tasuki’s blog

I remember thinking about space (as in “three-dimensional extent in which objects and events occur and have relative position and direction”) when I was a little kid. I asked my dad what was outside of the universe and he told me that we do not know for sure but most probably there isn’t anything. I couldn’t quite understand what he meant by that, so I asked him, and he continued to explain that there simply is no space. I couldn’t grasp that either, so I imagined that there is a very hard rock — so hard that nothing else can fit in there, and hence there is no space.

I grew older and abandoned the very-hard-rock theory. But I haven’t found a reasonable substitute for it. And it bothers me. A lot.

There simply is no reasonable possibility for space to even exist:

1. Space is infinite and extends everywhere and never ends. I think I do not even need to explain why this sounds stupid.
2. Space is finite. Then what is outside of it? There is no space outside. Then there is no outside. Unreasonable, too.

Please note that I am talking about space, not necessarily in connection with the universe. Just the concept of space and its infinity/finity confuses the hell out of me. And it makes me scared.

It’s similar with time. According to wikipedia, universe is the “entirety of space and time”. So, if I understand it correctly, there was no time before universe. And the universe is approximately 13.73 billion years old. Which means that 14 billion years ago, there was no time. Wait, what?

After pondering about it for a long time, I’ve finally decided to sell my soul. Yes, this blog, the place where I share my thoughts and opinions with you, my dear readers, this very blog has become polluted by ads.

Now, before you leave for good, here are some quick tips on how to avoid being exposed to ads:

• don’t browse old posts or
• browse as a registered user or
• use holy water to protect you from the devil

Any one of the above mentioned tips will help you stay on the safe side. The third one is the best option, as it will also protect you from the devil on most other websites…

I started trying to touch type about two months ago. I used Klavaro (if you are on linux it’s most probably in your distribution’s repositories) to learn, and I’ve also learned by trying to use the right fingers for typing and not to look at the keyboard whenever typing.

My typing speed was promised to increase dramatically in few weeks while practicing a little every day. No such thing happened, although I’ve practiced almost all the time. I still write considerably slower than I did before I started touch typing. Am I unhappy that I started touch typing? Not at all — let me explain:

The advantage is that I can just look at the screen while typing. That might seem like a single advantage, but it’s actually several in one.

First, I can read other stuff while typing or look at people who are talking to me while I type (I learned that from a colleague, it’s real intimidating).
Second, I don’t have to switch display, keyboard, display, keyboard, display, keyboard… I just look at the display. This is much cooler than it sounds — it enabled me to move the monitor cca 40cm above the keyboard (both home and at work). So I can finally sit straight instead of bending over the keyboard.

On a completely unrelated note, I finally switched from czech qwerty (writing !@#%$&^% characters with alt) to standard english keyboard layout. A lot of stuff in vim has become much more comfortable — such as the ; right under my pinky, which means that repeating f/F/t/T has just gotten even easier and better.

On a semirelated note, I never knew that to write the capital X you can press the right shift plus the x. It’s not that I thought you couldn’t do that, I just never realised it could be useful and no one ever told me “you are doing it wrong”.

Many posts have been written on the topic of best free fonts. Therefore, I’d like to approach it differently.

Here, have a picture:

You should click on that picture to see the large version. And if your screen isn’t big enough and your browser thinks the image would look better downsized — your browser is wrong: click on the zoom button and view the picture in its original size.

As you can see, there are only 14 fonts. Surely there must be more quality fonts available for free? Yes, there are. This is a small selection of only the best of the best.

Now that you have the original picture open, let’s have a look at those 14 fonts (all available either in otf or in ttf):

• Antykwa Toruńska is a very original typeface created by Polish type designer Zygfried Gardzielewski in 1960. It was digitised by Janusz Marian Nowacki. The font contains many obscure glyphs (various diacritical marks, math symbols, etc.) and is available in light, regular, medium and bold versions, each of which has its own italics.
• Typo Latin Serif is a slab serif (egyptian) typeface with an extremely large x-height. It was created by a German type designer Manfred Klein.
• The DejaVu fonts are based on the excellent Bitstream Vera typefaces and extended by additional glyphs. They are well hinted so they preserve their onscreen readability even in small sizes.
• Palatino is a typeface by Hermann Zapf, a pioneer of computer typography. Palladio L is a free Palatino clone created by URW in cooperation with Hermann Zapf. You can download it in URW fonts pack (together with 79 other fonts).
• Gentium, a typeface for the nations by Victor Gaultney, extensive unicode support.
• Optima is another wonderful typeface by Hermann Zapf. You can download it as MgOpen Cosmetica.
• Bembo is a dynamic antiqua created by Francesco Griffo in 1496. The font Cardo, based on Bembo typeface, was created by David Perry.
• Vollkorn is an old style numerals featuring typeface which was created by Friedrich Althausen. Old style numerals own.
• Computer Modern is a Didone typeface created by professor Donald Ervin Knuth.
• Avant Garde by Herb Lubalin can be downloaded in the above mentioned URW font pack where it is known as URW Gothic L.
• Goudy Bookletter 1911 is a reincarnation of Frederic Goudy’s Kennerley Old Style by Barry Schwartz (funny thing, another Barry Schwartz… there is also Barry Schwartz the SEO and Barry Schwarts the psychologist from Paradox of choice). By the way, have I mentioned that old style numerals own?
• Helvetica by Max Miedinger. Perhaps the most famous and most abused typeface ever (seriously, fuck Arial). Helvetica isn’t any less awesome now than it was 50 years ago. This version was created by Magenta Ltd. and is available in the MgOpen pack as MgOpen Moderna.
• Geo Sans Light is a font by Manfred Klein, which is based on Futura, a geometric typeface created by Paul Renner in 1926.
• Garamond. The best serif typeface ever. For the third time, URW font pack.

The picture was created with Inkscape. Inkscape rocks. For anything that you think might be vector use Inkscape. Generally, GIMP for photo editing, Inkscape for everything else. It enables very easy manual kerning, and after you are done, you can convert the letters to paths (Bezier), and continue making changes (not sure whether that was clear — anyway go and try it out ).

Ah, I almost forgot — you can get the SVG source file (already converted to paths, as I don’t suppose you have all the fonts installed).

Got other excellent free fonts? Feel free to leave a comment!