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Dataclasses and Type Hints

Yesterday I rewrote the Python version of tumblelog to use dataclasses. I also started to add type hints, which I finished today. I pushed version 6.2.0 of tumblelog to GitHub after thoroughly testing the new code.

Another update

While testing tumblelog I came upon an issue with the calendar overview for 2026: May and later had no entries. After some checking I found the bug: the Markdown file for Plurrrr had two times a date entry for the 24th of May! So i updated both the Perl and Python version of tumblelog to detect this issue and pushed 6.2.1 to GitHub.

Obsession (2025)

Baron "Bear" Bailey breaks a novelty charm to force his co-worker Nikki Freeman to love him, but the supernatural compulsion warps her mind into violent obsession, trapping him in a nightmare he cannot wish away.

In the evening Jaiden and I watched Obsession. Jaiden liked the movie a lot, she called it the scariest movie she had ever seen. I liked the movie and rate it a 7 out of 10.

Some cosmetic code changes to tumblelog

In the evening I pushed a lot of small cosmetic code changes I had made over the past days to tumblelog to GitHub. Well, first I had to pull 2 commits I had made via the GitHub site because of a patch by Jan Neduchal. I used:

git pull --rebase

To get those 2 commits and to replay my 25 new commits on top of those 2. The updated version is now available on GitHub.

The Cloverfield Paradox (2018)

Orbiting a planet on the brink of war, scientists test a device to solve an energy crisis, and end up face-to-face with a dark alternate reality.

In the evening Jaiden and I watched The Cloverfield Paradox. Jaiden didn't like the movie and mostly didn't watch. I think the movie is OK, I watched it for the second time, and rate it a 6 out of 10.

The Tanith Lee Collection

Discover the unforgettable tales of one of science fiction and fantasy’s greatest authors in this bundle of Tanith Lee ebooks from DAW! Meet a Martian vampire desperate to evade the prying eyes of a private detective in Sabella. Follow people living on the dark side of a planet that might be about to contact another civilization in Day by Night. Explore the mysteries of a medieval-inspired world with a reluctant goddess in The Birthgrave. There are 26 books in total in this bundle from the master fantasist, so grab them all now at the price of your choice, and support BINC with your purchase!

In the afternoon I bought the Tanith Lee Collection Humble Bundle, 26 books in total. It included favorites of mine like Kill The Death, Tales from the Flat Earth, The Wars of Vis, and The Birthgrave Trilogy. Sadly, The Blood of Roses is not included, a book I really would like to reread.

Jurassic Park computers in excruciating detail

After I mentioned a Jurassic Park anecdote the other day, I watched the movie again. I must have seen it at least ten times now. This time, I researched every computer/software I spotted.

Source: Jurassic Park computers in excruciating detail, an article by Fabien Sanglard.

In the early afternoon I watched photos of hardware used in the Jurassic Park movie. Because I owned SGI hardware in the past it was a little trip down memory lane.

To Fold or Not To Fold in Vim

Each time I open in vim my freeCodeCamp Python course notes, which is a Markdown file, it starts folded. I prefer to see the entire file at start up so I added the following to my vimrc:

autocmd BufRead *.md normal zR

With zR meaning: open all folds in the file. The opposite is zM. While editing I prefer to toggle folding with za.

Lights Out (2016)

A supernatural entity reemerges to terrorize a family when the lights go out at night.

In the evening Jaiden picked Lights Out to watch together. I liked the movie and rate it a 7 out of 10.

Changing margin and paper size

Yesterday I learned how to change the margin of the PDF file Pandoc generates. But I forgot about the paper size. I live in the Netherlands and A4 is the common format here. First, I wanted to know how to check the current paper size of a PDF file. This can be done on the macOS command line as follows:

mdls freecodecamp.pdf |
    grep -i page

This reports the number of pages, the height (792 for US letter) and width (612 for US letter). The values are in PostScript points; 1" equals 72 points or 8.5" × 11" for US letter.

How to change this? Well, it turns out that with one Pandoc variable one can control both the margin and the paper size:

-V geometry="margin=1in,a4paper"

So the command for generating the PDF via Pandoc in a Docker container and viewing the output in the Preview application on macOS becomes:

docker run --rm \
-v "$(pwd):/data" \
-u $(id -u):$(id -g) \
pandoc/latex freecodecamp.md \
-V geometry="margin=1in,a4paper"\
-o freecodecamp.pdf &&
open freecodecamp.pdf

Checking the dimensions with mdls reports 841.89 points × 595.2760009765625 points which matches the dimensions of an A4 page.

History with time stamps

In the evening I wanted to know at what time exactly I had run a specific command on the command line of macOS. Could I get the history of commands entered on the command line with each a time stamp? The answer is yes, with fc (Fix Command):

fc -li 1

This lists (-l) the history from the start (1) with time stamps in ISO8601 format (-i). Note that without the 1 you get the last maximum 16 commands.

Now I could grep the output of this command. But wait, fc comes with a match option (-m):

fc -li -m 'docker*' 1

This lists all events in the history that starts with docker and shows the ISO8601 time stamp.

Effective Python Third Edition

Today my copy of Effective Python Third Edition arrived. The book by Brett Slatkin has 125 specific ways to write better Python.

Effective Python, third edition
Effective Python, third edition.

I browsed the book a bit and it looks very good! I like how the program listings have colors. After I have finished the Python Certification course on freeCodeCamp I want either start in this book or continue with the 2nd edition of Fluent Python by Luciano Ramalho. I have reread the first two chapters of the latter. Quite some time ago I managed to study the book until about halfway. But I want to redo this.

Changing the margin with Pandoc

Yesterday I learned how to generate a PDF file with the official Pandoc LaTeX Docker image on macOS. The resulting PDF looked good, but has a huge margin around the body of text. Today I created a header.tex file with the following contents to be passed on to LaTeX:

\usepackage{geometry}
\geometry{margin=1in}

Next, I ran the following command:

docker run --rm \
  -v "$(pwd):/data" \
  -u $(id -u):$(id -g) \
  pandoc/latex freecodecamp.md \
  -H header.tex \
  -o freecodecamp.pdf &&
  open freecodecamp.pdf

And with this command the margin was shrunk to 1"; much better.

Generating a PDF file with Pandoc and Docker

Last week I started with the Python Certification course on freeCodeCamp. I keep handwritten notes on paper which I transfer later to a Markdown file using vim.

I wanted to convert this Markdown file to a PDF file using Pandoc. Because I have already Docker running on my Mac mini I checked if there was an official Docker image.

I first tried the Pandoc minimal image. I ran into an issue: Permission denied. Adding -v /tmp:/tmp to the command solved this issue, but now it reported 'pdflatex' not found. This version was too minimal!

So, next I tried the aptly named latex image as follows:

docker run --rm \
  -v "$(pwd):/data"\
  -u $(id -u):$(id -g) \
  pandoc/latex freecodecamp.md \
  -o freecodecamp.pdf &&
  open freecodecamp.pdf

This downloaded the image (only the first time), generated the PDF and opened the PDF file in the Preview application on macOS.