Joseph McGuire

Bitmap Font Configuration

Sun, 05 Oct 2025 17:29:00 -0400

Since I use a 4K TV as a monitor (and sit danger close), I thought I’d try using bitmap fonts. Without antialiasing, small text will be much crisper, easier to read, and brighter on the OLED screen.

From the Arch User Repository, I installed ttf-unifont for body text and cozette-otb for taskbars, etc.

To discover how the X window system internally calls these fonts, I used the bash one-liner (source)

fc-list | cut -f2 -d: | sort -u

I want to use Unifont JP to render body text, so running the above script tells me that /usr/share/fonts/Unifont/Unifont_jp.ttf is named Unifont\-JP.

Links

Sat, 04 Oct 2025 18:01:45 -0400

Excerpts from my sprawling bookmarks file.

Tag	Meaning
[JP]	Japanese-language content
[PDF]	.pdf direct link
[R]	Rated R for r*ddit
[VID]	Video

DISCLAIMER: I do not necessarily endorse the content of these linked websites.

Table of Contents

Calligraphy

Computer

Culture

Graphics and Demos

Programming

My 2 Year Journey of Learning C, in 9 minutes [VID] – VoxelRifts @ YouTube

Software

Alternatives to Bloatware – Software alternatives ordered by minimalness
K. Mandla reviews of TUI software – ca. 2009

Cooking

How to season carbon steel cookware – Originally at Amazon, requires account to view
How to care for carbon steel cookware
How to clean stainless steel cookware [R]

Japanese

Math

How to self study pure math [VID] – Less how, more book recommendations
How to Self-Study Math [VID] – More how, less book recommendations

Physics

arXiv vs. snarXiv – Can you spot the bogus theory paper?

Typography

Emigre magazine – 1984–2005 in .cbz format
Communication Arts magazine – Subscription required, but check archive.org for back issues
Letterform Archive

Web

SDF Public Access Unix System
eightyeightthirtyone – Map of the web via 88x31 web buttons
AAHub Fonts [JP] – Fonts for rendering SJIS art

Design

Sheldon Brown’s Computer-Net Links – 90s web design, with archive.org links
Become a Compression Sorcerer
Designed to Last Manifesto
When to base64 encode images
HTML elements without CSS
04.jp.org [JP] – Example of a table-aligned, image-based design

Tools

Fri, 26 Sep 2025 23:20:18 -0400

It always bugs me when a piece of media is presented without reference to the tools which created it. Why typesetters would pass up the chance to brag about artisanship or indulge in roundels and upside-down pyramids is beyond me.

Web

This site is hosted by Vultr somewhere in New Jersey on el cheapo VPS. Nginx serves the pages. I use Hugo as a static site generator, which I realize is like using an atomic bomb to deal with a mole in your lawn. Theme is my own design (crazy, I know).

How Not to Learn Japanese

Tue, 23 Sep 2025 18:11:04 -0400

Don’t learn Japanese like I did! Or rather, “Don’t learn Japanese exactly like I did. Learn from my mistakes.”

(This is not a particularly novel work. There are a million (dozen?) adequate methods and resources for Japanese learners. But you’re on my website, so you get my story.)

One of my first learning aids, snippet of a 五十音 I copied on quadrile paper. May 2019.

I’ve been learning Japanese in a zuruzuru sort of way since May 2019, on break from college. I started out right enough: I made an Anki deck of each of the hiragana and katakana characters, drew them out, and got them down pat. But even the novice learner of Japanese will correctly identify that those two syllabaries are but a small fraction of the writing system. Borrowed Chinese characters, or kanji, are the foundation of Japanese writing. They are used to represent native words, Chinese borrowings, and even compound words that are a combination of the two. There are 2,136 standardized common-use kanji, and to add insult to injury, most have multiple readings.