Older articles (5/26)

1. Profiling Python scripts (1): stl2pov

   This is the first in a series of articles that covers analyzing and improving performance bottlenecks in Python scripts.

2. Simple setup.py for python scripts

   Installing Python scripts (as opposed to modules) is a too involved using distutils/setuptools. Those do not take into account zipped archives and scripts using a GUI toolkit. The latter is a problem on ms-windows.

   So I wrote my own setup scripts to do things differently;

   • A simple setup script that works on single-file scripts.
   • A setup script that can wrap applications plus their custom module up in a zip-file and install it as a single self-contained file.
   • They should work on POSIX and ms-windows without root/administrator privileges.
   • And they should not require anything outside the python standard library.

   These scripts are now available on github as setup-py-script.

3. Merging local git repositories

   For a long time, I’ve had a directory ~/templates to store template files for several programs.

   For historical reasons, my LaTeX templates have been stored under ~/latex/templates.

   Both have been under git revision control since 2006; before that I used rcs.

   I want to merge both local repositories under ~/templates. This articla documents how that was done.

4. Simple viewer for STEP files on UNIX

   The STEP format is probably the most used accurate 3D geometry exchange format. (It can contain a lot more than just geometry!)

   STL files (most often used in 3D printers) are based on triangles, which are basically only an approximation of the real geometry.

   A lot of available STEP-file viewer are windows-only. I’ve been looking for a simple STEP-file viewer for UNIX-like operating systems, so that I can see the parts that I’m making using cadquery (see also: cadquery documentation).

   I’m not a fan of IDE’s like cq-editor or IDE’s in general. In particular, cq-editor pulls in the whole of spyder (a Python IDE) just to get syntax highlighting in its built-in editor.

5. De-facebook your internet

   Since I do not enjoy being a product for facebook to monetize, I’ve decided to de-facebook the internet, at least for me.

   This article assumes you’re running your own DNS server. The code in this article can generate configuration data for dnsmasq and unbound.

   The consumer versions os ms-windows don’t come with a DNS server, and most of the good ones do not run on it. If you are using ms-windows, I suggest using a pi-hole <https://pi-hole.net/> on your home network as a DNS server.

6. Installing Openstreetmap data on a Garmin zūmo 340LM

   This documents how you can install openstreetmap data on the Garmin zūmo 340 LM. This procedure probably also works on other Garmin devices, but I haven’t tested that. The commands listed in this article assumes you’re using a UNIX-like operating system. While most of the actions could be performed on ms-windows, I haven’t run that in decades, so I’m not the person to give advice about that

7. Commuting on a zero DSR

   At the end of 2020 I purchased a Zero DSR to use as my main transport for commuting. These are my experiences after approximately the first year.

8. Using a USB headset on FreeBSD

   At work I’ve been using several different USB headsets. Let’s see if they work on FreeBSD.

9. Add TeX macro around (visual) selections in Vim

   With simple mappings, we can add a TeX command around visually selected text or around the current word in vim.

10. Does repeated JPEG conversion reduce quality?

    Recently, in a comment on freethoughtblogs.com, it was posited that repeated rewriting of a JPEG file causes quality loss.