New artwork: The Light of the World.
Blog
Links #92
Ben Werd on journaling in private with friends. I’d like this. This gave me a curious idea: an unlisted RSS feed with no web counterpart. Similar to the occasional RSS-only posts that some folks do on their blogs, but with post URLs that don’t actually go anywhere. Effectively private without having to deal with authentication. (For the paranoid, maybe each reader gets their own unique URL to make it easy to track down any leaks and give the whole thing an espionage vibe.) Maybe I’ll do this someday.
Dorian Taylor on programmable software being accessible software. In particular the bit about “no UI without API”: “Every meaningful thing you can do to the application state in the user interface should correspond to exactly one subroutine, appropriately parametrized.” Which makes me think about Blender’s Python API — whenever you do something in the UI, there’s a log that shows how to do that action via the API. (Or at least there was; I haven’t checked recently to see if it’s still there.)
Speaking of which, Blender 4.0 was released. The fractal noise on the Voronoi texture node looks yum. I’ll admit to being a smidge sad to see Inter replace the Deja Vu Sans as the UI font, but I’ll cope.
Robin Berjon’s series on reimagining parts of the web. The web tiles idea is intriguing.
Jeff Sandberg on CSS being fun again. I need to make time to get familiar with all the new dazzle in CSS land. (I’ve read about most of it, but I haven’t gotten it into my fingers yet.)
Booknotes 3.4
Nonfiction
- Number Go Up, by Zeke Faux (2023). Crypto culture is a big bucket of crazy. Quote from the book: “From the beginning, I thought that crypto was pretty dumb. And it turned out to be even dumber than I imagined.” Yup. Good read.
Fiction
- Guards! Guards!, by Terry Pratchett (1989, fantasy). Enjoyed it. I’m struggling to come up with anything more to say about it.
- Murder at Spindle Manor, by Morgan Stang (2022, fantasy). Darker and more disturbing than I was expecting, and boy do things get cray cray. (Agatha Christie this is not.) Good writing. Liked it, looking forward to Murder on the Lamplight Express.
- Kim Jiyoung, Born 1982, by Cho Nam-Joo (2016, fiction). I read it for book group. A short read, basically one sitting. I wish things were more equal (sexism is frustrating), but I’m glad we’ve seen some progress in some areas and can’t wait for more. On an unimportant note, the frame story — which had nothing to do with the rest of the book (unless I’m too dense to get it, which is entirely likely; as is no doubt all too clear to anyone who reads these paltry reviews, literary criticism is not my forte) — intrigued me and I want to read a speculative fiction extension of that.
Links #91
Julian Gough on cosmological natural selection and universes, um, reproducing. Look, I have no idea whether he’s right, but regardless: what a fascinating idea.
Devine Lu Linvega on computing and sustainability and permaculture. I think about this often — smaller, simpler systems, little VMs and emulators, and preservation. Not sure yet what it means for my work, but I hope to someday do something in this space.
Nate Bargatze’s “Washington’s Dream” sketch on SNL. Too true. We’ve enjoyed watching Nate’s stand-up comedy specials.
The most spoken languages in each U.S. state besides English and Spanish. Interesting!
Nabil Maynard on the handcrafted artisanal web. It delights me to see more people return to homesteading now that the glamorous yet shoddy apartment towers of social media have begun crumbling.
I’ve been playing around with making EPUBs look more like print:
Why the madness: ebooks feel kind of sterile to me, and I’m intrigued by the idea of giving them a more analog feel.
The experiment is still early on (I’ve only automated the first step so far), but at this point the process involves:
- Turning the EPUB into a PDF (concatenating each file in the EPUB into a single HTML file, setting some print CSS rules, and printing from HTML to PDF in a browser)
- Turning each page into an image (at left in the above image)
- Eroding/dilating the image to simulate ink spread
- Adding a very slight ripple
- Blurring the next page, flipping it backwards, and compositing it at a low opacity
- Adding some paper texture (at right in the above image)
- Compiling all the page images back into a PDF
Other notes:
- This does mean larger file sizes, but not prohibitively so. (For me, anyway.)
- Right now I’m experimenting with doing this statically, in PDF but I imagine most if not all of it could be done dynamically in-browser. (
filter: blur(0.25px) contrast(3)in CSS applied twice to text can give a roughly similar effect to erosion/dilation, for example.) - The current erosion/dilation method is acceptable, but I feel like there’s more room for improvement here.
- A shortcut to doing the full process is to export a blurred backwards page image, composite it onto the paper texture, and then use that as the background image on each page. You lose the variety, but it’s probably not noticeable.
New artwork: Whither Thou Goest.
New artwork: By the Gift and Power of God.
Booknotes 3.3
Nonfiction
- SPQR: A History of Ancient Rome, by Mary Beard (2015). Quite good, learned a lot. In particular, I really liked the historiographical aspect, where she talks about the historical evidence (or lack thereof) for various things. Also, I want to note for posterity that I don’t think about Rome other than when I’m reading books about it.
- What Can a Body Do?: How We Meet the Built World, by Sara Hendren (2020), about disability and the design of the world around us (think curb cuts for wheelchairs). Good book, worth reading. Several different angles on disability, including mental health. This book made me want to be a designer again.
Fiction
- Made Things, by Adrian Tchaikovsky (2019, fantasy). Liked it a lot, especially the overall feel. I wouldn’t mind seeing more in this universe.
- Mightier than the Sword, by K. J. Parker (2017, fantasy). Also liked it a lot. Classic Parker, with faux antiquity and wit.
- Legends & Lattes, by Travis Baldree (2022, fantasy). I don’t drink coffee (don’t even like the smell of it), but this was an enjoyable, cozy read. Especially liked the mundane bits like the carpentry and adding new items to the menu.
Favorite books in 2023
My favorite reads this year, in the order I read them:
Nonfiction
- The Perfectionists, by Simon Winchester
- The Soul of a New Machine, by Tracy Kidder
- First, by Evan Thomas
- All the President’s Men, by Carl Bernstein and Bob Woodward
- The River of Doubt, by Candice Millard
- Caste, by Isabel Wilkerson
- Convictions, by John Kroger
- Indigenous Continent, by Pekka Hämäläinen
- When the Heavens Went on Sale, by Ashlee Vance
- Let’s Talk About Race and Priesthood, by W. Paul Reeve
- Leadership, by Doris Kearns Goodwin
- Avid Reader, by Robert Gottlieb
- Ways of Being, by James Bridle
- In the Garden of Beasts, by Erik Larson
Fiction
- Memory, by Lois McMaster Bujold
- The Justice of Kings, by Richard Swan
- The Goblin Emperor, by Katherine Addison
- Paladin of Souls, by Lois McMaster Bujold
- The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society, by Mary Ann Shaffer & Annie Barrows
- The Will of the Many, by James Islington
- In the Woods, by Tana French
- Blood Over Bright Haven, by M. L. Wang
- Cage of Souls, by Adrian Tchaikovsky
- Memories of Ice, by Steven Erikson
- The Return of Fitzroy Angursell, by Victoria Goddard
- Chosen, by Benedict Jacka
- Made Things, by Adrian Tchaikovsky
Booknotes 3.2
Nonfiction
- Inside the Publishing Revolution: The Adobe Story, by Pamela Pfiffner (2003). I don’t particularly care about Adobe as it is now, but it was interesting reading the history of PostScript, digital typefaces, Illustrator, Photoshop, PDF, PageMaker, and InDesign. Particularly how uncertain PDF’s future was then, compared to how ubiquitous it has become.
- In the Garden of Beasts, by Erik Larson (2011). About Berlin in 1933–1934 (roughly). I read it for book group. Fascinating book, compelling and interesting throughout. I wasn’t well versed in that time period, so the Night of the Long Knives came as a bit of a shock. Whew. The potential parallels to today are admittedly frightening. Looking forward to reading Larson’s other books. (I’ve also read Isaac’s Storm.)
Fiction
- Whispers Under Ground, by Ben Aaronovitch (2012, fantasy). Gritty, but other than that I liked it. Quite funny (much more than I remembered the series being), and I also enjoyed the London slang and the worldbuilding. Looking forward to the rest.
- Priest of Bones, by Peter McLean (2018, fantasy). Quite gritty. Outside of that, though, I liked it, tragic though it is (in my view, anyway). Interested to see where the series arc goes.