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As a variation on a famous statement by the 17th-century French philosopher Descartes, I would like to say: "I write, therefore I am". More and more, I come to the realization that the act of writing is one of the key ways of expressing myself. I started to write a diary when I was 14. Since February 1995, I also keep an online diary till August 2010. I am also an irregular poster to Slashdot. For some time I also kept a photoblog. (In the past, I made many postings to usenet.) My mother tongue is Dutch, but because there are relatively few people speaking this langangue, I decided to write my home page in English. However, some pages are in Dutch.
That which is at the core of my being, and yet also the most difficult to express, is my relationship with God through Jesus Christ, which started on May 24, 1979. To know God is the ultimate goal in my life. If you want to know what this means for me, please read `My final words'. I also wrote some remarks about the existence of God.
The next important thing in my life is my family. I, Frans, am married with Li-Xia, and we have two children Annabel and Andy. Our surname is Faase, which is a rather rare surname and often misspelled by our countryman because it violates the Dutch spelling rules. I have collected information about people who share my surname, and who are related to me. Please do not confuse me with my cousin, the other Frans Faase. Of course, I am also interested in other people. I have collected home pages of friends and acquintances and of people that I found worth remembering.
Because Andy suffers from the Kabuki Syndrome, I am maintaining the Dutch home page about this syndrome.
Besides writing, I also like reading, and collecting books and maps. One book that has kept me thinking, is the never written 7th book of the Dune chronicals, which according to the official Dune novels site, Frank Herbert indeed wanted to write before he rather suddenly died. I collected some statements, which includes a reference to page about how to fold a box from a square sheet of paper. I also collected some information about Tripterygium Wilfodii Hook f., and created pages on feeding requirements for boys, and girls. Finally, there are some "Useless Lists" of things that I have done or collected.
I would also characterize myself as a real hacker. Please don't mistake me for a cracker, which, by the general public, are often, wrongly, called hackers. I wrote a whole page about my life as a hacker. See also my collection of signature programs, which are small programs that people have contained in their email signatures. I wrote a number of articles on software enginering, including one dealing about The Art of Programming. The largest program, I have made available on the Internet is a program for converting HTML to LaTeX. Lately, I have discovered JavaScript. From a professional point of view, I am very much interested in agile software development methods of which eXtreme Programming is the most well known example.
I am also fascinated by seemingly trivial problems. Three examples of these kind of problems are: Counting Hamilton cycles in product graphs, the cutting sticks problem, and properties of the Califlower fractal. Some more puzzles and riddles are discused in my online diary.
This site is maintained with some simple editors and a bunch of home made tools, which help me to keep this site error free. I value accessibility above fanciness. For this reason, it does not use frames, does not require any plug-ins, and does not rely on images for essential information. Also with respect to the use of Java Script, I have tried to be browser independent and give alternative information whenever Java Script has been disabled.