Don't bury it in your back yard!
Posted by matijs 27/07/2005 at 22h53
Debian’s ftp-master is down, which is the most likely cause (as far as I can tell, i.e., not very far) for a complete lack of updated packages for the past four days.
What worries me most is that how obsessively I keep checking if anything is happening already, and how uncomfortable this lack of updates makes me feel.
Posted by matijs 24/07/2005 at 18h26
As of yesterday, my blog runs on Typo. All in all, I have been quite satisfied with Bryar, but it was time for a change.
I like Bryar because it is simple (no frills, entries are stored as files), and yet easy to customize (to change the layout there's basically one template to update). In addition, it is written in Perl, a language that I like, and that I'm fluent in, so getting it to work the way I wanted was easy. So, I'm happy that I chose it a year ago.
A combination of events lead me to change over to Typo.
Posted by matijs 10/07/2005 at 12h47
I take a great interest in type design. I'm not sure when it started, but no doubt it has something to do with the following: A long time ago, I invented a writing system for the language of my imaginary country. Since then, I've created several fonts for this writing system. Since I'm only an amateur, I can't afford to buy any of the professional tools for font making, so I have had to resort to free tools (for varying definitions of free).
Posted by matijs 10/07/2005 at 11h05
Some time ago, I ended up with my friend at Schiphol Airport. It was
three in the morning, and we had to wait for a train to Amsterdam Centraal
Station.
Now, I work for Large Catering Company, which owns a coffee bar there.
So we decided to get some coffee there to pass the time. While we were
enjoying our coffees, we got to talking about the following problem:
Posted by matijs 11/06/2005 at 15h45
It's been available on CTAN for a while now, so it's about time I made a formal announcement: I have updated my LaTeX package for typesetting syntactic trees. In this new version, the allowed number of branches has been increased from three to unlimited (Yay!).
To make this update, I had to refactor the code that was dedicated to zero, one, two and three branches into a more generic version. I must say, I've always enjoyed modifying code to make it more manageable, but refactoring becomes very satisfying once you have a good test suite to test that it keeps doing the same thing, and a version control system to keep your known good versions. (This is no new insight, of course; it's right there in the book). This is a highly recommended technique!
Posted by matijs 24/05/2005 at 17h46
Via overcaffeinated, here is a very nice and from the looks of it, difficult image puzzle.
Posted by matijs 29/04/2005 at 09h36
This should be fun: The Dutch Stichting Thuiskopie seems to want to tax iPods for a ridiculous amount of money. The article ends with:
Or the Dutch could just become a nation without iPods. I wonder how happy that would make them?
Well, it wouldn't make me very happy. On the other hand, it seems I could just buy one in Belgium or something.
(The Stichting itself on its website denies that any amount has been set yet. Let's make sure the amount they set will be more sane than The Register reports.)
Oh yeah, this is all via Slashdot.
Posted by matijs 27/04/2005 at 23h04
Language log talks about Blendie. I like Blendie a lot. The following conversation results:
N: Hiingnyiiiiiing.
M: What are you doing?
N: I'm trying to be a blender.
M: I still love you even if you're not a blender.
Posted by matijs 16/04/2005 at 21h32
Ooh nice, a meme! Via the language log (where someone actually bothered to write something resembling an essay — no such luck here). Here follows my meme copy:
My Unitarian Jihad Name is: Brother Hand Grenade of Sweet Reason.
Hm. Sweet Reason. I like that.
Update: Boris Skoric mentions that the other Unitarian Jihad name generator gives me the name Joyous blunderbuss of patience. There is now also a Wikipedia article about the Unitarian Jihad, as well as a LiveJournal community.
Posted by matijs 09/03/2005 at 12h57
I'm slightly out of touch with happenings in the digital world, so I only read yesterday evening that the EU Council adopted the Computer Implemented Inventions Directive. This is a sad thing.
Slashdot points to an article on ZDNet about this. The ffii also has press release.
Interestingly, proponents of this directive are mostly not saying that pure software patents are good. Rather, they argue that the directive as it stands will not allow them (e.g., Frits Bolkestein, Robert Evans, MEP). I wonder if we can hold them to this when the lawsuits start.
Oh, and last evening I read it in a paper newspaper (in dutch), in a bar. Go figure.
Updates: Links to proponents added above, a good overview with arguments against software patents and the wording of the current CIID, the European Parliament is not pleased.