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Mostly a collection of unrelated thoughts. Hopefully, they are occasionally amusing or interesting.
Checking in with gemini again after not giving it any attention for a looooong time. I also considered taking down my capsule, given that I didn't update it in almost a year now. I decided against it everytime it crossed my mind. I had a look at my favorite capsule (Joneworlds). It is a shame that the story has concluded, but at the same time it is a nice opportunity to start exploring the gemini space for other cool stuff.
We had a graduation ceremony for master programmes yesterday. It was strange to see many students from our last cohort 'in the flesh' for the first time in about a year.
Wrote a first longer blog entry for my capsule today. Happy to be back in Gemini space. I also discovered some cool capsules yesterday, reminding me what I liked about gemini so much: Finding gems without knowing what exactly I am looking for.
It has been a (long) while since I have explored gemini space. Maybe I will spend some time on Gemini again now that autumn is here.
I'm still knee-deep in theC64 maxi stuff. I downloaded a couple of books about c64 (or 6502) machine language from the eighties and I am working my way through simple examples. It is one of the more satisfying things I have done recently. In the meantime, I stumbled upon another interesting project: The Commander X16, an effort to create a new 8-bit Commodore-style computer (actual hardware, no emulator this time). The machine doesn't exist yet, but I hope it becomes a reality fairly soon. I would definitely buy one.
I bought the C64 maxi by Retro Games last week. When I was young, my father had a Commodore 64, which he didn't really use anymore. I found it a fascinating machine, but I never really played with it more than typing a few PRINT statements. If only I had known all the cool games you could play on a C64! Unfortunately, we have no idea where it is now, but we're pretty sure it's gone. I bought the C64 maxi in a wave of false nostalgia, which is risky, but I love it! The C64 games I've tried so far are fun, but the real fun is in learning machine language with the C64. I wonder if I should start writing a small C64 blog. That would bring a bit more life to this Gemini Capsule.
I keep discovering awesome things about org-mode. I am exploring the source block stuff right now. Absolutely brilliant stuff.
Played Ultima 7 for a bit. Great fun. I went right back to my trusted strategy (of back in the day) which mostly involves stealing everybody's shit when they're not looking.
In a wave of nostalgia, I just downloaded Ultima 7. I bought the GOG.com version, installed it on a virtual Windows machine, and then copied the static game files to my linux drive where I use exult (available in the AUR) to run the game. Awesome!
Permanently deleting my Facebook account. Good riddance.
I was looking for a good open-source alternative to Atlas.ti for qualitative coding work. Atlas.ti has some very nice features, but it has one of the most incomprehensible approaches to file and data management that I've seen (which can lead to big(!) problems) and the work you do in Atlas.ti is (as far as I know) hardly portable to other software if you happen to no longer have access to a license. I came across QualCoder (pyQt-based) which does a great job at most of what I need from software for qualitative coding. After trying it out for a few hours, I think I'll switch to that. I also came across a command-line tool called qc. It is very basic, perhaps a bit too basic for my needs, but I am intrigued and I am definitely going to play with it a bit more.
Published another blog post to my html page. This one is about my academic paper writing workflow. I hope to spend some of the evening hours of the coming few days on the book review I am writing for my gemini capsule.
Found new energy to write on a paper that has been lying around as an unfinished draft for a while. Feeling good about that.emacs.d/bin/doom sync
Oh, and it's not a review of "The C Programming Language"! :)
I've started working on a (much) longer gemlog post. It's basically a kind of book review / critique. It's probably going to end up a bit lengthy, but I don't mind that so much. I'm having fun writing it. I need to take my time with this. It will take me at least a few days to write, and these are possibly spread out over the coming few weeks.
Started reading "The C Programming Language" today.
I was watching 'once upon a time in Hollywood' just now. I had some flashbacks to 'Inglorious Bastards'. I should've expected that, but it was hilarious.
Last week I learned I should work a bit on my 'feedback sandwich'. The Dutch directness doesn't work for everyone.
I need this week to be over.
Yeah, this ascii art page might become a thing.
Messing around with the ascii art on my pages. I finally opted for a readable type of ascii art that is consistent across pages. I just had the thought that it perhaps would be fun to try my hand at some ascii art images. It probably sounds more fun than it is in practice.
And I already decided that zsh is going to be my default shell for the time being. I also like the vi mode.
I am trying zsh as a shell now, with some plugins that implement some of the behavior that I liked in fish, such as completion suggestions and syntax highlighting and so on.
Starting my Gemini capsule was somehow also a push for me to revive my weblog (www.wouterspekkink.org). While writing a bit of a lame "I'm back" post (also: I am not sure if anybody cares), I immediately got ideas for future blog posts. Let's hope all of this is also a push for me to make speed with writing papers. ;)
My gf told me that today is the last opportunity in a while to enjoy the snowy landscape outside under the sun. So time to go to a playground with the little one. :)
I seem to have finished the most difficult and crucial part of the gephi plugin I was working on off and on. Now it needs some testing.
This is how my nearly three year old plays doctor: She takes her little clipboard and toy pen and pretends to write something down. Then she does an examination with all tools (the ones she hasn't misplaced yet), like a stethoscope, an otoscope, and a thermometer. After the examination, she goes back to her clipboard to finish the paperwork. Hilarious!
Announced my capsule on the Gemini mailing lists, and I got some friendly messages and new capsules to explore (honestly, there are so many that I want/need to see).
Just submitted an abstract for an upcoming conference. Of course I did this at (nearly) the last possible moment. Now I am chilling out reading gemlogs. God, there is some really great stuff out there, and all presented in a laid-back way that I absolutely love. I've seen several people mention that it reminds them of the early days of the WWW. When did the WWW become so shit?
Added bits and pieces to my capsule. I think I am almost ready to share it with others. :)
Working on a plugin for Gephi, which I haven't done for ages. Most of my time so far was spent on setting up netbeans. Ugh!
It does!
Does the script work?