Simply Jonathan

Archive for December 2007

UserFriendly Strip Comments 

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Well, I play Scrabble with ø’s in it. Nothing weird in that.

Slim Dusty – A Pub With No Beer

There’s nothing so lonesome, so dull or so drear,
Than to stand in the bar of a pub with no beer

Aardvark’d

I just finished watching the Aardvark’d film about 4 interns at Fog Creek Software.

All in all, it was decent. I like these kinds of stories, like Revolution OS, about software and clever people saying clever things. Paul Graham is great in this one.

There are numerous things with this film, however, that really annoyed me. First of all, there’s a side story about one of the developers having a tomato plant on the balcony; this has absolutely no relevance to anything else in the film, and just seems so weirdly misplaced. Second, there are these awfully made reconstructions. The people participating aren’t great actors, which they really shouldn’t be either. But this shines through so clearly in the reconstructions, it ruined quite a lot for me. In one instance, one of the interns attempts a jump out the window, but in realising his failure, he clings on to the window ledge. The next scene is an attempt at showing it from his angle while he’s stilling hanging in the ledge. The others then come running, not looking convincing and asking what he just did. All the while, when he’s supposed to be holding on for his life, his fingers are relaxed, and no one looks really panicked.

As stated, it’s a decent film. I just wish they would have hold on to the story about the software, instead of doing these half-hearted dramatic sequences.

The Strokes – New York City Cops

New York City Cops,
New York City Cops,
New York City Cops,
They ain’t too smart.

Queen – Who Wants to Live Forever?

Who is forever anyway?

Palatino and ce

Palatino is probably my favourite serif font, which I tend to use in all my school work. Unfortunately, Palatino has an annoying little glitch, when pairing c and e at small sizes:

c and e paired in Palatino size 12 points, looking like the Scandinavian æ

This is especially problematic when you — as I do — write in a language, where æ is actually used.

Word Processors and URIs

Why is it that word processors (NeoOffice in my case, but Microsoft Word does it too) automagically turn URIs into clickable links? Maybe it’s because I’m a strange user, but very close to all of my word processor use ends up being printed when it’s done. And, well, clickable links aren’t worth much on paper. I just don’t see the incentive to do it (other than it being, admittedly, a quite logical behaviour for a computer program), when you’re dealing with stuff that winds up being printed.

Grid Layout 

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Nice, simple tool for making sure you stick to your grid.

The Beatles – A Day in the Life

I read the news today, oh boy
About a lucky man who made the grade
And though the news was rather sad
Well, I just had to laugh

Netherlands/Denmark/whatever

It’s just so sad when people confuse countries.

Yes, Netherlands and Denmark are located quite near each other, but, well, we have a country called Germany between us. Had it just Belgium they had confused Netherlands with, or Sweden and Denmark, but really? Netherlands and Denmark?

This is Simply Jonathan, a blog written by Jonathan Holst. It's mostly about technical topics (and mainly the Web at that), but an occasional post on clothing, sports, and general personal life topics can be found.

Jonathan Holst is a programmer, language enthusiast, sports fan, and appreciator of good design, living in Copenhagen, Denmark, Europe. He is also someone pretentious enough to call himself the 'author' of a blog. And talk about himself in the third person.