}{n2^n}\sum_{k=1}^n\tbinom nk\frac{k^{n-1}}{(n-1)!}.$

This Friday, I worked, went to school, worked, came home, and continued working.  However, after dinner, I decide to relax.  Perhaps I'll sleep earlier.

Since the post about my third fan 10 days ago, every day I'd included a link (or more) to my past diary entries, except yesterday.  I was inspired by other people who do similar things.  In any case, I should mention that I actually coded this linking mechanism that day, but has not had the opportunity to post a SYSOP post.  Today I am, since my day is otherwise so uneventful, since I am just working all day long.

This Saturday, I drove around Mulholland Drive that is west of the 405.  I saw a bunch of schools there, including Mirman.  It was an interesting experience, driving in unfamiliar neighbourhood, kind of aimlessly, just enjoying the drive.

Oh, and it's been a long time since I had a SYSOP post.  Today I integrated reCaptcha into comments posting.  This should stop the spam I've been getting.  I should have done this a long time ago.

This Wednesday, I created an RSS feed [DEPRECATED] for my Diary Mechanism.  This is done because Abraham Buditama and Jamie Jackson requested it multiple times.  It is not too hard, but it is also a nontrivial matter.  I actually started the code when I was bored during grad school visitations.  Then I became quite busy until now.  Feel free to try it out and let me know what you think.  Once it is stable, I will add a permanent link to the main page.

Due to server error, this entry has been temporarily lost.  I can restore from backup once I return to the US.

The photo is of my five pairs of pants that are the same.  The left most two were bought right before Sophomore year, and were worn during that year.  The latter three were bought before Junior year.  The first of those was worn during the year until it broke.  The one with the belt is my current wear.  The last one has yet to be touched.  I plan on buying two more of the same when I go back to Taiwan.

This Thursday, I am for relaxation.  Yesterday night I added the functionality to show offline buddies in pork (my text-based AIM client of choice).  Originally each group can be collapsed or expanded.  I added an extended state where the offline buddies are shown.  Little did I know, I have introduced a bug due to its assumptions on what are on the buddy list when buddies signon.  This morning, I fixed the error.  Now I no longer get multiple copies of a buddy.  Also, I worked out a mechanism so all the source files do not need to be prepended with pork_ any more.  Tab completion is one step easier now.  I also fixed the bug where the left angled bracket causes everything afterwards to disappear on screen.  This will make communicating mathematics a lot easier.

Later today, I wrote my quotes section collecting quotes from my math professors.  I also added hidden post capabilities (for my own use, sorry) to this diary mechanism.  I envision more real-time post (as opposed to retroactive posts) in the future, as I can make the entries hidden until I polish them.  So more will be posted on time.  We shall see how this turns out when school starts.

The database has been restored (as much as possible) from backup files.  This is as good as it can get.  However, the virtual server database is still offline.  I told you things will be fixed in reverse order.

Due to a server (matrix) failure in Taiwan, many functions of htam.org has been affected.
- matrix is offline (backup server ideal is taking over semi-permanently)
- email to htam.org will bounce
- most virtual servers are temporarily offline, this includes database and phd.
- diary and other database-driven services have older data

Things will probably be fixed in the reverse order.

This Saturday, as discussed yesterday, I decided to wrote photo support for my diary mechanism.  The images are thumbnailed, yay.  Posting of images is of course limited to only by myself.  I should get some images showing up (obviously not everyday) now.  When there are enough images, I will write an interface to see all of them, or the like.  For now, you may enjoy looking at my Mabo Tofu.

I realized that clicking the `display all ### messages' option takes too much time to load (approximately half a minute). No page should ever load so slowly. So I implemented pagination system. I thought of this months ago at the beginning of this project. However, at that time there were only a few posts, so I displayed all of them. When the number of messages became too large, I chopped off the rest and did either first ten or all the rest. I was too lazy to code pagination. After much consideration, I decided to number my pages backwards, in accordance to displaying messages backwards. This will give all the messages a permanent home, in case (I seriously doubt it) that there are links to specific entries. I also added anchor numbers to each entry for linking (again, I do not think it will ever be used). Yay. I made some improvements today.

Ever since I migrated my server onto a separate computer, I have apache running as nobody. That caused some problem for my diary update script. I just fixed it. Yay.

As I have been working on donut, I decided I should add a functionality to let my diary link to donut's personnel directory. Since `@' looks like a donut, I've decided to use the symbol. Putting two `@'s around a name will cause it to become a link to donut. Like Jed Yang. Note, however, many entries are not queryable off-campus without an account for security and privacy considerations. (Including mine, the link above.)

Given the fact that I will be gone for a while, I decided to rush and write code to allow posting remotely. I have devised the code to allow me to post (with password) across the internet. Of course the detail (and testing) will not be made public. I am glad to say that it is working after only a few minutes of coding. (Note that for once my IP is not 127.0.0.1 meaning localhost.)

Whoa, we have n hits, where n is x^x*p, where x is the smallest odd prime, and p is the least prime greater than the square of the product of the first two primes not counting x.

The Caltech::* series that have time stamp 23:59:59 are all daily diary posted retroactively. I just finished posting the last one, I have been lagging a few days behind this whole time at Caltech. Now I am caught up, I shall go and do some homework. (Or code some paging mechanism for my diary.)

I have taken the host htam.hn.org off the internet. Currently posting via localhost. The host will be offline indefinitely. Possibly never re-surface. We shall see what kind of IP allocation one gets at Caltech. For now, this is entirely my personal space now.

I changed the requirement for underscore (`_') and asterisk (`*') to only create italicized and bolded effects, respectively, when it is marked around one word.

If you type *blah blah* it will not be expanded, as seen here.

To italicize or bold multiple words with spaces, use double underscores (`__') or double asterisks (`**'), respectively.

Actually, we went over 2k hits already. And there are more than 200 posts now.

I have decided that keeping everything under ``/~htam/'' is not a splendid idea. Therefore I moved everything to the root directory. (Actually I merely changed the DocumentRoot directive, but that is a technical detail.)
I also added a script in the footer to tell people about this.
I purposely do not use redirect to make people update his bookmark.

Wow, I am on a coding trend: I just finished adding the `themes' functionality.
New future plans include
* Advanced editor
* (After adding enough text macros) blocking all html codes
* User registration (while keeping guest user posting with name)
* [important] New message alert (visual, different color or the like)
* Paging (yup, I need to start trimming my main page now...)
* Expanded view (sometimes we want to see all...)
* [consider] ability to reply to anything, not just main posts
* [long term] Transform into multi-board forum with users and all
* [goal] Complete LaTeX support (this was originally for math, was it not?)

First of all, we are happy to say this diary mechanism received 1500 hits since its launch.
I also added new admin tools today, but will not be discussing it in detail.
Just letting the world know that I am still adding functionality.
To-do list:
* more text macro based beautifying
* intelligent underscore
* math input
* math tag
* subject category (themes done 2004.08.21)
* new message notification

With the new understanding of ereg() and related functions, I improved the display system by adding my own formater.
The formater currently wraps the output, bold text that are between two asterisks (`*'), italicize text that are between two underscores (`_'), and do keyword links.
I invented the keyword link concept myself. (Even thought it could have been invented before, but I have had no outside inspiration nor help.) By placing a keyword between two matching percent symbols (`%'), the keyword will be matched against an array of keywords with their respective uniform resource locators (URLs). Currently, the array is very small and will only grow on an as-the-need-arise basis. It contains Shorewood, set, intersection, and USPS for now.

Update: I need to look at the underscore problem more closely, if I have two words with underscores in them, it will fail to intepret correctly.

I had a little bit of time, and I wanted this for a while now.
So I coded the subject feature in tonight after Bible study.
I also had to wrote a small one-time code to set all the subject of replys.
From now on, replys will automatically be given ``RE: [original subject]'' unless one changes it, which is also fine.
If anyone sees any problem, be sure to let me know.

I changed the word ``title'' to ``subject'' in response to Charley's confusion.

So I just installed
* TeX,
* LaTeX,
* netpbm, and
* textogif.

When I have time to integrate it with php, everyone can post math equations like this:

But for now, this process has not been automatede yet, and we'll need to wait.
I envision also writing a semi-WYSIWYG LaTeX math online editor.
Till then, refer to TeX manuals.

Some stuff to be worked on:
* text MACRO beautifying project
* math beautifying (LaTeX?)
# a script to remove all BR's, since I am using PRE now.
# stress test
# wrap
* more authoring tools (preview, math equation editor, etc)
* user-friendlier
* login and account support (while keeping guest posts privileges)
and more to come.

Finally. After a day's of work, this section is now at least usable.
Fell free to flood me with comments regarding programming (or otherwise).
I will be revising this area closely in the next few days.
Consider it ALPHA testing stage :)
So, don't complain, but be loud nevertheless.

Jed