Gemini* and Gopher

• Personal/Opinions

  • In Which My Brain Misfires, Combining 90s TV Lawyer Ads With Norris-Winning Defencemen

  • The World Cup (2026)

    On my BLOG I waxed on about my 1994 World Cup soccer memories. Those were early years in United States (US) soccer. I don't claim to be a historian about the development of US soccer but after watching last night's match between the US and Paraguay, I can't help but think how far we've come. The US won by a score of 4-1. The 2nd US goal by Folarin Balogun and 4th US goal by Gio Reyna were the confident strikes of such quality that could not have occurred in 1994. I truly believe that. (Balogun, to be fair, was raised in London and he was steeped in football from a very early age, and Reyna is the son of a top-level US player.) I'm excited for the US chances this year after this first game!

  • 2026-06-12

    I guess I'm going to be *that* guy but I honestly hope that FIFA learns to never have a World Cup in the USA again.

    Much like the Olympics, the FIFA organization is a corrupt "athletics" body that promises host cities and countries all sorts of positive sounding economic benefits for holding their sports tournaments.

  • How people expect others to 做人

    To understand social rules, and to act in a way that supposedly make people think of you positively. To conduct oneself is to be doing everything that makes you look normal, to behave is to not do things that makes you look negative. Does it matter if your cues has nothing to do with how you are? Sorry, no, because for some reason being social creatures means to make yourself look as good as possible, regardless of how good you actually are, and for some reason people seem to forget that it is natural for people to have their shortcomings.

  • THE PUZZLE OF PUZZLES

    I don't think I was ever very interested in puzzles as a child, by which I include things like crosswords and Sudoku when I was older. I was vaguely interested in creating them, but I doubt I ever got anyone to actually try and solve one I'd made, so that wasn't very rewarding either.

    Lately in some evenings, which are now too cold to abandon my spot on the couch under the heater, I've been slowly drawing up a revised copy of the messy schematic for my mother's late-delivered Christmas present, eventually destined for my website if I ever get that far. It occurred to me, not for the first time, that designing electronic circuits really is a puzzle (if you don't just copy example circuits from datasheets anyway), and one I do enjoy. Equally designing circuit board layouts is something I really get into, trying to crack the task of cramming all the components into the smallest area while connecting them all correctly with one or two layers of copper tracks.

• Technology and Free Software

  • SAF, XLSX, TCL, IRIX

    The SAF (Static Analysis Format) is a modern thing created by civil engineers. The idea is simple: one need a way how to create an usable computational model from complex 3D models of buildings.

    For analysis of safety one usually does simplified computational analysis on much simpler model: 3D stuff is reduced to 1D and 2D (if really necessary) elements which are used to computes stresses and deformations and to assess them.

    Such conversion can be done in many ways but relatively recently the SAF format have became popular. It's a simple text format which described the world of 1D and 2D members with their materials definitions and more. Sound very easy and optimistic, right?