A set of cufflinks

Last week I had a set of cufflinks made. What luxury.

They were made out of four old Algerian coins. The silversmith (Geldschneider in Dresden) had used the outer parts of the coins to make rings, and what you see is the remaining inner parts, burnished and polished.

Note the two numbers on the coin in front: That coin was made in 1960 AD written with Latin digits, and in 1380 written with Arabic digits. If they look similar, that's because they are. The area from Morocco to Lebanon uses Arabic digits (that is, 0123). Further east they mostly use ٠١٢٣ instead of 0123, although it's mixed there as well.

Why is the epoch 580, though? EDIT: The epoch is 622AD, not 580. The coin was made 1380 lunar years after the Hijrah, or 1337/1338 solar years.

GROẞ in use

The unicode committee added ẞ about five years ago, until then that ligature was only available in lower case. (The Germans used to write Straße and STRASSE, the Swiss and Austrians wrote Strasse.)

That was good timing.

In the ten years from when I moved to Germany until the unicode committee added ẞ I only saw it once, carved on a wooden clock in in the Straußwirtschaft at a winery near Kaiserstuhl. (The food and wine were both good.) In the five years since 2010 I've seen it five times. Yesterday I saw it twice, once on a poster that encouraged me to TANZEN UND GENIEẞEN and once in the credits for a film. […More…]

Deleting the wrong file

Many options are open to me. ⓐ Recovering the file from tarsnap, or ⓑ from the NAS, or maybe ⓒ I have a copy elsewhere. But if the file isn't available anywhere, what then?

I can ⓓ be polite and express my anger and sorrow in flawless prose.

I can ⓔ express myself freely, but discreetly. ██████ and █████████ the █████ ███████!

Finally, if nothing else helps, my last recourse is to ⓕ leverage the power of unicode: ℄♓♜⌘⌼⑆↺☂☊⚠雷𝀲☠⏣☡☢☣☧⍾♏♣⚑⚒⏁⚡⬌⭓𝀴🁠😒!

GROẞSCHREIBUNG!

Some fonts have already been updated to include ẞ, including the ones I generally use (on ubuntu 10.04). Lovely.

Detecting character encodings

Archiveopteryx often needs to massage incoming mail to make it syntactically valid. 99% may be valid, but 1% is still a lot. One of the chores is to guess how a message is encoded — unicode, ISO-8859-x or what? For that Archiveopteryx uses a novel and good algorithm. […More…]

Office!

I'm sitting in my office, pondering whether my location is best described as an office, an office, an office or perhaps (overwhelmingly correct) an office. I think I like room. Simple words are so… unruffling.

.XCompose

Here's what I did to get a sensibly large character repertoire for my keyboard, using ubuntu 9.10.

First, read any of the fine explanations of the compose key and configure some suitable key.

Next, explain to ubuntu that you do wish to XIM:

im-switch -s default-xim

By this time, X applications will read your ~/.XCompose file when they start, so set it up. There's a large repertoire on github:

cd ~/src
git clone git://github.com/rrthomas/pointless-xcompose.git

Here's my ~/.XCompose […More…]

Various neat signs and glyphs

Another browser test (I'm looking at you, android). These signs are mostly ones I've used in 2008-9 (with some added for symmetry etc.), and I do not think they are too odd to be worth rendering.

Signs:

Arrows and that kind of thing: […More…]

All the world's alphabets

Below are almost all the letters in Unicode. Let me see what my browser can render.

Arabic: ء آ أ ؤ إ ئ ا ب ة ت ث ج ح خ د ذ ر ز س ش ص ض ط ظ ع غ ف ق ك ل م ن ه و ى ي ٮ ٯ ٱ ٲ ٳ ٴ ٵ ٶ ٷ ٸ ٹ ٺ ٻ ټ ٽ پ ٿ ڀ ځ ڂ ڃ ڄ څ چ ڇ ڈ ډ ڊ ڋ ڌ ڍ ڎ ڏ ڐ ڑ ڒ ړ ڔ ڕ ږ ڗ ژ ڙ ښ ڛ ڜ ڝ ڞ ڟ ڠ ڡ ڢ ڣ ڤ ڥ ڦ ڧ ڨ ک ڪ ګ ڬ ڭ ڮ گ ڰ ڱ ڲ ڳ ڴ ڵ ڶ ڷ ڸ ڹ ں ڻ ڼ ڽ ھ ڿ ۀ ہ ۂ ۃ ۄ ۅ ۆ ۇ ۈ ۉ ۊ ۋ ی ۍ ێ ۏ ې ۑ ے ۓ ە ۮ ۯ ۺ ۻ ۼ ۿ ݐ ݑ ݒ ݓ ݔ ݕ ݖ ݗ ݘ ݙ ݚ ݛ ݜ ݝ ݞ ݟ ݠ ݡ ݢ ݣ ݤ ݥ ݦ ݧ ݨ ݩ ݪ ݫ ݬ ݭ ﭐ ﭑ ﭒ ﭓ ﭔ ﭕ ﭖ ﭗ ﭘ ﭙ ﭚ ﭛ ﭜ ﭝ ﭞ ﭟ ﭠ ﭡ ﭢ ﭣ ﭤ ﭥ ﭦ ﭧ ﭨ ﭩ ﭪ ﭫ ﭬ ﭭ ﭮ ﭯ ﭰ ﭱ ﭲ ﭳ ﭴ ﭵ ﭶ ﭷ ﭸ ﭹ ﭺ ﭻ ﭼ ﭽ ﭾ ﭿ ﮀ ﮁ ﮂ ﮃ ﮄ ﮅ ﮆ ﮇ ﮈ ﮉ ﮊ ﮋ ﮌ ﮍ ﮎ ﮏ ﮐ ﮑ ﮒ ﮓ ﮔ ﮕ ﮖ ﮗ ﮘ ﮙ ﮚ ﮛ ﮜ ﮝ ﮞ ﮟ ﮠ ﮡ ﮢ ﮣ ﮤ ﮥ ﮦ ﮧ ﮨ ﮩ ﮪ ﮫ ﮬ ﮭ ﮮ ﮯ ﮰ ﮱ ﯓ ﯔ ﯕ ﯖ ﯗ ﯘ ﯙ ﯚ ﯛ ﯜ ﯝ ﯞ ﯟ ﯠ ﯡ ﯢ ﯣ ﯤ ﯥ ﯦ ﯧ ﯨ ﯩ ﯼ ﯽ ﯾ ﯿ ﺀ ﺁ ﺂ ﺃ ﺄ ﺅ ﺆ ﺇ ﺈ ﺉ ﺊ ﺋ ﺌ ﺍ ﺎ ﺏ ﺐ ﺑ ﺒ ﺓ ﺔ ﺕ ﺖ ﺗ ﺘ ﺙ ﺚ ﺛ ﺜ ﺝ ﺞ ﺟ ﺠ ﺡ ﺢ ﺣ ﺤ ﺥ ﺦ ﺧ ﺨ ﺩ ﺪ ﺫ ﺬ ﺭ ﺮ ﺯ ﺰ ﺱ ﺲ ﺳ ﺴ ﺵ ﺶ ﺷ ﺸ ﺹ ﺺ ﺻ ﺼ ﺽ ﺾ ﺿ ﻀ ﻁ ﻂ ﻃ ﻄ ﻅ ﻆ ﻇ ﻈ ﻉ ﻊ ﻋ ﻌ ﻍ ﻎ ﻏ ﻐ ﻑ ﻒ ﻓ ﻔ ﻕ ﻖ ﻗ ﻘ ﻙ ﻚ ﻛ ﻜ ﻝ ﻞ ﻟ ﻠ ﻡ ﻢ ﻣ ﻤ ﻥ ﻦ ﻧ ﻨ ﻩ ﻪ ﻫ ﻬ ﻭ ﻮ ﻯ ﻰ ﻱ ﻲ ﻳ ﻴ […More…]