## Code

### LaTeX

#### Things I didn't think were obvious

• When using gnuplot and in a "" string you need to do \\ rather than just \ to get a LaTeX command such as a greek letter. e.g. "Resistance $R$ [\\Omega]"(yes this is obvious when you think about it)
• gnuplot not so FAQ v.useful
• With gnuplot: ylabel being printed twice when using the latex terminal: reason having used load "file.gnuplot" many times with many changes to the file the gnuplot session had become dirty: fix restart gnuplot
• rotated text in gnuplot when using the latex terminal wonderful hack: add \usepackage{rotating} %to allow rotating text to your preamble and then in the gnuplot text you want to rotate something like: set ylabel "\\begin\{sideways\}Time $T_p, T_d$ [s]\\end\{sideways\}"
Alternatively and slightly more neatly and powerfully \usepackage{graphicx} in the preable and then something like set ylabel "\\rotatebox\{90\}\{Time $T_p, T_d$ [s]\}" the advantage of this being that it is a) shorter and b) more powerful as the 90 could be any other angle.
• gnuplot \n set terminal latex when using gnuplot and the latex driver to plot data points the default ones are not all suitable as they don't accuratly show the position of the points. to get around this use the pointtype style modifier. The available latex point types are:
1. diamond
2. + (suitable)
3. square
4. x (suitable)
5. triangle
6. star (suitable)
7. small circle (suitable)
8. medium circle
9. big circle
10. small filled circle (suitable)
11. medium filled circle
12. big filled circle
and so one line using this from the graph I have been working on: plot 'E7data.dat' index 0 using 1:5:($1*0.03):(abs(($2 + 0.001)/(($3 - 0.001)*(508 - 0.1))-($2 - 0.001)/(($3 + 0.001)*(508 + 0.1)))) with xyerrorbars pointtype 2 title "$R_0 = 508 \\pm 0.1 \\Omega\$" nice and crazy :-) (I have two later lines that use pointtype 4 and 6 respectively)
• Number of bug reports with patches I need to write and file for the gnuplot latex driver: 3

More things which weren't obvious and cause me pain

### Christmas cards

My 2008 Christmas card is entirely my own work and released under cc-by,sa

My 2009 Christmas card is a derivative work using work by TheTruthAbout... and Tommy Ironic specifically this christmas tree and this white desert consequently it is licenced under cc-by,sa,nc. Last year's card was better but I was stuck for a cool idea and went for a message instead.