cumuintover function for PDL

I've implemented a "cumuintover" function. Analogously to "cumusumover" and "cumuprodover" it returns a piddle with the same dimensions as the input containing the integral over the first dimension.

Note that it will crash if you feed it a piddle with a first dimension of less than 6. If it's of use to anyone, I could modify it to behave like intover and work for dims < 6.

Running the demo should give:

$ perl demo_cumuintover.pl
     x   |    num  |    ana  |   rel err
       0         0         0       nan  
       1      2.13      2.13  8.43e-08  
       2      14.1      14.1  3.68e-08  
       3      56.5      56.5  1.91e-08  
       4       162       162  1.23e-08  
       5       377       377  9.35e-09  
       6       758       758  7.95e-09  
       7  1.38e+03  1.38e+03  7.37e-09  
       8  2.33e+03  2.33e+03   7.3e-09  
       9   3.7e+03   3.7e+03  7.62e-09  
      10  5.63e+03  5.63e+03   8.3e-09  

Here's the pp_def:

# from equation 4.1.14, Press et al. 2nd Ed chapter 4.1
pp_def('cumuintover',
       Pars => 'f(n); int+ [o]g(n);',
       Code => '
int i;
int ns = $SIZE(n);
$GENERIC(g) tmp = 0;
threadloop %{
tmp = (3.0/8.0) * $f(n=>0) +
      (7.0/6.0) * $f(n=>1) +
      (23.0/24.0) * $f(n=>2);
for (i=5;ii) = tmp +
                             (23./24.) * $f(n=>i-2) + 
                             (7./6.)   * $f(n=>i-1) + 
                             (3./8.)   * $f(n=>i); 
                     tmp += $f(n=>i-2);
                    }
$g(n=>0) = 0;
$g(n=>1) = ($f(n=>0) + $f(n=>1))/2.0;
$g(n=>2) = ($f(n=>0) + 4. * $f(n=>1) + $f(n=>2) ) / 3.0;
$g(n=>3) = (3/8) * ($f(n=>0) + $f(n=>3) + 3. * ( $f(n=>1) + $f(n=>2) ) );
$g(n=>4) = (1./45.) * (  14. * ( $f(n=>0) + $f(n=>4) )
                    + 64. * ( $f(n=>1) + $f(n=>3) )
                    + 24. * $f(n=>2) 
                    );
%}
'
);

Makefile for automating the generation of PDF or postscript files from latex source

If you have a latex file called name.tex you would run the command make -r name.pdf. See the comments for a way to include bibtex processing.

.muttrc file config file for mutt

You'll need to edit it for your own mail server configuration. Look for lines with the comment "replace".

Finding out what programs are listening to open ports

nmap, lsof, and netstat, all fairly standard linux utilities, can help you find out what open ports you have on your machine and what programs are listening to them.

nmap localhost reveals what ports are listening on the local machine.

lsof -i as root (or sudo lsof -i) reveals what programs are listening to what ports.

netstat -lp --inet as root (or sudo netstat -lp --inet) also reveals what programs are listening to what ports.

Setting up LPD printers with CUPS in Debian GNU/Linux

I looked at a file called /etc/printers.conf on a Sun machine that was already set up to print on our network. It had an entry that looked like this (of course host.domain.name was an actual host name):

 
dp_1414:\
        :bsdaddr=host.domain.name,dp_1414,Solaris: 

Physical inspection reveals that the printer is a Lexmark T420, but I didn't have a driver handy for that, so I decided to try the "HP 4100 PS" driver that I was already using for another printer. I set up an "LPD/LPR" printer with "Device URI: lpd://host.domain.name/dp_1414", selecting "Make: HP" and "Model: HP LaserJet 4100 PS". Miraculously enough, it seem to work (presumably because they both use postscript). I even got it to print double sided by setting the "Duplex: flip on long edges" and "Duplex unit: installed" options in CUPS.

Batch Conversion of postscript files to PNG images

I use pstoimg, often with the -flip option:

pstoimg -flip cw filenames*.ps

Batch conversion of color postscript to gray-scale

This script works well for me, and allows conversion to either gray-scale or straight black-and-white. I wrote a another script as a quick-and-dirty solution for converting a whole batch of files.

For example:

mkdir bw_figs
perl batch_bw_convert.pl bw_figs *.ps

Preventing MMap errors using Debian package management

roban@lithops:~$ sudo apt-get update
Get:1 http://us.archive.ubuntu.com breezy-updates Release.gpg [189B]
Get:2 http://http.us.debian.org stable Release.gpg [189B]

E: Dynamic MMap ran out of room
E: Error occurred while processing synaesthesia (NewVersion1)
E: Problem with MergeList /var/lib/apt/lists/http.us.debian.org_debian_dists_oldstable_main_binary-i386_Packages
E: The package lists or status file could not be parsed or opened.

APT::Cache-Limit "141943904";

su
echo 'APT::Cache-Limit "141943904";' > /etc/apt/apt.conf.d/00Cache

sudo sh -c "echo 'APT::Cache-Limit "141943904";' > /etc/apt/apt.conf.d/00Cache"

apt-get sources.list file

Turning off emacs toolbar, menubar, and scrollbar

(menu-bar-mode 0)
(tool-bar-mode 0)
(set-scroll-bar-mode nil)

emacs.geometry: 80x53
emacs.menuBar: off
emacs.verticalScrollBars: off
emacs.toolBar: 0

ssh config file

exim4 config

After installing exim4 (or running dpkg-reconfigure exim4-config) I still needed to get authentication working for our SMTP server.

To use an alternate port when you want exim4 to deliver mail to a smarthost, add the line port = 587 (where 587 is replace with whatever port you want to use) to the remote_smtp_smarthost section of your configuration file (in debian /etc/exim4/exim4.conf.template).

For our system I also had to add the following lines to /etc/exim4/passwd.client

mail.astro.columbia.edu:roban:PASSWORD_HERE
sedna.astro.columbia.edu:roban:PASSWORD_HERE
*:roban:PASSWORD_HERE

Then I ran update-exim4.conf, restarted exim4, and sending mail worked from mutt.