Old Books, Reborn

Along with putting fiction on this site, I'm in the midst of updating and resuscitating my old algorithm books.

Back in the 1990s, when I wrote a dozen books, the publishing industry was mired in old technologies and processes. Even today, most mainstream manuscripts (including electronic ones!) are still delivered in a traditional paper-like form — 8.5 by 11" pages, double spaced paragraphs, monospace (usually Courier) font, italics shown as underlined, and no embedded diagrams or illustrations. That may seem primitive to those of us steeped in modern computer technology, but it is the way things "get done" in the publishing industry.

If you want to see print in a "real", physical book or magazine, you'll be following those rather primitive guidelines. Editors tend to be conservative sorts, and they have good reasons for prefering the old-fashioned typewriter-style manuscript. However, in some ways, I think publisher's requirements also constitute an initiation right, a test to see if you're willing to go through a process to earn the "right" to be published.

I've been updating, reformatting, and improving upon my original material. It takes time, but the first elements should see the light of day soon...

...and one thing for certain is that the books will be a tad different form their original form. Much as I love physical books (enough to own thousands of them), they have limitations based on form factor and the realities of printing. For the revisions, I'm reorganizing the material from a half-dozen books and putting it into a form that is (I hope!) more cohesive and useful.

I'll have more on this in the coming weeks, as I actually get material posted.

Fonts and Formats and Publishing, Oh My

Continuing on the theme of fonts.

Pango, the font engine for Gnome, is working on OpenType support. Recent events look promising for creating universal support for typography across the myriad of Linux environments.

Meanwhile, I've tried a variety of Internet publishing mediums, with mixed success:

Adobe PDF documents are both pretty and accurate, but the delivery methods are less than ideal. Embedding a PDF in a web page is easy, but requires users to enable scriptable ActiveX-style components. I'll be using PDF for downloadable documents.

Microsoft introduced XPS (XML Paper Specification) with Windows Vista. As a new technology, XPS is not universal; I may support it for downloadable documents, as an addition to PDF.

Embedding pre-rendered pages (as in PNG images) looks very pretty, but simply isn't practical for small machines.

So I'm using HTML and CSS for publishing. You can see the result here.

The Syraqua website isn't quite ready for prime-time yet; consider this to be a "beta" release. I'm working on more content this weekend, and waiting for the final color version of Symrall (the dragon).

Back to work...

Font Insanity

One of the great freedoms of Digital Age is the ability to define how the written word looks — from layout to colors to fonts...

...well, not fonts.

I happen to like a font called Hiroshige, which was inspired by the Japanese woodcut artist Utagawa Hiroshige. So much so, I bought the font from Adobe, and use it in my business and personal documents. For some tasks, the handwriting font Caliban is aesthetically pleasing.

Using Microsoft Word or Adobe Acrobat, these fonts look just great — sharp outlines, precise spacing, very nice.

But under Linux and on the web, things start to get ugly. Very ugly.

Linux still lacks quality font rendering. Actually, "Linux" (as in the operating system kernel) works very well; it has nothing to do with font rendering, which is the province of graphical environments and applications. I run KDE 3.5.7 at the moment, with KWord 1.6.3 and Abiword 2.4.6 as my word processors. I don't run OpenOffice for a variety of reasons (a topic for another day!)

Same computer (an HP dv9009 laptop), same piece of text, very different results. On the left, below, is text rendered in Microsoft Word 2007; on the right is KWord's rendition. AbiWord doesn't even see OpenType fonts like Hiroshige. Word looks pretty good, but KWord has problems. In the Caliban rendering, KWord doesn't maintain a consistent stroke width (the 'q' is thin, the 'k' is thick); as for Hiroshige...

• the initial 'T' is the wrong height


• there is extra space between the 'u' and 'a' in 'iguana'


• the serifs on the 'r' and 't' are messed up

Things get even worse when you try posting a typeset document to the web. If you want your text to appear exactly as you've typeset it, you are left with unsatisfactory choices between proprietary standards and inconvenient technologies.

CSS 2.x allows you to declare a set of fonts for a style, but those fonts will only be used if they reside on the target computer. I can't very well ship my licensed Adobe fonts to people reading my web site. Microsoft introduced an embedded OpenType font technology, but that only works in Internet Explorer; no one working on Firefox cared to implement it.

Don't get me started on the "quality" (or lack thereof) in free fonts. Quite honestly, the vast majority of these are incomplete and poorly hinted. No thank you — I'll stick with and pay for quality fonts from professional design studios.

Various proposals for embedded fonts at W3C have been bandied about; for a complete background on the topic, read Simon Daniels' blog entry, Web font embedding rides again! Yes, he works for Microsoft; that does not invalidate his rather thorough thoughts on the topic. Believe it or not, Microsoft can be right about some things.

Fonts are a very important part of presentation. People are visual creatures, and the appearance of text strongly influences how it is perceived and interpreted. A typeset document should look exactly the same on the same piece of hardware, regardless of the software used to render it.

I can dream, can't I?

Start, stop, start, stop...

Syraqua is taking form, finally, after more than a year of consideration, planning, distractions, aborted starts...

...yes, it's about to become real.

At the moment, I'm refining the prototype and testing. Plus I'm waiting for artwork... you'd think in a house with four artists, I wouldn't have any problem getting a few pictures done, not no, everyone seems to have priorities other than working on Daddy's odd projects.

And so it goes.

Save a Lizard, Save a Person

Your life may depend on a lizard.

As has been reported for several months now, the saliva of the Gila Monster has properties that can help people with diabetes.

The endangered Gila Monster.

I live with a diabetic wife; my father is diabetic. I'm hypoglycemic, a variation on the "blood sugar problem" theme. You probably know someone who has diabetes, and may well develop it yourself.

Enlightened self-interest is the only practical path to saving the planet's biological heritage. It is a waste of time to preach about "saving the planet"; the planet is, in and of itself, quite capable of surviving without us. I'm not out to save the planet; my interest is in saving humanity. If we ruin the world, we ruin ourselves -- and people solve problems because they have a vested interest in the solution.

There is no stronger self-interest than self-preservation.

So the next time you think callously about a strange creature, consider that it's spit might just save your life.

What the heck am I doing?

It's a good question. What am I doing these days?

The answer lies in defining exactly who I am "these days."

I know what I have been.

Back in the 1990s, I was a "big time" writer in the computer industry, publishing both magazines and books. It was good work, killed by the Internet's flexibility and spontaneity. Heck, I don't buy computer books any more! And the number of magazines devoted to programming has dwindled into nothingness. A fun phase in my life, but past nonetheless.

During that same time period, I also took a dive into social activism, a phase that was ended by family responsibilities and the need to eat. I also discovered that all the passion on Earth won't stop Bad Things^tm from happening to good people. Helping the homeless and trying to save indigenous cultures sounds noble, but in the end, as a Native American elder once told me, you've got to take care of your own family before you can help anyone else.

In terms of my work, I'm an independent consultant writing C/C++/C# code for everything from video conferencing systems to airport runway friction analysis. Some of this work is quite fun; I enjoy writing computer programs.

But it just isn't enough.

Many people (including myself, in times past) go through life looking for meaning and purpose. In fact, the quest should begin within ourselves — a person's "place" in the world is something they should define for themselves.

Thus I work on other little side projects, beyond the realm of code and bits. And Syraqua exists to provide a venue for such things, separate from my professional work.

Onward...

In the beginning...

When I first moved to Florida in 2000, the circumstances were less than ideal. The idea of exchanging mountains and deserts for swamps and oceans didn't sit terribly well; after all, I'd spent twenty years in western Colorado, where I'd found a comfortable home.

Florida was... well, it was alien.

And upon arrival in this tropical state, I was told — many, many times, by many, many people — that a lot of newcomers just couldn't "handle" Florida. Folk would move here, and then go back "home", unable to cope with everything from the heat to the look of palm trees.

Getting comfortable took some time, but I eventually found myself enjoying Florida for what it is, rather than grumbling because of what it isn't.

One thing that has made Florida exceptionally wonderful for me is reptiles. Out West, lizards were scarce, and only seen rarely. In Floirda, I have reptiles everywhere — literally. Anoles, snakes, and geckos abound, both inside and outside.

And given allergies in the family toward "furries", we began adding reptiles to the family.

With two exceptions, all of our reptiles are "rescues". At this point, we have two iguanas (large and small), a Uromastyx maliensis, a musk trutle, red-eared slider (turtle), two African plated lizards, and a hedgehog.

Okay, the hedgie isn't a reptile, but it is unusual.

And I've gotten involved in reptile conservation, as well as the complex issues surrounding non-indigenous species in Florida. People badly misunderstand reptiles, due to poor press, cultural issues, and simple ignorance.

One goal with this blog is to provide a rational voice on behalf of reptiles. One of many goals...