About the Author
I'm Stephan, a Linux user with a passion for open-source, UI/UX design, and exploring what makes fiction work.
In my spare time, I focus on (and write about):
- Programming (mainly in Python and Rust)
- Retrocomputing (mostly DOS but, as of January 2023, I also own a machine running Mac OS 9.2)
- Reading and Reviewing Fiction
- The odd bit of UI/UX design or literary theory
For notification of significant updates to existing posts, consider following me on Mastodon.
Popular Posts
- Resources for Reverse-Engineering 16-bit Applications
- A Python programmer’s first impression of CoffeeScript
- Recommended Battlestar Galactica “Earth-contact” fics
- Learning Materials for getting into C programming for MS-DOS/PC-DOS/DR-DOS/FreeDOS
- Fanfiction – A Quick Overview of The Whole Pureblood Pretense Series
- Useful Info On Win16-Targeting Compilers… And a List of DOS/Win16 Resources
- Getting your way with setxkbmap
- Home-made tamper-evident security seals for kids and adults alike
- Recommended “Politics in Harry Potter” fics
- 50+ Naruto Authors Who Did Something Well
May 2025 S M T W T F S 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 Meta
Geek Links
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Category Archives: Geek Stuff
Many Tanks Site Updates
Just a quick status update. I’ve done some significant re-theming on http://www.ficfan.org/ and fixed a bug that was causing many of the quotes to not show their additional metadata. While doing so, I noticed that, because of how wp-lifestream caches … Continue reading
Posted in Geek Stuff, Site Updates
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Google Chrome, A Testament to Hubris
Before I begin with my argument, let me say that I generally like Google Chrome (or more correctly, Chromium, the open-source release). It’s the only reasonably responsive open-source (not Opera) browser for tabbed-browsing freaks on Linux, the minimalist UI and … Continue reading
Posted in Geek Stuff
3 Comments
Der Untergang, Bizarro-style
You may be familiar with the “Hitler rants” meme which produced such parodies as “Hitler gets banned from Xbox Live“. However, what you probably haven’t noticed is that, thanks to a user named hitlerrantsparodies, a continuity has started to coalesce … Continue reading
Posted in General, Web Wandering & Opinion
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Scribblenauts and /b/-tards
Well, I was wandering around YouTube (no clue why) when I found evidence that the Scribblenauts developers may be /b/-tards. At the very least, they’re pretty good at catching all the noteworthy memes. Here are just some of the noteworthy … Continue reading
Posted in Web Wandering & Opinion
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Our Sick Society
A few months ago, my mother sent me an interesting TED talk about motivation. It turns out that the carrot-and/or-stick model for encouraging rewards stifles creativity. We need more businesses like Atlassian and Google which employ “intrinsic motivation” (you do … Continue reading
Posted in Web Wandering & Opinion
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SQL Pagination Without OFFSET
Just thought I’d look up how people paginate efficiently in SQLite since, apparently, OFFSET is just an alias for “discard N first results”. The recommended solution is to use a WHERE clause to mimic offset using the same column index … Continue reading
Posted in Web Wandering & Opinion
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Functional Programming Concepts for the Lay Programmer – Part 1
Update: Part 2 is finally available. Despite the growing interest in functional programming, most people (myself included) seem to have a lot of trouble grasping the core concepts and constructs. (Probably because the early adopters are all, to some extent, … Continue reading
Posted in Geek Stuff
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