Benjamin C. Wiley Sittler

single-track gray codes with evenly spaced heads

bsittler@gmail.com — Sat, 03 Jan 2009 19:18:28 GMT

Gray codes (so-called, despite having been used by Émile Baudot in the original Baudot code and its evolution, the International Telegraph Alphabet No. 1, many decades prior to Gray's patent) are good for many encoding applications because any two adjacent positions differ by exactly one bit, and the encoder wheels are trivial to construct by binary reflection. However, you can do better — by using a specially chosen sensor arrangement one can use a single encoder wheel which is sensed simultaneously at several points and decodes to a Gray code. The particular case where all the heads are evenly radially spaced is is called a single-track Gray code with evenly spaced heads — see Moshe Schwartz and Tuvi Etzion's The Structure of Single-Track Gray Codes for a good discussion and definition of this term.

Anyhow, I became curious about these codes yesterday, and wrote and refined a Python program to find them. Here are some of the codes it found: (hover over a block of codes to see the command used to find it)

=======V=======V=======V=======V=======V=======V
----------xxx------xxxx-----xxxxx-----xxxxxxxxxx
-----------xxxxxx----xxxxx----xxxxxx---xxxxxxxxx
-----------xxxx-----xxxxx----xxxxx----xxxxxxxxxx
-----------xxx------xxxxx----xxxxx-----xxxxxxxxx
-----------xx----xxxxx----xxxxxxxxxx---xxxxxxxxx
------------xxxxxx-----xx-----xxxxx--xxxxxxxxxxx
------------xxxxx----xxxxx----xxxxx----xxxxxxxxx
------------xxxxx------xxx----xxxxx--xxxxxxxxxxx
------------xxx-------xxxxxxxxxxx--xxxxxxx---xxx
------------xx----xxxxx----xxxxxxxxxx----xxxxxxx
------------xx-----xxxx--xxxxxxxxxxxx-----xxxxxx
------------xx-----xxxx---xxxxxxxxxxx----xxxxxxx
------------xx-----xxxx---xxxxxxx----xxxxxxxxxxx
------------xx-------xxxxxxxxxxxx--xxxx---xxxxxx
------------xx-------xxxxxxxxxx---xxxxxxx--xxxxx
-------------xxxxx--xxxxxxxxxxx----xxx---xxxxxxx
-------------xxxxx-------xx----xxxxx--xxxxxxxxxx
-------------xxxx--xxxxxxxxxxxx-----xx----xxxxxx
-------------xxxx---xxxxxxxxxxx----xxx----xxxxxx
-------------xxxx------xxxx---xxxx--xxxxxxxxxxxx
-------------xx--xxxxxxxxx--xxxxxxxxxx-----xxxxx
-------------xx---xxxxxxx--xxxxxxxxxxx------xxxx
-------------xx---xxxxxxx---xxxxxxxxxx-----xxxxx
-------------xx----xxx----xxxxxxx---xxxxxxxxxxxx
-------------xx-----xxxxxxxxxxxxx--xxx----xxxxxx
-------------xx-----xxxxx--xxxxxxx----xxxxxxxxxx
--------------xxxx--xxxxxxxxxxxxx----xx----xxxxx
--------------xxxx--xxxxx----xxxxxxxxxx----xxxxx
--------------xxxx---xxxx--xxxxxxxxx---xxxxxxxxx
--------------xxxx---xxxx---xxxxxxx----xxxxxxxxx
--------------xxxx---xx-----xxxxxxxxxxxxx--xxxxx
--------------xxxx-----xxxx--xxxx---xxxxxxxxxxxx
--------------xxxx-----xx---xxxxxxx--xxxxxxxxxxx
--------------xxxx-------xxx---xxxx--xxxxxxxxxxx
--------------xxx--xxxxxxx---xxxxxxxxxx-----xxxx
--------------xxx---xxxxxxxxxxxxxx-----xxxx--xxx
--------------xxx---xxxxxxxxxxx----xx-----xxxxxx
--------------xxx---xxx---xxxxxxxxx--xxxxxxxxxxx
--------------xxx---xxx----xxxxxxx---xxxxxxxxxxx
--------------xxx----xxxxxxxxxxxxxx----xxx--xxxx
--------------xxx----xxxxx--xxxxxxx----xxxxxxxxx
--------------xxx----xx----xxxxxxx--xxxxxxxxxxxx
---------------xxxx---xxxx---xxxxxxx-----xxxxxxx
---------------xxxx------xxx--xxxx---xxxxxxxxxxx
---------------xxx--xxxxx----xxxxxxxxx-----xxxxx
---------------xx--xxxxxxx---xxxxxxxxx------xxxx
---------------xx---xx-----xxxxxxx---xxxxxxxxxxx

=====V=====V=====V=====V=====V=====V
----------xxxx---xxxxxxxx--xxxxxxxxx
----------xxx--xxxxxxxx---------xxxx
-----------xxxx----xxxxxxx--xxxxxxxx
-----------xxx--------xxxxxxxxx--xxx
-----------xx---xxxxxxxxxx-------xxx
-----------xx--------xxxxx--xxxxxxxx
-------------xxx----xxxxxxx--xxxxxxx
-------------xx--xxxxx----xxxxxxxxxx
--------------xxx--xxx-----xxxxxxxxx
--------------xxx----xxxxxxx---xxxxx
--------------xxx-----xxxxxxxxx--xxx
--------------xx---xxxx----xxxxxxxxx
--------------xx-----xxxxxxxx--xxxxx
---------------xx--xxxxxxxxx----xxxx
---------------xx--xxx----xxxxxxxxxx
---------------xx---xxxxxxxx---xxxxx
---------------xx---xxxxx---xxxxxxxx
----------------xxxx---xx--xxxxxxxxx
----------------xxx--xxxxx---xxxxxxx
----------------xxx--xx---xxxxxxxxxx

=====V=====V=====V=====V=====V
--------xxx----xxxx---xxxxxxxx
--------xx-----xxxxxxxx--xxxxx
---------xxxx---xxxx---xxxxxxx
---------xxxx----xxx--xxxxxxxx
---------xx--xxxxxxxxx----xxxx
---------xx---xxxxxxxx---xxxxx
---------xx---xxxxx---xxxxxxxx
----------xxxx---xx--xxxxxxxxx
----------xxx--xxxxx---xxxxxxx
----------xxx--xx---xxxxxxxxxx

===V===V===V===V===V
-------xxx---xxxxxxx
-------xx-----xxxxxx
---------xx---xxxxxx
----------xxx--xxxxx

=V=V=V
---xxx

=V
-x

(Yes, I have written about Gray codes previously.)

edit: updated the program with a further heuristic and added results for 36 and 48 positions; also, the Gray code page at quirkfactory includes a 7-head, 126-position single-track Gray code.

edit: updated with an even better heuristic; results can now be computed even for 126-position single-track Gray codes in reasonable time.

iris speaks

bsittler@gmail.com — Mon, 22 Dec 2008 03:26:57 GMT

rebbyribs to iris: “Are you feeling sleepy?”

iris: “A little bit sleepy, actually.”

i thought this was very cute. clearly my brain has turned to goo!

unidecode_php-0.3.tar.gz

bsittler@gmail.com — Fri, 19 Dec 2008 07:53:30 GMT

I recently wrote a conversion script and PHP wrapper so that the data from the Perl "last-chance transliterator" Text::Unidecode by Sean M. Burke can be used from PHP: unidecode_php-0.3.tar.gz. To use this you'll need to install the Perl Text::Unidecode module and then run the udec2bin.pl script inside the unidecode_php package.

Example PHP usage:

<?php
require("unidecode.php");
print htmlspecialchars(unidecode("中文", "utf-8"));
?>

produces

Zhong Wen

This allows very basic conversion of lots of Unicode to plain ASCII. It works pretty well for some scripts and languages, is somewhat usable for several more, and fails utterly in some. Here are some examples excerpted from the Emacs-MULE HELLO file, along with their ASCII transliterations:

Europe: ¡Hola!, Grüß Gott, Hyvää päivää, Tere õhtust, Bonġu
Europe: !Hola!, Gruss Gott, Hyvaa paivaa, Tere ohtust, Bongu
Cześć!, Dobrý den, Здравствуйте!, Γειά σας, გამარჯობა
Czesc!, Dobry den, Zdravstvuitie!, Geia sas, gamarjoba
Africa: ሠላም
Africa: szalaame
Middle/Near East: שלום
Middle/Near East: shlvm
South Asia: नमस्ते, ನಮಸ್ಕಾರ, നമസ്കാരം, வணக்கம்
South Asia: nmste, nmskaar, nmskaarN, vnnkkm 
South East Asia: ສະບາຍດີ, สวัสดีครับ, Chào bạn
South East Asia: sabaanydii, swasdiikhrab, Chao ban
East Asia: 你好, 早晨, こんにちは, 안녕하세요
East Asia: Ni Hao , Zao Chen , konnitiha, annyeonghaseyo
Misc: Eĥoŝanĝo ĉiuĵaŭde, ⠓⠑⠇⠇⠕, ∀ p ∈ world • hello p  □
Misc: Ehosango ciujaude, hello, [?] p [?] world * hello p  #
CJK variety: GB(元气,开发), BIG5(元氣,開發), JIS(元気,開発), KSC(元氣,開發)
CJK variety: GB(Yuan Qi ,Kai Fa ), BIG5(Yuan Qi ,Kai Fa ), JIS(Yuan Qi ,Kai Fa ), KSC(Yuan Qi ,Kai Fa )
Unicode charset: Eĥoŝanĝo ĉiuĵaŭde, Γειά σας, שלום, Здравствуйте!
Unicode charset: Ehosango ciujaude, Geia sas, shlvm, Zdravstvuitie!

LANGUAGE (NATIVE NAME)	HELLO
----------------------	-----
Amharic (አማርኛ)	ሠላም
Amharic ('amaarenyaa)	szalaame
Braille	⠓⠑⠇⠇⠕
Braille	hello
Bulgarian (български)	Здравейте
Bulgarian (blgharski)	Zdravieitie
Czech (čeština)	Dobrý den
Czech (cestina)	Dobry den
Danish (dansk)	Hej, Goddag, Halløj
Danish (dansk)	Hej, Goddag, Halloj
English [ˈiŋ-gliʃ]	Hello
English ['iNG-gliS]	Hello
Esperanto	Saluton (Eĥoŝanĝo ĉiuĵaŭde)
Esperanto	Saluton (Ehosango ciujaude)
Estonian (eesti)	Tere päevast, Tere õhtust
Estonian (eesti)	Tere paevast, Tere ohtust
Finnish (suomi)	Hei, Hyvää päivää
Finnish (suomi)	Hei, Hyvaa paivaa
French (français)	Bonjour, Salut
French (francais)	Bonjour, Salut
Georgian (ქართველი)	გამარჯობა
Georgian (k`art`veli)	gamarjoba
German (Deutsch)	Guten Tag, Grüß Gott
German (Deutsch)	Guten Tag, Gruss Gott
Greek (ελληνικά)	Γειά σας
Greek (ellenika)	Geia sas
Hebrew (עברית)	שלום
Hebrew (`bryt)	shlvm
Hungarian (magyar)	Szép jó napot!
Hungarian (magyar)	Szep jo napot!
Hindi (हिंदी)	नमस्ते, नमस्कार ।
Hindi (hiNdii)	nmste, nmskaar  / 
Kannada (ಕನ್ನಡ)	ನಮಸ್ಕಾರ
Kannada (knndd)	nmskaar
Lao (ພາສາລາວ)	ສະບາຍດີ, ຂໍໃຫ້ໂຊກດີ
Lao (phaasaalaaw)	sabaanydii, khMayhoskdii
Malayalam (മലയാളം)	നമസ്കാരം
Malayalam (mlyaallN)	nmskaarN
Maltese (il-Malti)	Bonġu, Saħħa
Maltese (il-Malti)	Bongu, Sahha
Mathematics	∀ p ∈ world • hello p  □
Mathematics	[?] p [?] world * hello p  #
Polish (polski)	Dzień dobry! Cześć!
Polish (polski)	Dzien dobry! Czesc!
Russian (русский)	Здравствуйте!
Russian (russkii)	Zdravstvuitie!
Slovak (slovenčina)	Dobrý deň
Slovak (slovencina)	Dobry den
Slovenian (slovenščina)	Pozdravljeni!
Slovenian (slovenscina)	Pozdravljeni!
Spanish (español)	¡Hola!
Spanish (espanol)	!Hola!
Swedish (svenska)	Hej, Goddag, Hallå
Swedish (svenska)	Hej, Goddag, Halla
Tamil (தமிழ்)	வணக்கம்
Tamil (tmilll)	vnnkkm
Thai (ภาษาไทย)	สวัสดีครับ, สวัสดีค่ะ
Thai (phaasaaaithy)	swasdiikhrab, swasdiikha
Tigrigna (ትግርኛ)	ሰላማት
Tigrigna (tegerenyaa)	salaamaate
Turkish (Türkçe)	Merhaba
Turkish (Turkce)	Merhaba
Ukrainian (українська)	Вітаю
Ukrainian (ukrayins'ka)	Vitaiu
Vietnamese (Tiếng Việt)	Chào bạn
Vietnamese (Tieng Viet)	Chao ban

Japanese (日本語)	こんにちは, ｺﾝﾆﾁﾊ
Japanese (Ri Ben Yu )	konnitiha, konnitiha
Chinese (中文,普通话,汉语)	你好
Chinese (Zhong Wen ,Pu Tong Hua ,Yi Yu )	Ni Hao 
Cantonese (粵語,廣東話)	早晨, 你好
Cantonese (Yue Yu ,Guang Dong Hua )	Zao Chen , Ni Hao 
Korean (한글)	안녕하세요, 안녕하십니까
Korean (hangeul)	annyeonghaseyo, annyeonghasibnigga

Copyright (C) 2001, 2002, 2003, 2004, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2008
Free Software Foundation, Inc.

This file is part of GNU Emacs.

GNU Emacs is free software; you can redistribute it and/or modify
it under the terms of the GNU General Public License as published by
the Free Software Foundation; either version 3, or (at your option)
any later version.

GNU Emacs is distributed in the hope that it will be useful,
but WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty of
MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE.  See the
GNU General Public License for more details.

You should have received a copy of the GNU General Public License
along with GNU Emacs; see the file COPYING.  If not, write to the
Free Software Foundation, Inc., 51 Franklin Street, Fifth Floor,
Boston, MA 02110-1301, USA.

update: version 0.2 adds a couple examples.

update: version 0.3 is better at finding the datafiles when included from another directory.

Yay!, Bee, See.

bsittler@gmail.com — Sun, 23 Nov 2008 06:26:59 GMT

I wrote some software using DHTML (JavaScript, HTML and CSS.) It's to help learn letters and numbers, and is intended to be used with adult supervision and involvement.

The software is very, very, very simple — it just echoes typed letters and numbers in a large, colorful font and shows a somewhat-relevant background image for each one. The images are various freely-usable ones I found on Wikipedia or in the Wikimedia Commons. View source code for full copyright information for the associated images.

Here's the software: Yay!, Bee, See (smaller version). There's a downloadable archive of it, too, which includes all the images for offline use: ZIP, 13 MiB (smaller ZIP, 4 MiB.)

It's not much, but my almost-2-year-old daughter seems to like it already. Feel free to critique it, modify it, distribute it, or tell others about it. I welcome any comments, and the program is in the public domain — do with it as you wish!

Switching to using your own images is trivial once you've downloaded and unpacked the ZIP file: just replace the appropriate .jpg file inside the numbers or letters folder, and (optionally) update the corresponding comment section in the HTML file if you want the correct authorship and license information to be displayed when the image is displayed. Yes, it uses the CSS comments to store the provenance information. Theoretically letters and digits other than those unaccented latin letters found in ASCII should work, but this has not really been tested yet.

edit: you need to wait a while after the first time you press a particular numer or letter for the image to load. they are very high-resolution, so be patient.

edit 2: the images are now much smaller and quicker to load (maximum resolution is now 1600px by 1200px), and the ZIP file is now 13 MiB rather than 55 MiB. also, it now works in Opera.

edit 3: if you have a toddler and use mac os x, i recommend the plainview full-screen web browser and especially the command-/ "kiosk" mode. it's also good for giving presentations on a projector or large screen.

edit 4: if you are using an OLPC XO-1 or other small-screen device, or have limited storage space, you can download the 4 MiB version for 1200x900 screens. the images in this version have been recompressed (and so suffer from some serial compression loss artifacts) and downscaled to fit in a 1200px by 900px rectangle.

I recommend (and use locally) SIL's recently released free Andika Basic font for the small type. I use either that, or Magenta's free MgOpen Cosmetica font for the large type.

edit 5: there's a page for Yay!, Bee, See on the OLPC Wiki now, including a Yay!, Bee, See XO library bundle prepared by Samuel Klein and updated by yours truly.

edit 6: there's also a Yay!, Bee, See activity bundle written by Wade Brainerd.

now married, and hoping the club i just joined does not become more exclusive any time soon!

bsittler@gmail.com — Thu, 16 Oct 2008 01:13:02 GMT

rebbyribs and i got married today.

ǝsnqɐ ǝpoɔıun

bsittler@gmail.com — Fri, 25 Jan 2008 19:54:57 GMT

(ɥo‾uı‾uosılɐ ɯoɹɟ) ɐɔɐɔqıl ʎq pǝsn sʇɔǝɟɟǝ ǝɥʇ ɟo ǝɯos ɟo ǝɯ spuıɯǝɹ lɯʇɥ˙dılɟ/ɯoɔ˙pɐɟʌǝɹ˙ʍʍʍ//:dʇʇɥ

steps!

bsittler@gmail.com — Sat, 12 Jan 2008 22:53:23 GMT

iris walks! she was moving sideways across the floor on two feet while not holding anything. rebbyribs and i squeed, at which point iris sat down and gave us a very puzzled look.

iris, and darwin tweaks

bsittler@gmail.com — Sat, 12 Jan 2008 20:00:14 GMT

i think iris might be starting to talk. the words are few, and the pronunciation odd enough that i'm never really sure, but i think i've been hearing "fish", "kitty", "guido" (one of the cats), and "no" used in more-or-less appropriate situations. rebbyribs is a bit more skeptical, but i'm sure iris will talk clearly and distinctly soon enough.

note: what follows is a discussion of scripts that modify your mac os x kernel. this is potentially very risky, as the kernel is what allows everything else to run. although i have made every attempt to ensure they are safe (and believe they are), i can't guarantee it or be held liable if things go wrong. in particular:

THE SOFTWARE IS PROVIDED “AS IS”, WITHOUT WARRANTY OF ANY KIND, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO THE WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY, FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE AND NONINFRINGEMENT. IN NO EVENT SHALL THE AUTHOR OR ANY OTHER CONTRIBUTOR BE LIABLE FOR ANY CLAIM, DAMAGES OR OTHER LIABILITY, WHETHER IN AN ACTION OF CONTRACT, TORT OR OTHERWISE, ARISING FROM, OUT OF OR IN CONNECTION WITH THE SOFTWARE OR THE USE OR OTHER DEALINGS IN THE SOFTWARE.

also, this morning's project was to get the mac os x/darwin console vt100 alternate character set support to work and (closely related) to customize the mac os x/darwin console color palette. the end result is a pair of shell scripts that seem to work, and a lot of scratching my head — why didn't they
ⓐ ship with the VT100 positions filled in their font, or
ⓑ provide a simpler interface for switching the font and color palette at runtime (using, say, escape sequences or a sysctl.) oh and
ⓒ why does their console strip the eighth bit off of all output (despite the font [based on a design by zestyping] supporting the first 256 unicode/ucs code points), and finally
ⓓ why don't the function keys work?

update: it's probably worth explaining a bit more here:

On Intel and PowerPC platforms, Apple's Darwin operating system and Mac OS X use a full-screen system console derived from a NetBSD framebuffer console. It is an ANSI-style terminal, and is not really VT100 compatible.

Under Mac OS X (both PowerPC and Intel), this is the system console driver used while in single-user mode [reachable by holding down Command-S during the boot process] and when logged in using console mode [reachable by typing ">console" at the graphical login prompt.]

Under Mac OS X version 10.4, you'll need to enable the password dialog inside the System Preferences | Accounts | Login Options panel by disabling the "Automatically log in as" option and setting the "Display login window as" option to "Name and password"

The scripts require access to kernel memory. By default they enable the built-in /dev/kmem by adding the kmem=1 option to the nvram boot-args — however, it may be possible to use them with Amit Singh's alternate implementation (not tested, though.)

The scripts need the nm utility; get it from Xcode or odcctools

update: it looks like joey hagedorn made a truetype version of the darwin console font!

best typo i've seen recently

bsittler@gmail.com — Thu, 03 Jan 2008 06:10:11 GMT

this is the best typo i've seen recently: "platronic ideal", in "Don't Proliferate; Transliterate!", on digital encoding of greek for scholarly purposes

firefox extensions i'm using

bsittler@gmail.com — Wed, 02 May 2007 01:36:59 GMT

i often feel chained to the firefox web browser due to reliance on some of the great add-on software available for it. this falls into three broad categories:

enhanced browsing add-ons:

Download Statusbar (which can be configured to run a virus scanner on all downloads),
FlashGot,
GreaseMonkey,
Platypus,
Resurrect Pages,
Stylish and
XHTML Ruby Support;

development tools:

and

security- and privacy-related add-ons:

CookieSafe (configured to deny cookies globally, and to not hide subdomains),
NoScript (configured to show full domains and full addresses in the context menu, and to block flash),
FlashBlock,
AdBlock,
AdBlock Filterset.G Updater (with update messages disabled),
RefControl,
Controle de Scripts and
zestyping's modified Locationbar² (being careful not to let it get replaced by the older official Locationbar² 0.9.0.3 during an auto-update).

i also install two userscripts, not only because i maintain them (shameless, aren't i?) but because i find them useful for dealing with news feeds:

rss panel x and
grazr laser (note that using this may bind you to grazr's terms of service).

i also like the macfox theme, even on mac os x where it is not yet supported (some buttons do look wrong there.)

update: i use the Combine Stop/Reload buttons userstyle. i keep the platypus and web developer toolbars hidden during normal browsing, and i switch the web developer toolbar to show icons only, and move all its icons to the bookmarks toolbar. i also disable search suggestions, set all pages to open in tabs, and set the tab bar to always be shown.

update 2: macfox looks best with a rounded urlbar, in my opinion

update 3: on windows i also install ie tab so that microsoft's update service can be used from the comfort of firefox. i also disable or uninstall the various google-provided add-ons because they all seem to make firefox crash or misbehave. google toolbar and google browser sync misbehave by storing browsing details on google's central servers, and google photos screensaver breaks the firefox user interface (symptom: red caret of death.)

update 4: the camino theme for firefox looks nice on all platforms. on windows i also recommend IsAdmin to visually remind you when you are running the browser with administrative privileges (usually a bad thing, except when installing system updates.) this works well in conjunction with a tool like suDown which makes it easy to use administrative privileges only when they are needed.

update 5: the Text Shadow extension adds another missing part from css2, the Session Manager has some nice extras like encrypting your stored session, the Text size toolbar is handy for quickly zooming text, and the Link Widgets make it easy to navigate well-structured sites (of which there are surprisingly many.)

update 6: these days i disable the Firebug extension except while activily debugging, since it exposes some serious flaws in Firefox that lead to crashes on GMail and other sites. i've also been playing with betas of firefox 3 recently, and so in that version i switched from Adblock to Adblock Plus (with the huge ugly toolbar button disabled,) from Text size toolbar to Zoom toolbar, from CookieSafe to CS Lite, from MR Tech Local Install to MR Tech Toolkit, and (where available) use the new theme Proto for Mac OS X

update 7: oh, and anyone using Firefox 2 on a Mac should check out the Pinstripe theme too. it is beautiful.

update 8: It's All Text! makes it easy to use an external editor for text input fields. this is great for composing those long blog posts and webmail messages, and for reading the reams of fine print in some license agreement disasters.

update 9: Flagfox shows you where a page is coming from using a built-in geolocation database. it's not perfect and doesn't seem to cover ipv6 at all, but it does work for many sites.

update 10: the MacOSX theme and older versions of CamiFox work well in firefox 3 on all platforms

update 11: i also recommend DownThemAll! for improved downloading.

update 12: if you use mac os x i also recommend Aronnax’s GrApple themes for Firefox 3, especially Yummy (blue) and Yummy (graphite), and for Firefox 2, especially Eos Pro; i also recommend FireGPG which allows use of GnuPG/PGP encryption with webmail systems (including Gmail)

update 13: i also recommend the PDF Plugin for Mac OS X for Firefox 3, and the ACE Safari Foxdie (blue and graphite) themes for Firefox 2

update 14: Ctrl-Tab makes many tabs really usable, and Taboo remembers them; Secure Login makes it a bit harder to accidentally send your credentials in the wrong form; Update Notifier tells you when add-ons have been updated

update 15: OPML support is nice for migrating bookmarks from one browser to another; Forecastfox is nice for checking the weather at a glance.

update 16: HTML Ruby works where XHTML Ruby Support does not; users of Firefox 2 on Mac OS X (are there any still?) might like Growl Notifications

update 17: in Firefox 3 i recommend a recent beta of Ubiquity for a more keyboard-friendly user interface; if you're trying to learn or read Japanese: Perapera-kun (additional dictionaries); for Mandarin Chinese: Chinese Perapera-kun; for Cantonese: experimental CantoFish

update 18: if you ever use Tor, i recommend Torbutton

update 19: i also recommend the secure wiki userscript for redirecting/rewriting to use an SSL-encrypted connection to wikimedia.org for wikipedia, wiktionary, etc.

(perhaps it's time for a new post, eh?)

myman 0.6

bsittler@gmail.com — Sat, 30 Dec 2006 08:33:23 GMT

there's a new version of myman. it can now store html "screenshots" when you press the t key:

myman in an ascii terminal
+-------------------------+-+-------------------------+ \| . . . . . . . . . . . . \| \| . . . . . . . . . . . . \| \| . +-----+ . +-------+ . \| \| . +-------+ . +-----+ . \| \| o \| \| . \| \| . \| \| . \| \| . \| \| o \| \| . +-----+ . +-------+ . +-+ . +-------+ . +-----+ . \| \| . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . \| \| . +-----+ . +-+ . +-------------+ . +-+ . +-----+ . \| \| . +-----+ . \| \| . +-----+ +-----+ . \| \| . +-----+ . \| \| . . . . . . \| \| . . . . \| \| . . . . \| \| . . . . . . \| +---------+ . \| +-----+ \| \| +-----+ \| . +---------+ \| . \| +-----+ +-+ +-----+ \| . \| \| . \| \| A \| \| . \| \| . \| \| +-----====----+ \| \| . \| ----------+ . +-+ \| \| +-+ . +----------- . \| A A A \| . ----------+ . +-+ \| \| +-+ . +----------- \| . \| \| +-------------+ \| \| . \| \| . \| \| R E A D Y ! \| \| . \| \| . \| \| +-------------+ \| \| . \| +---------+ . +-+ +-----+ +-----+ +-+ . +---------+ \| . . . . . . . . . . . . \| \| . . . . . . . . . . . . \| \| . +-----+ . +-------+ . \| \| . +-------+ . +-----+ . \| \| . +---+ \| . +-------+ . +-+ . +-------+ . \| +---+ . \| \| o . . \| \| . . . . . . . C . . . . . . . \| \| . . o \| +---+ . \| \| . +-+ . +-------------+ . +-+ . \| \| . +---+ +---+ . +-+ . \| \| . +-----+ +-----+ . \| \| . +-+ . +---+ \| . . . . . . \| \| . . . . \| \| . . . . \| \| . . . . . . \| \| . +---------+ +-----+ . \| \| . +-----+ +---------+ . \| \| . +-----------------+ . +-+ . +-----------------+ . \| \| . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . \| +-----------------------------------------------------+ Level: 1 Lives: 3 Score: 0
myman in a CJK terminal
┌────────────┐┌────────────┐ │・・・・・・・・・・・・││・・・・・・・・・・・・│ │・┌──┐・┌───┐・││・┌───┐・┌──┐・│ │●│　　│・│　　　│・││・│　　　│・│　　│●│ │・└──┘・└───┘・└┘・└───┘・└──┘・│ │・・・・・・・・・・・・・・・・・・・・・・・・・・│ │・┌──┐・┌┐・┌──────┐・┌┐・┌──┐・│ │・└──┘・││・└──┐┌──┘・││・└──┘・│ │・・・・・・││・・・・││・・・・││・・・・・・│ └────┐・│└──┐　││　┌──┘│・┌────┘ 　　　　　│・│┌──┘　└┘　└──┐│・│　　　　　　　　　　│・││　　　　　Ａ　　　　││・│　　　　　　　　　　│・││　┌──≡≡──┐　││・│　　　　　 ─────┘・└┘　│　　　　　　│　└┘・└───── 　　　　　　・　　　│　Ａ　Ａ　Ａ│　　　・　　　　　　 ─────┐・┌┐　│　　　　　　│　┌┐・┌───── 　　　　　│・││　└──────┘　││・│　　　　　　　　　　│・││　　ＲＥＡＤＹ！　　││・│　　　　　　　　　　│・││　┌──────┐　││・│　　　　　 ┌────┘・└┘　└──┐┌──┘　└┘・└────┐ │・・・・・・・・・・・・││・・・・・・・・・・・・│ │・┌──┐・┌───┐・││・┌───┐・┌──┐・│ │・└─┐│・└───┘・└┘・└───┘・│┌─┘・│ │●・・││・・・・・・・　Ｃ・・・・・・・││・・●│ └─┐・││・┌┐・┌──────┐・┌┐・││・┌─┘ ┌─┘・└┘・││・└──┐┌──┘・││・└┘・└─┐ │・・・・・・││・・・・││・・・・││・・・・・・│ │・┌────┘└──┐・││・┌──┘└────┐・│ │・└────────┘・└┘・└────────┘・│ │・・・・・・・・・・・・・・・・・・・・・・・・・・│ └──────────────────────────┘
myman in a utf-8 terminal
╔═════════════════════════╕─╒═════════════════════════╗ ║ · · · · · · · · · · · · │ │ · · · · · · · · · · · · ║ ║ · ┌─────┐ · ┌───────┐ · │ │ · ┌───────┐ · ┌─────┐ · ║ ║ ■ │ │ · │ │ · │ │ · │ │ · │ │ ■ ║ ║ · └─────┘ · └───────┘ · └─┘ · └───────┘ · └─────┘ · ║ ║ · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · ║ ║ · ┌─────┐ · ┌─┐ · ┌─────────────┐ · ┌─┐ · ┌─────┐ · ║ ║ · └─────┘ · │ │ · └─────┐ ┌─────┘ · │ │ · └─────┘ · ║ ║ · · · · · · │ │ · · · · │ │ · · · · │ │ · · · · · · ║ ╚═════════╗ · │ └─────┐ │ │ ┌─────┘ │ · ╔═════════╝ ║ · │ ┌─────┘ └─┘ └─────┐ │ · ║ ║ · │ │ A │ │ · ║ ║ · │ │ ╔═════≡≡≡≡════╗ │ │ · ║ ══════════╝ · └─┘ ║ ║ └─┘ · ╚═══════════ · ║ A A A ║ · ══════════╗ · ┌─┐ ║ ║ ┌─┐ · ╔═══════════ ║ · │ │ ╚═════════════╝ │ │ · ║ ║ · │ │ R E A D Y ! │ │ · ║ ║ · │ │ ┌─────────────┐ │ │ · ║ ╔═════════╝ · └─┘ └─────┐ ┌─────┘ └─┘ · ╚═════════╗ ║ · · · · · · · · · · · · │ │ · · · · · · · · · · · · ║ ║ · ┌─────┐ · ┌───────┐ · │ │ · ┌───────┐ · ┌─────┐ · ║ ║ · └───┐ │ · └───────┘ · └─┘ · └───────┘ · │ ┌───┘ · ║ ║ ■ · · │ │ · · · · · · · C · · · · · · · │ │ · · ■ ║ ╙───┐ · │ │ · ┌─┐ · ┌─────────────┐ · ┌─┐ · │ │ · ┌───╜ ╓───┘ · └─┘ · │ │ · └─────┐ ┌─────┘ · │ │ · └─┘ · └───╖ ║ · · · · · · │ │ · · · · │ │ · · · · │ │ · · · · · · ║ ║ · ┌─────────┘ └─────┐ · │ │ · ┌─────┘ └─────────┐ · ║ ║ · └─────────────────┘ · └─┘ · └─────────────────┘ · ║ ║ · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · ║ ╚═════════════════════════════════════════════════════╝ Level: 1 Lives: 3 Score: 0

γ and ν

bsittler@gmail.com — Sun, 24 Dec 2006 19:37:34 GMT

thanks to fontforge and potrace, two fonts i drew many years ago are now available in vector form. the fonts are licensed under the gpl and i retain the copyright. Update: They are now dual-licensed under ofl and gpl (with an embedding exclusion: embedding these fonts in a document does not force that document to be gpl'ed)

: Gamma is a fixed-width small-caps font seen previously in beta versions of VS Bomber (ttf · svg · sfd)
: GammaVariable is a variable-width version of Gamma (ttf · svg · sfd)
: NuFraktur is a fixed-width Fraktur-style font i've mentioned previously. (ttf · svg · sfd)
: NuFrakturVariable is a variable-width version of NuFraktur (ttf · svg · sfd)

potrace and snowflakes

bsittler@gmail.com — Sun, 24 Dec 2006 03:46:38 GMT

potrace is a neat program that converts bitmap images to vector images. recently i used it to convert pictures of some paper snowflakes i made:

: original · eps · svg · pdf
: original · eps · svg · pdf
: original · eps · svg · pdf
: original · eps · svg · pdf
: original · eps · svg · pdf

iris

bsittler@gmail.com — Sat, 02 Dec 2006 20:20:15 GMT

rebbyribs gave birth to our beautiful daughter iris on tuesday, november 28th. she has posted pictures in her lj.

the new mom and new baby are both doing well, and we've all three been home since about 24 hours after iris was born.

watching rebbyribs give birth and do so naturally under some fairly adverse conditions (her water broke sunday night and there was a lot of pressure to induce) was awesome. despite pain, an unfamiliar setting (labor and delivery room at alta bates,) unfamiliar people (nurses and doctors we'd never met in addition to one we had,) lots of pressure to hurry things along (doctors like for laboring women to have short labors after the bag of waters ruptures because they like to be able to examine the laboring woman, and every time they examine her there's a significant increase in the risk of infection,) frustration (for many hours there were no visible signs of progress and she had to walk the halls in constant pain to avoid induction,) complete lack of privacy, constant really hard work (during the pushing stage, becca was smiling through a rictus of pain and holding her breath as she bore down for ten seconds at a time three times per contraction,) and scary post-birth interventions (the delivering doctor chose to deliver the placenta immediately [it was unblemished and looked good on both sides] and did so by pulling on the cord; this caused lots of scary bleeding and clots for which they injected her with methergine and pitocin and gave her an intravenous pitocin drip and meanwhile the nurses gave iris an immersive bath and unneccessary antibiotic eye ointment,) she gave birth to a beautiful baby girl, breastfed right away, and did it all without painkillers or anaesthesia. there was one small internal tear (possibly due to the doctor reaching inside rebbyribs to twist and pull the baby out) which was stitched up shortly after birth (after a local lidocaine injection) and has continued to cause her pain. there was a scary moment when i really was afraid i might lose her (it took a several tries to get the intravenous drip going and she was losing a lot of blood) and later there was a scary moment when a nurse was afraid iris wasn't getting enough oxygen (it turns out she was just a bit cold,) but rebbyribs recovered quickly and actually felt ready to leave the hospital by the next afternoon. they finally released her later that evening, after a total of 17 hours of laboring (the first four were at home) and 23 hours of post-birth recovery.

hospital staff were continually amazed by how well rebbyribs dealt with the labor and birth and by how quickly she recovered. i was just happy we all were alive and well.

fortunately, rebbyribs's brother G was in town and was able to find us in the hospital right before we left. he cuddled his new niece in the hospital and then carried our bags while becca (still a bit weak from blood loss), iris (snuggled in a sling under my jacket) and i walked with him to bart, and then home from the el cerrito plaza bart station. it was wonderful and relaxing to finally be home with iris afterward and enjoy a reheated home-cooked meal (zucchini, carrot and bell-pepper vegan cheddar-y soup, coconut juice and sesame waffles) with G.

rebbyribs and i have been really teary and emotional ever since the beginning of the pushing stage, and i honestly believe we love each other more now than ever before, in addition to loving our new daughter a whole lot.

since coming home, we've been on the newborn schedule and not getting out much. we've spent a lot of time on the phone and im with friends and family, slept a lot, and been slowly recovering and getting used to new parenthood. rebbyribs has uploaded some pictures of iris at home with us.

Iris

bsittler@gmail.com — Wed, 29 Nov 2006 17:19:50 GMT

Iris was born yesterday around 7:30pm. She's a healthy baby girl — a medium sized (8lb7oz and 21in or so at birth) brunette — and loves to eat and sleep. rebbyribs and Iris are both doing well, and resting a lot. We hope to go home in a day or so! rebbyribs went into labor yesterday morning on her own and labored all the way to delivery (about 17 hours) without episiotomy or any sort of anaesthetic. She's happy now but quite tired, and I'm sure you'll see her less abbreviated version eventually… ;-)

We're at Alta Bates in Berkeley, room 4300.

fun with python's ctypes and unicodedata

bsittler@gmail.com — Mon, 21 Aug 2006 06:41:43 GMT

ucnhash is a python wrapper i wrote for the unicode names database in the python distribution. why write such a thing? well, unicodedata.name(x) only works for x <= u'\uffff' on narrow python builds (mac os x and win32 are built this way by default.) ucnhash.getname(x) works for all named characters in the database, and the corresponding ucnhash.getcode(x) can be used to write your own version of the \N{...} decoder in the 'unicode-escape' codec. both work equally well on narrow and wide python builds using the ctypes module to call into the ucnhash_CAPI exported by the unicodedata module.

♀

bsittler@gmail.com — Fri, 28 Jul 2006 00:12:21 GMT

rebbyribs and i just got back from her mid-pregnancy ultrasound, and it looks like we're expecting a baby girl in early december. squeeeee!

play

bsittler@gmail.com — Tue, 11 Jul 2006 05:07:04 GMT

after reading the wikipedia entry for gw-basic this weekend i was reminded of the play statement, which supports a mini-language for non-chording music. i remembered that a had a couple old tunes lying around that smws and i put together many years ago (he read the sheet music and played them on a trumpet, i encoded the notes he spoke and tweaked them for play.) this weekend i wrote a python play decoder that outputs either canonicalized play codes or cd-style audio which can be converted to a wave file using sox like so (this is the short example from the wikipedia page):

./play.py -e "edcdeee2dfedc4" | sox -t raw -w -s -c 2 -r 44100 - -t wav short.wav

here are the tunes:

short

edcdeee2dfedc4

cowboy

mb
ml
o3
t150
e8 g4 e8 g4 a4 e4 c2. p64 e8 g4 e8 g4 a4 d1 p64 e8 g4 e8 g4 a4 g4 f2 p64
c8 d8 e4 e4 p4 d4 c2. p4 e8 g4 e8 g4 a4 e4 c2. e8 d4 e8 g4 a4 d1 e8 g4 e8
d4 a4 g4 f2 c8 d8 e4 e4 p4 d4 c2. p4

start

mb
mn
o4
t165
p8 c4. o3 g4 p4 f4. b2 f8 e8 c8 p4 g8 a8 g8 a8 o4 c3 c3 c3 p4 
e8 f8 e8 f8 b3 b3 b3 b8 a8 a8 d4 e4. d4 c4 c4 c4

fun with filevault

bsittler@gmail.com — Sat, 24 Jun 2006 22:22:32 GMT

i've been using apple's filevault on mac os x 10.4 for a while now, but i've noticed in the last several months that space is not actually reclaimed after i delete files, even when i tell filevault to reclaim it (it asks on logout). so i found the command-line equivalents and got back 40% of my hard disk this morning.

to do this you must have access to an admin account and either it must be a different account from the one with the filevault in question, or you must enable the text-input feature on the login screen. to get started, log out of your session and type the special >console username to get a text-based login. log into your admin account on the text console and run the following commands. i'll assume the account with the filevault is called user. the usual disclaimers apply — it worked for me, but always back up everything before touching a filesystem repair tool!

first, repair any damage to the image. enter passwords as prompted and note where the Apple_HFS device is; i assume /dev/disk1s2.

$ sudo hdiutil attach -nomount -stdinpass ~user/user.sparseimage
$ sudo fsck_hfs -yf /dev/disk1s2
$ sudo hdiutil detach /dev/disk1s2

second, compact the image to reclaim unused space.

$ sudo hdiutil compact -stdinpass ~user/user.sparseimage

log out, cross fingers, and log in normally as user.

binary vs. UTF-8, and why it need not matter

bsittler@gmail.com — Mon, 03 Apr 2006 03:00:41 GMT

it turns out there's a way to handle UTF-8 and binary data intermixed at the same time in the same file that is simple, fully reversible, and fully compatible with all valid UTF-8 data (even the very uncommon and completely invalid CESU-8 mess used to cram UTF-16 into UTF-8 without proper decoding, although the invalid parts are handled as a sequence of binary data rather than valid characters.)

the basic technique comes from:

From: Markus Kuhn <Markus.Kuhn@...>
Subject: Substituting malformed UTF-8 sequences in a decoder
Date: Sun, 23 Jul 2000 22:44:35 +0100
Message-Id: <E13GJ5O-00064N-00@...>

the original text is archived at:
http://mail.nl.linux.org/linux-utf8/2000-07/msg00040.html

summary: use U+DCyz to represent each invalid input byte 0xyz rather
than treating these bytes as decoding errors.

so last year i implemented a version in python as part of tpd (see tpd/mainline/encodings/utf_8b.py)

today i re-implemented it in c as a patch against GNU libiconv:
http://xent.com/~bsittler/libiconv-1.9.1-utf-8b.diff

Implementation Notes:

This implementation of UTF-8B produces no errors on decoding, but
produces encoding errors for Unicode characters that cannot be
round-tripped successfully. The supported Unicode range is the UTF-16
range:
    U+0000 ... U+D7FF
and U+E000 ... U+10FFFF

bsittler@gmail.com — Sat, 01 Apr 2006 17:12:53 GMT

[|](|)
(update: explained)

bsittler@gmail.com — Mon, 27 Feb 2006 07:14:02 GMT

check out planarity — neat game treboresque pointed me to, incredibly addictive if a bit challenging. basic objective: re-arrange the nodes in a graph until it's planar. they keep getting bigger.

flavor of fermented bean curd ≈ flavor of my favorite stinky cheese

bsittler@gmail.com — Sun, 08 Jan 2006 04:27:20 GMT

i thought the deliciously sharp, creamy flavor of stinky cheese was something i was giving up when i stopped eating dairy products, but it turns out i was wrong — fermented bean curd (a.k.a. {wet,preserved,fermented} {tofu,bean curd} and by several different chinese and thai names) has those properties too. i bought a bottle of it today at the local supermarket and had some with rice. it was delicious! it comes in many varieties, which can be broadly classified into "red" (made with red rice and used primarily in cooking) and "white" (the type i got, which often includes various spices and is eaten "fresh" or cooked.)

now i just need to find a way to ration myself (the sodium content is insanely high!)

ａｓｓａｕｌｔ　ａｎｄ　ｂａｔｔｅｒｉｅｓ

bsittler@gmail.com — Wed, 26 Oct 2005 23:27:33 GMT

a while back i lost my wallet on bart, leading to random inconveniences of all sorts.

while returning to bart today after my first (failed) attempt to apply for a passport, a distraught-looking pedestrian approached me while screaming “fucking irish!” and then punched me on the arm. she then walked away as if nothing had happened. i'm not irish, for whatever that's worth... perhaps it was the red hair?

later, while on bart after my second (successful – thanks to rebbyribs!) attempt to apply for a passport, one of the teenage girls who sat down near me asked if i had any batteries. when i explained that the only battery i had was the one in my phone (i forgot about the tiny battery in the flashlight i carry on my keychain, but i'm guessing that wouldn't have worked any better for the cassette player they were using,) her friend told me what a tight phone it was. i tried to explain how badly the phone sucks, but they just smiled…

i also managed to lose the first set of passport photos i had taken, but got another for $15 at the post office. perhaps i'll be able to find the lost photos and turn them into “self-approved” i.d. cards to use when i next need a photo i.d. (the official replacement is a few weeks away in the mail.)

edit: i think this is the first hate crime i've been targeted by since moving to california

“Taste of hometown is sooo.... slow!”

bsittler@gmail.com — Thu, 16 Jun 2005 19:30:00 GMT

Trying new restaurants is always somewhat hit-or-miss. Here are two rebbyribs and I have tried recently:

Supreme Vegan (Hit!)
906 Stanford/Market
Oakland, CA 94608
510-655-0132

This vegan soul food and seafood restaurant is quick and the food is delicious. The BBQ sandwich had the most convincing texture I’ve gnawed on since I stopped eating meat. The real surprises, though, were the side dishes: the rice with seaweed was tasty and filling, and the slaw (rebbyribs’s choice) was excellent with the included tahini-based dressing. This place was a perfect lunch after a several-mile bike ride along the bay trail. Only real downsides when we were there: too much ketchup, and lack of some menu items, including the house special ginger drink. I look forward to returning to try the un-fish and un-chicken.

Tapioca Express (Miss...)
9-B El Camino Real
Millbrae, CA 94030
650-697-9500

For several years I frequented this franchise’s downtown Mountain View location, which has the advantage of being quick, affordable, and near the Caltrain station. Unfortunately the other locations I’ve tried (Cupertino, Berkeley and Millbrae) are all far inferior. The Millbrae location was the biggest disappointment, since it’s in a great location about ten minutes from the BART/Caltrain station on foot (two blocks west, on the far side of El Camino Real.) The service is slow, the more attractive food items (and the cashier-suggested substitutes!) were all out of stock, and there’s pre-added sugar in every drink. Worse, the pearls in the milk tea tend to be incompletely rehydrated and are sometimes even still crunchy at the center. A simple tea and spring rolls order can easily take 25 minutes and then turn into tea and onion rings when they discover that they’re out of spring rolls. I won’t be going back.