Inessential Graphics on Athena^{∗}

/final/location/when/i/find/out/what/it/is/iGraphics.dvi

(Revision: Alpha)

BLEED ON ME

The Student Information Processing Board

            Omri Schwarz (ocschwar @mit.edu)

June 12, 2004

∗Copyright \begin{matrix}c \\ ◯ \end{matrix} 1987–1995 Student Information Processing Board of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology

Contents

2

1 Introduction

At MIT you will have to write lab reports, essays, problem sets, monographs, letters, theses, zephyrs, Web pages, Live Journal entries, Slashdot comments, and who knows what more. Even if you’re the type who managed to get through high school mostly by writing equations, here you will need to put words together here and there, and the habits you develop to that end will benefit you or shackle you for life.

The purpose of the document is to provide general guidance on best practices for any and all writing projects you will have to carry out as a student here at MIT, and specific guidance on the resources available to you on Athena for this purpose. We’ll cover best practices for backing up files, for maintaining revision control, collaborating with other authors, keeping your writing projects from killing your wrists, and more.

2 Ethics and Other Unmentionables

Let’s get one thing out of the way, right away.

Remember all the jokes about things that would have a mark placed on your Permanent School Record? Now that you’re at MIT, it’s for real. So don’t plagiarize. Ever. It’s wrong, and it can get you in more trouble than it could ever be worth. In the muck at the bottom of Boston Harbor, there are cement shoes stamped with the brand plagiarist. The students who wore these shoes are the lucky ones. They don’t have to bear any more shame. The lobsters that ate the students wind up in the traps sooner or later. So think about this next time you’re at Legal Sea Foods. And never take anyone else’s writing without proper attribution.

3 Why Athena

Many students prefer to use their own computers for their writing efforts, rather than Athena, and for good reason. To use an SAT analogy, Athena is to your dorm room as the bus is to your car. You can’t eat in the Athena cluster, play music on the speakers, or have as much privacy. Luckily, you can have it both ways, and more on that in a bit, but first, let’s list some of the things Athena offers you for your writings. Computers crash. Hard drives go bad. Operating systems overwrite files. Laptops get stolen. They get damaged in falls. They get stolen and damaged in falls. But they are inanimate objects that can be replaced for money. Your writings cannot.

Redredging old work from memory is difficult and disheartening. On the other hand, your Athena files are backed up competently.

Of course, having it both ways is the best option. Your prose should be stored everywhere that’s appropriate, from Athena, to your research group’s computers, to your own computer, to your parents’ computer, and a couple CD ROMs. It cannot hurt. In the Backups section are instructions on how to synchronize several copies of a document around the Internet, and how to burn CD-ROMs with your entire Athena quota. At one dollar a disk, it’s a worthwhile endeavor.

Other things Athena can do for you is provide an easy setup for collaborating with your fellow students, using the Andrew File System. Everything else can be done on your computer just as easily, but we’ll go through what Athena offers anyway.

4 Your Habits and Your Health

Thanks to modern technology, every student has a chance today to experience the torment that Beethoven felt as he lost his hearing. Pithy comments notwithstanding, Carpal Tunnel Syndrome (CTS) is no joke. It’s still called a syndrome because there remains some controversy on what does or does not cause it, and what can be done about it. But what is not controversial is that CTS can destroy your career. So do not mess with it. MIT Medical provides advice and counseling on how to deal with it if it happens to you, but there are some rules you should follow every time you go to a keyboard. First, do the reading on the early symptoms of CTS. Don’t let the numbness that is the first sign slip past your guard. Learn the proper posture for typing, and stick to it. (This is another reason for using Athena: being in public will make you less likely to slouch in front of the computer).

Take breaks as currently mandated. If you need assistance, use the xwrits command in the outland locker to remind you, or to lock the workstation if necessary. And if you feel it coming on, take more breaks. Go to the Med Center. Full blown CTS can wreck your student career. Don’t tempt fate.

5 Creating and Editing Prose 6 Formatting the Text 7 Backups and Revision Control