Blackletter
I started reading the book Designing Type by Karen Cheng. On page 14 it has a section on 'Type Classification' that
talks about the French typographic historian Maximilian Vox. I noticed that his classification, now known as Vox-ATypI classification did not include Blackletter, also known as Gothic script, Gothic minuscule or Gothic type,
which was a script used in Germany and also the Netherlands for official
publications, where it was known as Textualis. Blackletter and also Gaelic type were later added to the classification. I cannot remember
having seen Gaelic type before, which uses the insular G letter form for the letter g. (Another example of how reality is almost always more complex than it
appears on first sight.)
Proclamate Light
I figured out how to use your own fonts on a web page. I downloaded the
Proclamate Light
font designed by Paul Lloyd. Below an example of the usage with the text of
what I wrote yesterday. Just before the paragraph, I added the following in
the HTML:
<style>
@font-face { font-family: 'proclamate_lightlight';
src: url('proclamate_light-webfont.woff') format('woff');
font-weight: normal;
font-style: normal; }
.blackletter { font-family: 'proclamate_lightlight'; }
</style>
and I used '<p class"blackletter"><font size="+1">' for the paragraph. I am not
sure if this works for all browsers, so if it shows as normal text, it might
by my fault.
I started reading the book Designing Type by Karen Cheng. On page 14 it has a section on 'Type Classification' that
talks about the French typographic historian Maximilian Vox. I noticed that his classification, now known as Vox-ATypI classification did not include Blackletter, also known as Gothic script, Gothic minuscule or Gothic type,
which was a script used in Germany and also the Netherlands for official
publications, where it was known as Textualis. Blackletter and also Gaelic type were later added to the classification. I cannot remember
having seen Gaelic type before, which uses the insular G letter form for the letter g. (Another example of how reality is almost always more complex than it
appears on first sight.)
I managed to compile a program with the C
compiler that I am developing. The commit 6ac84a5d contains the version of tcc_cc.c with
which the hello.c program can be compiled to the stack_c language, and
compiled to an ELF with the stack_c compiler and the life-bootstrap programs
blood-elf, M1 and hex2. Below the hello.c
program.
#include <stdio.h>
int main(int argc, char *argv[])
{
fputc('H', stdout);
fputc('\n', stdout);
return 0;
}
The include directive is ignored by the compiler and the stdlib.c
file is included. The relevant parts of this file are:
const FILE *stdout = 1;
int sys_int80(int a, int b, int c, int d);
int fputc(int c, FILE *stream)
{
int buffer[1];
buffer[0] = c;
return sys_int80(4, stream, buffer, 1);
}
The function sys_int80 represent the software interrupt that are used
in Linux for system
calls. I am still struggling a bit how array variables are dealt with.
In the above fputc function, in the call to sys_int80 the
arguments stream and buffer are slightly handled differently.
For the variable stream the contents is retrieved, while for the
variable buffer, which is an array, the address is used. The compiler
compiles this to the following stack_c program:
int stdout
void fputc
{
int stream stream =:
int c c =:
int buffer
buffer 0 4 * + c ? = ;
4 stream ? buffer 1 sys_int80 () return
}
void __init_globals__ ;
void main
{
int argv argv =:
int argc argc =:
__init_globals__ ()
72 stdout ? fputc () ;
10 stdout ? fputc () ;
0 return
}
void __init_globals__
{
stdout 1 = ;
return
}
AI agents for software engineering
Today, I came across the article My AI Skeptic Friends Are All Nuts that argues that there are no reasons
not to use AI agents as a software engineer. In the past
half year, I have tried to use agents in my work, but they never have helped me
much. When, this morning, I asked ChatGTP to generate the code for a M4F MCU that
implements the VirtIO code for accessing the GPIO through RPMSG using
FreeRTOS, it produced two
answers that were both incomplete and incorrect. (I have added links to the
acronyms to show that these are not very obscure things, suggesting that what I
ask is not something extremely obscure.) Someone replied, acknowledging that it was outside his domain, that I could break
down my prompt into separate prompts. I followed this approach and again got
some answer that was neither complete nor correct. When I made the suggestion
to ChatGTP to take Section 5.18 of Virtual I/O Device (VIRTIO) Version 1.3 into account, it produced almost
the same code preceded with some babbling from the document, but did not use
anything from the specification, not even the code fragments mentioned in the
section. I understand that a large group of software developers are using
AI agents, probably even more than half, but I get the impression that these
are software developers in domains where there is a lot of repetition. For
areas that are less common, such as embedded software development for specific
devices, AI agents probably do not have enough training materials, also because
a lot of embedded software is proprietary. Examples that are provided by
companies selling embedded devices are often rather simple. For certain
application domains, such as aviation and medical, there are often strict
coding standards that have to be followed.
Book
At 16:47, I bought the book Standbeeld: Kunst en woningbouw edited by
Edwin Boering and
Jaap Huisman, written in Dutch, and
published by Gemeente Amsterdam on Thursday, June 6, 1991
from Het Goed for € 0.99.
KunstenLandschap 2025
I biked around the route of KunstenLandschap 2025. At 15:11, I bought the entrance and got a
wristband, a small book with details about the art work and artists, and a map with the route. There was some rain while biking around. I stayed
inside some shipping container along the route during some of the worst rain. I
found the following artist noteworthy (including the number of the location
where they were shown):
At Rijksmuseum Twenthe, I watched two new
exhibitions. From herman de vries. 70 jaar de
natuur als kunstwerk ('herman de vries: 70 year the nature as artwork'), I found the following
works noteworthy:
- Untitled [first random composition], 1962.
- The ITBON relief (v67-36a), 1967.
- Table XXXIII from , Statistical Tables for Biological, Agricultural, and Medical Research
by Sir Ronald Aylmer
Fisher and Frank
Yates.
- spatial random structure, 1965.
- v70-07 random objectivation, 1970.
- the saviours, 2012.
- holy days [with marion reißner], 2008.
- untitled [collected playa de la caleta, la gomera], 1982.
- mesa (43 objects), 1996-2007.
- Book natural relations: eine skizze, 1968.
- Field work, De Hoge Veluwe, 2025.
- The coven - tree love, melanie bonajo, 2019.
- The coven - trustingingeling, melanie bonajo, 2019.
- The coven - cuddle coven, melanie bonajo, 2019.
- all, 1994.
From the exhibition Ergens tussen hoop en vrees ('Somewhere between hope
and fear'), I found the following works noteworthy:
- The Embium Building with Sky, Rik Smits, 2011.
- Harbour, Laith Al Rahmani, 2024.
Long low slow baden
I went biking again today and followed some part of route of the KunstenLandschap 2025. The highlight of the day was being a subject of the
Long low slow
baden installation by Gemma Luz Bosch. It was rather deeply relaxing and special experience. I
saw the installation last year on June 28 when
it was shown on the Graduation show KABK exhibition.
This afternoon. I first went to Concordia. I first had a look at the shower
tray of the Paviljoen #4 exhibition that
I saw on May 24. The bucket with blue coloured
water had emptied completely and was removed. Next, I saw Doublet #8, a
colaboration between Peggy Franck, who
painted the windows and Christine
Moldrickx, who I guess contributed the two dia projectors. I found the
exhibition somewhat minimalistic. On the first floor, I saw the exhibition
Kunstblikken: De Spiegel Binnenin with works by highschool students
that they made in collaboration with some artists. I found one lino print
rather interesting. Next, I (re)visited the following locations:
- 3: Kunst in Stilte en Licht, which very different than last
Saturday, because there were lots of people all walking along the table.
The bird cage with bird that was hanging above the table, was also gone.
- 4.
- 9: Long low slow baden. I waited about half an hour before it was
my turn. It was worth the waiting.
- 12: Bloemen Geuren niet voor u, where I smelled the following
'chemicals': Citronellol, linalool, geraniol, α-Isomethyl ionone, farnesol, eugenol,
and benzyl
salicilate.
At Rijksmuseum Twenthe, I walked around and
found the following works noteworthy:
- v67-36b random objectivation, herman de vries, 1967.
- White, herman de vries, 1962.
- belladonna (digitized 16mm film), herman de vries, 1983.
- Inflammatory Essays, Jenny Holzer, 1979-1982.
- The Undercurrent, Rory Pilgrim, 2019.
First tropic day
Today, the temperature at Twente Airport has gone
up to 30.4° Celsius, which does not beat the record of 32.8° of 1964,
but it does make the first tropic day according to the definition of the
Royal Netherlands Meteorological Institute. The predition is that tomorrow it
will even become hotter and probably break the record for that day.
32.2° Celsius
The temperature at Twente Airport has gone up to
32.2° Celsius, which breaks the record of 29.5° for this day that was
reachted in 1980. There was a prediction for rain with thunder and lightning,
but we did not get any.
Book
At 12:10, I received the book Natural relations : eine Skizze written by herman de vries in German and published by Verlag für Moderne Kunst
in 1989, ISBN:3122531725, which I had bought on Wednesday, June 11, 2025 at 12:34 from
Antiquariat & Verlag Winfried
Jenior for € 50.00. I decided to buy this book after I saw it
on June 7 at the exhibition herman de vries. 70 jaar de
natuur als kunstwerk. I do not think I am ever going to read this book. It
is just one of those peculiar books I like to add to my collection of books.
A milestone in developing compiler
I achieved another milestone in developing a C
compiler. The compiler can now compile the stack_c.c program,
such that when the resulting executable is run on the output produced by the
compiler with stack_c.c as input, it produces the same M1
file. The last bug fixes can be found in the commit 5808d49c. The next step will be to try to compile the source of
the compiler itself.
The Way Things Unfold
I went to the opening of the Creatieve Broedplaats Enschede (Dutch for 'creative breeding ground')
at their new location, which is at the same location as the first company I
worked from 1990 to 1994. There I also saw the exhibition The Way Things Unfold. I found the following works
noteworthy:
- Untitled drawing, Nick, made during Sketchy Bitches.
- Untitled and uncomplete, Iris, 2024-.
- Unfinished, Sevgi Yazici, 2021
- Anemona, Mona, 2025
- The bird who brought light, Lulia Paraipan, 2024
- Mengelmoes, Desiré De Lacy, 2025
- Reflective pink, Desiré De Lacy, 2025
Biking along MUPIs
This morning, from 7:19 till 10:35, I biked around the city to visit all the
MUPIs that had a poster on it made by one of this year graduates of the AKI. This year, the MUPI in the town Glanerbrug was including again, making the route a bit over 35Km long. I left early, because the temperature were
predicted to get over 30° Celsius this afternoon. I calculated the route
with the latest version of the ParseMUPIkml2.cpp program and a bucket size of 1000 solutions for
each pass. I made some modification to the program. I added a command line
option (-h) to add my home to the locations to be visited. The
program also writes the names of the locations to a text file, which I printed
out and took with me. I had to add an additional MUPI to the MUPIs.kmz file. I also had to flex the conditions for mapping the
pins in the Aki Finals 2025 map to the locations of the MUPIs, because they were not
all within 15 meter. The pin marked 'Point 46' had a photograph of a work by
Luna Smiesing on it. I found the photographs of the following graduates on the
MUPIs noteworthy:
Void functions
The C
programming language has functions that usually return a single value,
except when they are defined of the type void (with the keyword void).
In the past three days, I have been debugging the C compiler, I am debugging. I have been learning how to debug the code
it produced with GNU
Debugger using commands to step through the instructions and inspect the
values of registers. I also used the trick to insert if (1);
statements in the code of the compiler, that would then generate a label in
the machine code that I could use in the break command to make the debugger
stop at those locations. Yesterday evening, I discovered the cause of the bug.
It was related to the void functions and some parts of the code being generated
assuming that all functions return a value. This morning, I realised that to
fix this bug, I could just change the behaviour of void function such that
they do return a value, instead to making the compiler smart in tracking when
a void function is called and special action should be taken to deal with the
function being void.
AKI Finals
I went to see the AKI Finals exhibition. Below a list of the students whose work I found noteworthy,
which is very subjective and often based on the first impression, in the order,
I encountered them.
At 18:41, I bought the Finals catalogue for € 10.00, which was packed
in a plastic back. At home I discovered that it had almost empty pages with
just a new of a student on each page. In the middle it had a stack of stickers,
one of each student. The stickers fit on a 'frame' printed on the empty pages.
Self hosting compiler
I have achieved another milestone in developing a C compiler and that the compiler is now able to compile the source of
itself such that the resulting executable when called with the source will
return the same output. I already achieved this some days ago in
the commit 9fb0e126, but the compiler failed to compile the
program stack_c.c, which can translate the output from the compiler
to assembly
language. After some debugging, I found that cause and implemented some
fixes. The next step will be to see if the compiler can compile the source
of the Tiny C
Compiler. I already know, I will have to extend the standard library,
a partial implementation of the C standard library for this.
AKI Finals (second time)
Today, I went to see the AKI Finals exhibition
for a second time, as I am just to day. My experience is that it worth to
visit an exhibition more than once, because a second (or third) time, you often
notice things you had not seen the first time. It was rather quiet with respect
to both visitors and students being present. I walked around the whole
exhibition. With the exhibition of the following students, I spend some more
time or talked with the student a bit:
Garden
Our garden in the back is getting full with plants and trees. Where there used
to be grass on the left side (viewed from the house), there are now growing
two trees, which are already about two meters high. We did not plant those
trees. They just arrived as a seed. This is the case with some more plants in
our garden. But there are also some tall daisies that we did plant some years
ago. It looks like some of the plants we planted last year in the early spring,
are now surfacing. I now realise that some plants only sprout if they have
experienced the cold of the winter. It looks like there are some Jerusalem
artichokes growing in the garden in front of our house. The little plant, we
assume is growing from a seed of our magnolia, is
still rather small, not more than 4cm high, and only has five leaves now. But
I read on the internet that they focus on growing roots. I also noticed some
flowers in our magnolia. This evening, there was also a pleasant smell of
flowering trees outside and in the house.
This months interesting links
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