The NUIG "off-topic" thread

KittyeeTrix

This thread is for everyday chit-chat and random musings so as to not disrupt other threads.

Off-topic posts generated in other NUIG threads will be split into this thread in an effort to allow discussion to continue and develop. A link to this thread will be provided when posts are moved.

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Enjoy and let the chatting begin.:)

KittyeeTrix

Actually, I'm back living in Galway City for the summer and have started going to the Cinema on Wednesday nights. Saw the new Snow White movie last week and it was pretty good!!!:)

Heading this week to Prometheus which looks amazing. Hoping I won't be going alone as I don't fancy going home in the dark petrified....:D

musical.x

There are actually a few decent films coming out this summer!
I think Ted is coming out around the 1st of august.

KittyeeTrix

musical.x wrote: »

There are actually a few decent films coming out this summer!
I think Ted is coming out around the 1st of august.

What's Ted about??
It's probably obvious but!!:o

musical.x

A real life teddy bear. It sounds weird but it's from the makers of Family guy :P Check the trailer. Should be funny enough.

KittyeeTrix

musical.x wrote: »

A real life teddy bear. It sounds weird but it's from the makers of Family guy :P Check the trailer. Should be funny enough.

haha, I was thinking it was about Robert "teddy" Kennedy:o
Couldn't be more wrong. I'll have a look for the trailer.

I'm getting mixed reviews on Prometheus which is worrying as any movie I've ever really wanted to see in the Cinema has turned out to be terrible!!

musical.x

I haven't heard anything about that film which isn't a good sign but you never know! You might really enjoy it. You could always go and see what to expect when you're expecting :D

KittyeeTrix

LOL.......There isn't much I wouldn't know about expecting at this stage now!!:p

aperture_nuig

Anyone seen prometheus yet? the trailer looked great when I went to see avengers!

RolandIRL

KittyeeTrix wrote: »

Actually, I'm back living in Galway City for the summer and have started going to the Cinema on Wednesday nights. Saw the new Snow White movie last week and it was pretty good!!!:)

Heading this week to Prometheus which looks amazing. Hoping I won't be going alone as I don't fancy going home in the dark petrified....:D

Can't believe they actually made a film on that, least of all with Kristen Stewart.

aperture_nuig wrote: »

Anyone seen prometheus yet? the trailer looked great when I went to see avengers!

Gonna see it some time next week when I'm back in Galway. Brother is gone to see it tonight but I'll kill him if he spoils it on me.

KittyeeTrix

RolandIRL wrote: »

Can't believe they actually made a film on that, least of all with Kristen Stewart.


Gonna see it some time next week when I'm back in Galway. Brother is gone to see it tonight but I'll kill him if he spoils it on me.

My son went to see Prometheus tonight with his girlfriend and he said it was brilliant. I had to warn him that I would kill him if he said anything else about it!!!!:D

aperture_nuig

KittyeeTrix wrote: »

My son went to see Prometheus tonight with his girlfriend and he said it was brilliant. I had to warn him that I would kill him if he said anything else about it!!!!:D

Sweet, must try and get in for it on tuesday so in the eye. Thank god for ruby tuesday

musical.x

aperture_nuig wrote: »

Sweet, must try and get in for it on tuesday so in the eye. Thank god for ruby tuesday

What's Ruby Tuesday? the eye is amazing though.

ciano1

musical.x wrote: »

What's Ruby Tuesday? the eye is amazing though.

Student Ruby Tuesday (For screenings before 8.30pm Tuesdays for Third Level Students -Valid Student ID required) (excludes Lux Screen) €4.00

RolandIRL

If you're on O2, you can get €4 cinema tickets for the Omniplex Monday to Thursday. Much handier for me since it's closer than the Eye.

KittyeeTrix

Know of any deals for Meteor customers please???????:D

dmcg90

Don't know of any, apart from the Eye's ruby Tuesday offer (available for all students).

joeKel73

You can just pick up a free o2 sim card...
http://www.o2online.ie/o2/shop/sim-only/

RolandIRL

J o e wrote: »

You can just pick up a free o2 sim card...
http://www.o2online.ie/o2/shop/sim-only/

You'd need to make sure your phone is unlocked first though, which can be a hassle in itself, since you're texted the code, they used to allow print-offs but that option isn't available any more
If you have O2 Broadband, you can use that account as well. Just copy the text message onto your phone and it's good. It's what I do.

BTW, if anyone wants a code, feel free to PM me. The code expires weekly afaik and it's not valid for weekends.

Hunchback

Has anyone studied law in NUIG, and if so, could anybody tell me if you can request information regarding your marks in the summer exams, specifically where you lie in your year when all the marks are added together and you get an overall mark for the year (out of 60 ECTS)?

E.g. overall, student x gets a 2:1 for the year, which places him/her in 20th place in a year of 157


Or is that information automatically included? (obv. this is the first set of exams I have sat :cool: )

RolandIRL

CKonetheonlyone wrote: »

Has anyone studied law in NUIG, and if so, could anybody tell me if you can request information regarding your marks in the summer exams, specifically where you lie in your year when all the marks are added together and you get an overall mark for the year (out of 60 ECTS)?

E.g. overall, student x gets a 2:1 for the year, which places him/her in 20th place in a year of 157


Or is that information automatically included? (obv. this is the first set of exams I have sat :cool: )

If they're given out online through mis.nuigalway.ie (same place as timetables), chances are that the format will be this:

<Module name> <Module code> <Weight> <Marks in %> <1.1/2.1 etc>

<Overall result for year in %> (it won't say the 1.1/2.1 etc here, just Pass/Fail afaik)

I doubt it's different for Law, but you won't be given Rank. If you email the lecturer for each individual module, they might give them to you.

joeKel73

RolandIRL wrote: »

You'd need to make sure your phone is unlocked first though, which can be a hassle in itself, since you're texted the code

Very good point sir. SIM hasn't arrived yet but I rang Meteor to ask for the unluck code, which btw they will give you if you've spent €130 on credit or paid 2 monthly bills since buying the phone, and they said the phone should have come unlocked (HTC) so happy days.

RolandIRL

Went to see Prometheus tonight. Bit meh. Could have been so much better, but wasn't the worst film I've seen.

And of course Scott deliberately left it open for a sequel with that ending :rolleyes:

ciano1

Anyone know if PrintThat is open during the summer?

Ficheall

It is, aye.

Duffy the Vampire Slayer

I can't get on to Jstor through the library website anymore...Anyone knowa way to get on to it?

Nailz

There's a lot of queries here these days, isn't there? Is that usual for this time of year, those of you who've been in NUIG longer than I?

RolandIRL

Went to see Ted in the Eye tonight, totally pissed off at the fact they don't let you take a bag in. Sure I had outside food in it (I'm not paying their extortionate prices!), but I've never had that problem in the Omniplex. Having to go back downstairs to give it in at the desk, could they not have put a sign saying that when you buy your ticket? I also noticed they didn't tell the women not to bring their handbags in.

/rant

Oh and Ted was alright, very much like Family Guy (which I despise), but still had its funny moments. Have seen better comedies before.

Ficheall

There's a sign at the bottom of the escalator, iirc.

And in future, use your pockets instead of a bag!

RolandIRL

G'way with your logic, I want a mindless rant!

Didn't have anything with proper pockets though, and putting a bottle of water in my jeans might be construed as something else >_>

Nailz

Yeah, my first and only time at the Eye was when I was going to see the Avengers with a mate of mine and I was stopped just as you were Roland. I was told by the security guy I wasn't allowed my bag in, and the thing was I came straight from the library and I only had college material in the bag, no food or drink or anything like that. I wasn't eating anything in the cinema anyway.

So he told me the staff at the ticket desk should have told me, and I could leave it down there while the film was on. I said that I didn't have anything in it apart from books, pens, notepads and an external hard drive, then I basically handed him my bag in an out stretched are arm and told him to look inside it, and he said "no, I won't". I said "you have my permission to look in the bag", and he refused, telling me to leave the bag outside, the stubborn old bollocks. I lived closer to the Omniplex anyway, and I will be close to there this year as well, so I will continue to go there, but my friend was in GMIT so I compromised to suit him, I won't be going back to the Eye in a hurry. I have no problem with rules or regulations, but the lack of common sense applied there has me annoyed.

RolandIRL

Is anyone here good with LaTeX? I'm trying to include an eps file in my document but it doesn't seem to showing up. It creates a space for where it should be but it's just whitespace.

Ficheall

Does it absolutely have to be an eps? Is it possible to change the file type? Because that would be easier. I've never managed to get eps working with Latex, but jpgs etc are grand.

RolandIRL

Yeah, I can change the filetype. I'm exporting them from Maple. EPS just seems to be a standard among the guides and other LaTeX docs.

Tried PNG there and worked perfect. The JPGs were very bad quality. Cheers Ficheall.

EDIT: another thing while I'm at it. I keep getting an error "Underfull \hbox (badness 10000) in paragraph" yet I can't seem to find how to fix it. Doesn't seem to affect the document afaik.

Ficheall

RolandIRL wrote: »

Yeah, I can change the filetype. I'm exporting them from Maple. EPS just seems to be a standard among the guides and other LaTeX docs.

Tried PNG there and worked perfect. The JPGs were very bad quality. Cheers Ficheall.

EDIT: another thing while I'm at it. I keep getting an error "Underfull \hbox (badness 10000) in paragraph" yet I can't seem to find how to fix it. Doesn't seem to affect the document afaik.

It's possible to change the quality of the JPGs sometimes - they're often set to automatically be at only 75% quality or something for some reason.

That's a warning as opposed to an error - they don't prevent the document from compiling, and can be safely ignored. All it's saying is that you haven't made optimal use of assigned space or somesuch.

RolandIRL

Ficheall wrote: »

It's possible to change the quality of the JPGs sometimes - they're often set to automatically be at only 75% quality or something for some reason.

That's a warning as opposed to an error - they don't prevent the document from compiling, and can be safely ignored. All it's saying is that you haven't made optimal use of assigned space or somesuch.

Think it's just easier to export to PNG instead of messing with those settings in Maple.

With the editor I'm using, it still compiles even with errors (just those sections look weird) so I never noticed anything wrong.

Must say, LaTeX makes the documents look so much prettier than Word docs, even if it does have a bit more of a learning curve.

RolandIRL

Alright, back again for more LaTeX help

\begin{align}
& \includegraphics{Graph1.png} & \includegraphics{Graph2.png} \\
& \includegraphics{Graph3.png} & <table>
\end{align}

Where <table> is, I obviously want to stick a table there. Now what's the best way to do this? I attempted using \tabular but everything just went to whitespace when I compiled. Would my best bet be creating a table in another program, exporting it as a PNG file and then using \includegraphics like I did with the graphs?

Ficheall

\begin{table}
\caption {Caption}\label{A label in case you want to reference the table}
\centering
\begin{tabular}[t]{|c|c|c|c|c|c|c|}\hline
$\beta_n$ & $X_1$ & $X_3$ & $X_5$ & $X_7$ & $X_9$ & $X_{15}$ \\\hline
$\beta_0$&3019&16&11&10&8&1\\
$\beta_1$&175&1201&171&7&2&2\\\hline
\end{tabular}
\end{table}

The number of "c"s is the same as the number of columns.
The |c| means that there is a vertical line between each entry in the table. You can leave them out if you wish. Mess around with it and see what happens.
The \betas and Xs etc. are obviously just my data which I was messing around with.
The \\ at the end of every line is necessary to skip to the next line, and the \hline makes a horizontal line underneath the line you've just written.

Ficheall

Also - you might look at using subfigures.

RolandIRL

Tables I can do grand, it's placing it in an align environment that's the problem. It doesn't seem to place nice with it. I'll have a look at subfigures as you said and see if that works. I can always go to my supervisor and get him to fiddle around with it if I'm still having problems.

Also, is it better to use \centering or \begin{center}...\end{center} or does it even matter?

Also #2, the URL in your sig isn't properly linked. Boards needs you to either use the [url] tags or stick [noparse]http://[/noparse] in front of it for it to become live.[/url]

Ficheall

RolandIRL wrote: »

Tables I can do grand, it's placing it in an align environment that's the problem. It doesn't seem to place nice with it. I'll have a look at subfigures as you said and see if that works. I can always go to my supervisor and get him to fiddle around with it if I'm still having problems.

Also, is it better to use \centering or \begin{center}...\end{center} or does it even matter?

Also #2, the URL in your sig isn't properly linked. Boards needs you to either use the [url] tags or stick [noparse]http://[/noparse] in front of it for it to become live.[/url]

Cheers - I can't actually see sigs, so had no way to check. Will try to remedy that.

I use \begin and \end tags wherever possible, because it's easier to keep track of what's what.

I've never actually used {align}, so I'm not sure what you want from it.
I usually just muck about with \vspace and \hspace

RolandIRL

http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/profile.php?do=editoptions - Scroll down a bit and you'll see the "Show signatures" option.

I'm using {align} so that it's all, ehm, aligned.

\begin{align}
& Entry 1 & Entry 2 \\
& Entry 3 & Entry 4 \\
\end{align}

For example, the above code would appear as


The ampersands align under each other so if I had more text in Entry 3 so that it pushed over Entry 4, Entry 2 would automatically move over so as to always be starting where Entry 4 started. I'm sure wikibooks can explain it much better than me

With \hspace and \vspace, is it more trial-and-error to get it looking right?

Ficheall

Yeah, I guessed that was what {align} did :pac:

I can't imagine why the table wouldn't just slot in though - unless it's too big? You could try putting a {\small } around your table section and see if that might be the problem.

Yes, that's what hspace and vspace are - very tedious.

RolandIRL

Ficheall wrote: »

Yeah, I guessed that was what {align} did :pac:

I can't imagine why the table wouldn't just slot in though - unless it's too big? You could try putting a {\small } around your table section and see if that might be the problem.

Yes, that's what hspace and vspace are - very tedious.

Aye, I'm a right Captain Obvious :P

I have a feeling that it may be because it's not correctly parsed or doesn't know where some symbols start/finish, I can't remember the errors off-hand and I'm not going at it this late at night! I'll have a poke at it tomorrow and see where I get.

I'm sure hspace and vspace have their uses. They must, since I can't see any mention of them being deprecated online. I'd say they're more for producing whitespace than aligning items.

Nal

this forum seems to be a good bit more active these days, hope all the new first yrs stay around. Should probably try and post more myself!

ItAintMeBabe

Anybody here get called for an interview in the College Bar on Monday???

RolandIRL

RolandIRL wrote: »

Aye, I'm a right Captain Obvious :P

I have a feeling that it may be because it's not correctly parsed or doesn't know where some symbols start/finish, I can't remember the errors off-hand and I'm not going at it this late at night! I'll have a poke at it tomorrow and see where I get.

I'm sure hspace and vspace have their uses. They must, since I can't see any mention of them being deprecated online. I'd say they're more for producing whitespace than aligning items.

Finally got this working. Solution was to use \minipage in a {table} environment. Only thing is that the table in the 4th quadrant is in the exact centre as opposed to the top of the minipage, but it looks fine regardless.

Here's the code for anyone interested, though I'd warrant that most don't have a clue what me and Ficheall have been on about :pac:

\begin{table}[ht]
\begin{minipage}[b]{0.45\linewidth}\centering
\includegraphics[width=3in]{Graph1.png}
\end{minipage}
\begin{minipage}[b]{0.45\linewidth}\centering
\includegraphics[width=3in]{Graph2.png}
\end{minipage}\\
\end{table}
\begin{table}[ht]
\begin{minipage}{0.45\linewidth}\centering
\includegraphics[width=3in]{Graph3.png}
\end{minipage}
\begin{minipage}[!ht]{0.45\linewidth}\centering
\begin{tabular}{| c | c |}
\hline
\textbf{Column 1} & \textbf{Column 2} \\\hline
1 & 2\\ 
3 & 4 \\ \hline
\end{tabular}
\end{minipage}
\end{table}

aperture_nuig

RolandIRL wrote: »

Finally got this working. Solution was to use \minipage in a {table} environment. Only thing is that the table in the 4th quadrant is in the exact centre as opposed to the top of the minipage, but it looks fine regardless.

Here's the code for anyone interested, though I'd warrant that most don't have a clue what me and Ficheall have been on about :pac:

\begin{table}[ht]
\begin{minipage}[b]{0.45\linewidth}\centering
\includegraphics[width=3in]{Graph1.png}
\end{minipage}
\begin{minipage}[b]{0.45\linewidth}\centering
\includegraphics[width=3in]{Graph2.png}
\end{minipage}\\
\end{table}
\begin{table}[ht]
\begin{minipage}{0.45\linewidth}\centering
\includegraphics[width=3in]{Graph3.png}
\end{minipage}
\begin{minipage}[!ht]{0.45\linewidth}\centering
\begin{tabular}{| c | c |}
\hline
\textbf{Column 1} & \textbf{Column 2} \\\hline
1 & 2\\ 
3 & 4 \\ \hline
\end{tabular}
\end{minipage}
\end{table}

I've looked into Latex before, but never actually got around to learning. Do you find it that useful for reports etc? I hate having to boot into windows just to use the office suite, and their isn't a decent replacement on ubuntu ( Libreoffice doesn't cut it IMHO).

RolandIRL

aperture_nuig wrote: »

I've looked into Latex before, but never actually got around to learning. Do you find it that useful for reports etc? I hate having to boot into windows just to use the office suite, and their isn't a decent replacement on ubuntu ( Libreoffice doesn't cut it IMHO).

This is actually my first time using it this summer. There's a bit of a learning curve with it, but it's easy enough to get the hang of. Google and wikibooks are your friends for guides. It's more useful for doing maths with. A simple equation that could take minutes to do out in Word/LibreOffice can be done in seconds with LaTeX. On the other hand, formatting can be a hassle with it since it can be trial and error to get it right.

It does make documents look so much nicer than in Word. Look at this document I just did up.

I would spend a bit of time messing around with it and looking at other people's work before starting something of your own.

Ficheall

You should definitely look into it, aperture. It looks far nicer, and it doesn't take that long to get the hang of. For pretty much anything you want you can just find someone else's template and substitute in your own stuff, with minimal twiddling to get what you want.

Roland - I find that if I use [HT] instead of [!ht] I get better results, you could try that. I can't see your dropbox link, though, so I'm not 100% sure what exactly your document looks like/is supposed to look like.

aperture_nuig

RolandIRL wrote: »

This is actually my first time using it this summer. There's a bit of a learning curve with it, but it's easy enough to get the hang of. Google and wikibooks are your friends for guides. It's more useful for doing maths with. A simple equation that could take minutes to do out in Word/LibreOffice can be done in seconds with LaTeX. On the other hand, formatting can be a hassle with it since it can be trial and error to get it right.

It does make documents look so much nicer than in Word. Look at this document I just did up.

I would spend a bit of time messing around with it and looking at other people's work before starting something of your own.

fair enough, that would have been useful to know in my engineering undergrad!