André Miede’s Classic Thesis LaTeX style is a thing of beauty.
Things to like about it:
It’s damn elegant. It’s inspired by Bringhurst’s The Elements of Typographic Style, which remains the most eloquent and convincing argument for attention to typography I’ve ever read. Namecheck of the booktabs documentation (on why the tables don’t have vertical lines), which I’ve also [...]
Suppose one wrote one’s PhD thesis on translation studies. Suppose further that said dissertation was published in a series devoted to translation studies. Wouldn’t one want to check that the back-cover blurb doesn’t read like a too-literal translation from Dutch into slightly broken English?
Theory:
We of the jury may wish to ignore [a particular possibility], and wish it had not been mentioned. If we ignored it now, we would bend the rules of cooperative conversation; but we may have good reason to do exactly that. [...] We would ignore the far-fetched possibility if [...]
It’s snowing.
Biking to yoga suddenly doesn’t seem like such an attractive idea. On the other hand it is beautiful.
Here’s a book I should be reading: Hans Rott, Change, choice and inference: A study of belief revision and nonmonotonic reasoning. It will be directly thesis-relevant, and judging by a couple of papers by the guy I’ve read it might be something I’d like to own myself.
Except for one leetle teeny detail: it costs $130.
It’s [...]
Irregular Life is a flash game which will get you addicted to Conway’s Game of Life. I played to about level 15 just by symmetry-guessing –you see three gaps in a pattern and you’ve got three squares to place– so it’s not that hard, at least in those early levels. That’s not really the point, [...]
I’ve taken the plunge, and posted my first dissertation chapter online. It’s still not quite complete (needs some transition paragraphs and general tidying up) but it’s readable and the content shouldn’t change much from here on in.
It’s slightly terrifying, sending your ideas out into the wide world like this, but I think they’re solid enough [...]
A mail I received today ended with (my italics):
Tot ziens op dinderdags 13 november aanstaande…
“Dinsdag” is Tuesday, “donderdag” is Thursday. Split the difference and meet on Wednesday?
— So when you make dahl, is it mild or can it be hot?
— It can be hot, if you accidentally put in too much chilli at Amanda’s wedding.
Ralph passed on the following announcement, with a resounding endorsement:
Hello all. Here’s your chance to see some great music and make a difference in a young child’s life during the holiday season.A dedicated team of volunteers has organized 3 concerts that will feature different styles of music with good ol’ [...]