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I believe that rights are not given nor earned. They are inherent in who we are and inseparable from it. If one stomps on the right of another, his humanity is violated because to be is to exercise what makes you human.

And what is it that makes you human? You are alive, self aware, capable of thinking and acting on your thoughts and thus capable of creating and acquiring. All of this together constitutes your being human and to deny you to use your life, self awareness and ability to think, create and acquire would be to deny your humanity, to deny you to BE human. Thus life, liberty and property are one and the same. Without life you perish. Without liberty you cannot exercise abilities that make you human. Without property, the result of these exercises, you have nothing to strive for, nothing to cherish, nothing to call home, nothing to call your own - the fruit of your labor.

No two beings can occupy the same space, digest the same piece of food or breed the same molecules of air, at the same time. That’s the very basis of property ownership, simply the need to occupy and consume a particular piece of the world in order to exist AS whatever you naturally are; a fish, plant, bacterium or.. a human.

Since as a human, you’re in addition to being alive also defined by being self aware and able to think and act human property ownership is expanded to accommodate for the exercise of these traits. So in addition to the food you’re digesting, air you are breeding, space you are occupying (your body) you also own everything else that is created or acquired by the work of your mind and body.

No two persons can own the same thing. If we pretend they do there is a conflict. Which one decides what to do with it? Which one uses it when both want to use it? Which one is responsible for it? Even when two persons agree to share something these impossibilities remain. They can only “time share” the use of a thing and “time share” the responsibility, at one time one can use it and be responsible for it and at another the other can. Effectively, it is never owned by both, never becomes “collective property”, rather ownership merely shifts from one person to the other in time according to their voluntary agreements.

Let’s take a challenging claim; that a given road is a public property. This claims that everyone living in a city where the road is located is the owner of that road at the same time. This also means that everything everyone in that city wants to do on or with that road they can do, all at the same time. So one can decide to drive a car on it as fast as he likes whereas another can decide to walk at the same place where the other guy is speeding a car. It also means that at the same time as those two are doing this, a third person can come and drill a hole in the middle of the road.

This obviously doesn’t fit reality and is in fact impossible. It is thus not surprising that when one claims a particular thing as “public property” it never really means that everyone can do anything they want with it. Instead there is a government which enforces rules of how it is going to be used. This government or moreover the head of the government (its president, for instance) contractually bound to his employers to propose and create the rules, is the actual singular owner of this so called “public property”.

Thus the conception of collective ownership or “public property” is a fallacy. It cannot and does not exist. Property by definition is always private and always belonging to a single individual. It is that person’s very extension, when acquired by voluntary consent of previous owners (through trade or gift etc.) or created by him or those whom agreed to create it for him. In all cases property is the result of thoughts and actions applied without violation of another’s right to think and act by himself.

Without property there can be no liberty. To deny ownership altogether is to deny ownership of self. This implies that someone else owns you and that thus someone else can decide what to do with you or what you should be, instead of you. You therefore have no liberty whatsoever.

If self ownership is admitted, but ownership of everything else is denied then your acts are not for you, but for someone else. What use is the admission of self ownership if nothing you do with yourself results in an enrichment of yourself, if every result you produce is for someone else to take without your consent. You are still a slave.

If self ownership and ownership of only some of the rest is admitted it is still not you who decides which of the results you produce are yours to keep and which are someone elses. Someone else can change the criteria at a whim. Because of this you’re still not in control of that which you yourself produce and remain a slave.

In short, life, liberty and property are human rights indivisible from each other and the process of being human. Violation of those is the violation of someone being human because one can’t be human without exercising that which makes him or her human.

Flick through various foundry catalogs for a Garamond revival or adaption and you’re bound to discover more than garalde typefaces. Interspersed amongst the many Garamonds you’ll find erroneously titled baroque faces works by another type designer, Jean Jannon. I decided to investigate the affair and while doing so swept the dust off a little history of French printing.

Prelude: the birth of French printing

The European invention of letterpress printing with movable type by Johannes Gutenberg c. 1450 systematized the Latin alphabet into individual characters that could be physically composed and reused. Because Latin letters amalgamate into an alphabet—distinct from logographies and syllabaries—they are particularly well suited to be divided, cut, and finally cast into pieces of metal type that reside in wooden cases (fig. 1.). Majuscules (capital letters) lived in the “upper case” whilst the minuscules (small letters) inhabited the “lower case”. This is where we draw the synonyms for upper- and lowercase from.This was the basis for the revolutionary adoption in place of the meticulous copying of books by hand word-for-word and saw the establishment of an integral part of the printing trade: typography.

A reprint of a page of one of the Gutenberg Bibles, from Mainz, Germany. Gutenberg’s typefaces epitomize the strong gothic elements that we now classify as blackletter. The face in particular is a textura blackletter.

A sort is a single piece of metal type, a letter of one specific typeface and size. In digital typography it has been replaced by the term glyph as digital type does not physically exist until printed. Thus a sort of Bembo italic at 12 points is distinct from another of Bembo italic 10 points. Conversely those that semantically share the same letter but are stylistically different—even if of the same family and point size—are also classified as different sorts.Fig. 1. Metal sorts being set on a composition stick with many more organised in a job case underneath. Photo by Willi Heidelbach.

The trade of printing quickly spread throughout Europe. It was introduced to France in 1470 by Johann Heynlin and Guillaume Fichet—two professors of the Sorbonne, the historic university of Paris—who enlisted the aid of German printers to establish the first printing house. Three printers from Mainz helped them construct the presses, equipment and began cutting type. Still in the same year they printed France’s very first book, Gasparini Epistolae (“Letters”), written by the Italian grammarian Gasparino da Barizizza.

Traditional preferences

Gasparini Epistolae was set in a humanist blackletter (fig. 2). The face was a hybrid from a merging of roman and gothic elements. The style was rebuffed in favour of the traditional gothic properties of blackletter which French readers had grown accustomed to; unlike the humanist faces that were cut during the Italian Renaissance, humanist typefaces weren’t met as candidly in France as elsewhere in Europe. French typography remained moderately conservative, utilizing heavy blackletter faces of one style or another to set most printed material until the turn of the century.

Fig. 2. A sample of the humanist blackletter hybrid from Gasparini Epistolae, Haralambous, Y., 2007, Fonts & Encodings (p. 375), English edition, O’Reilly Media Inc., California, USA.

There are two noteworthy interludes between the end of the 15^th century and the cutting of garalde faces in the early 16^th century. In 1477 came the first book printed in French, an unusual and controversial venture as French was considered too vulgar to be set in print. Typically Latin was used for the written word, even in Germany at the time. It was set in cute bastarda (or Schwabacher) by Pasquier Bonhomme. Then in 1529 Geofrey de Troy, the personal printer to King François I, took the next steps that led to the broader adoption of roman with the printing of his book, Le Champ Fleury in which he put forth his theory that letter forms and human anatomy are closely linked.

The Garalades and Garamond

By the mid 16^thcentury printing was a solid industry. Certainly printing was still expensive, however it had become more economically viable and less time-consuming than the the previous option of employing scribes. Following the classical humanist typefaces, typographically in the 16^th century came the garalde (or old-style) faces, paying homage to Claude Garamond and Aldus Manutius. These featured a heavier weight and stronger emphasis on the downwards strokes than their antecedents (fig. 3). The weight can be attributed to a more oblique axis of the pen; garalde faces in no way loose their humanist elements. Today the best known garaldes faces are Garamond and Bembo, the former of which there are many versions of. Other notable digital renditions include Adobe Garamond, Granjon, Sabon, and Stempel Garamond.

Fig. 3. Top: 72 point Centaur, cut by Bruce Rogers in 1912–1914 and based on cuts by Nicholas Jenson made in the height of the Venetian Renaissance, 1469; bottom: 72 point Stempel Garamond, a true Garamondian revival by the Stempel Foundry, 1924. It was later digitized by Linotype.

The other Garamond

A century after Claude Garamond came Jean Jannon (1580–1658). Jannon was a French Protestant printer who began cutting type in the Protestant Academy in Sedan, France. He cut his type during the French Renaissance but did so illegally under the Catholic regime and consequently had his casts seized in 1641 by agents of the French crown, under orders of Cardinal Richelieu (who ironically used Jannon’s work to later to set his own memoirs, Principaux Points de la Foi). Jannon’s work sat locked-away for two centuries before seeing the light of day again. When they were uncovered they were misidentified as cuts by Claude Garamond, and hence named thereafter Garamond. Many digital revivals still carry on this error: ATF ‘Garamond’, Lanston ‘Garamond’, numerous versions of Monotype ‘Garamond’ and Simoncini ‘Garamond’. Jannon’s work is baroque in nature; it is easily distinguished from Claude Garmond’s; sharper serifs and an almost wild variation of axis and slope (fig. 4, 5).

Fig. 4. Top: 72 pt Monotype Garamond, digital revival based on Jean Jannon’s cuts; bottom: 72 pt Adobe Garamond, digitally revived by Robert Slimbach and based on Claude Garamond’s cuts.

Fig. 5. Top: 72 pt Simonici Garamond, another digital revival based on Jean Jannon’s cuts; bottom: 72 pt Stempel Garamond again, based on Claude Garamond’s cuts.

Historically befitting

So if you’re writing a piece on the introduction of French printing and want to set it in an appropriate typeface, a Garamond revival is most apt—of course you could pick a heavy gothic with which Johann Heynlin and Guillaume Fichet began France’s printing ventures but no one would comfortably read it today (and ultimately the blackletters are more Germanic than French). Conversely if you’re writing a piece set three centuries later, covering the French Renaisance, select one of Jannon’s revivals and pay tribute to a man almost forgotten by history.

Have a wonderful weekend everyone!

I’m still alive, just playing with sorts, that’s all.

Dies ist eine Geschichte aus dem Alltag eines zivilisierten, vernünftigen Kollegstufenschülers am Gymnasium Geretsried in Bayern. Ähnliches spielt sich wahrscheinlich täglich überall im Land ab.

Nach der 6. Stunde, 13:05 Uhr, regulärer Unterrichtsschluss. Die „5” nach der „13” mag in der Unter- und Mittelstufe zwar meist eine reine Formsache sein, das ist aber nicht immer und überall so. Also, um fünf nach eins endet der Unterricht, dann heißt es Zeug zusammenpacken und in einem normalen Schritttempo das Schulhaus verlassen. Daran, dass die Wände seit Jahren nach Baustelle aussehen und die Kabel von der Decke hängen, hat man sich schon längst gewöhnt—egal wie viel man sich beschwert, vor 7 Jahren war die Schule intakter—den dunklen Betonklotz aus den 70ern, der sich „Schule” schimpft, möchte man aber eigentlich doch relativ flott verlassen.

Draußen, an der Luft, wechselt man noch schnell ein paar Worte mit einem Mitschüler, zugerufene Àdieux, und schon ist man in der Unterführung zur Bushaltestelle. Nicht besonders angenehm, vom Geruch bis zu den zwar frisch geweißelten, doch aber mit schlechtem Graffiti beschmierten Wänden, aber man kann ja nicht immer vor den Fünftklässlern über die Straße rennen, vor allem nicht, wenn Polizei oben steht. Da geht neben einem ein guter Freund, Ich finde das unverschämt, dass wir für den Scheiß jetzt zahlen müssen!; Recht hat er, und auch diejenigen Schüler, die genügend Geschwister haben, um die Fahrt zwischen Daheim und Schule erstattet zu kriegen, sind sich einig: Nicht einmal Einzelkinder in der Oberstufe sollten den Bus zu einer öffentlichen Schule bezahlen müssen, nicht in diesem unseren Sozialstaat.

Auch die Situation an der Bushaltestelle kann nicht begeistern: es stehen die zwei üblichen langen Busse da. Der Erste, proppenvoll, schließt gerade die Türen, um wegzufahren. Im Zweiten ist auch nicht mehr Platz. Im Gegenteil: obgleich die Insassen (was nicht heißen soll, dass viele sitzen) kaum noch Platz zum atmen haben, befindet sich an der Tür noch eine Traube von etwa 10 jüngeren Schülern, die sich mit letzter Kraft reinzuquetschen versuchen. Etwas weiter hinten stehen dann etwa 60 weitere Schüler, die rauchen und ratschen, weil sie wissen, dass in den Schulbussen kein Platz ist.

Wie lange wird das noch dauern ? Nach einigen Minuten kommt schon ein Paar Linienbusse. Die Tatsache, dass sie unterschiedlich Linien bedienen, stiftet zwar etwas Verwirrung, aber schnell haben sich auch hier Trauben an allen vier Türen gebildet, und jeder versucht mit Gewalt, noch einen Stehplatz zu bekommen. Aber, was heißt hier jeder ? Manch einer sieht ein, dass man eigentlich zuerst Leute aussteigen lassen sollte, dass die Chancen, überhaupt einen Platz zu bekommen, infinitesimal sind, und dass diese Art des Einsteigens eigendlich zutiefst barbarisch ist. Man wünscht sich eigentlich, dass alle sich ganz normal anstellen, und die Leute hinten ungehindert Aussteigen lassen, aber das scheint in Deutschland ja nicht zu gehen. Die Busse sind weg, jetzt heißt es zunächst fünf bis zehn Minuten warten—wenn man Glück hat, kennt man irgendjemanden, der auch wartet, mit dem man das Warten einigermaßen überbrücken kann.

Der nächste Bus war vermutlich schon an einer anderen Schule, von Platz kann da keine Rede sein. Langsam wünscht man sich, man hätte den Unterricht doch wie in der Unterstufe um 12:55 Uhr eigenmächtig beendet, um zum Bus zu rennen, aber wo kämen wir denn da hin ? Kaum ist es 13:26 Uhr, schon kommt der nächste kurze Linienbus. Von Platz kann da zwar auch keine Rede sein, die Bushaltestelle wird aber langsam leer. Um nicht noch eine Viertelstunde warten zu müssen, quetscht man sich dann halt als letzter in den Bus. Um zwei Uhr ist man dann vielleicht zu Hause, und die Busfahrt war keineswegs angenehm; kein Wunder, dass so viele in der Regel ehrliche Schüler sich für dafür entscheiden, schwarz zu fahren.

Copyright © 2008 Thomas Jollans. Die Verwendung dieses Textes unterliegt der Creative Commons Namensnennung-Keine Bearbeitung 3.0 Deutschland Lizenz

A wee while ago, I decided to learn a lisp. Randomly, my lisp of choice was Common Lisp. (though I will probably have a look at Scheme sooner or later) As if a new programming language wasn't enough, I also started using GNU Emacs (rather than my previous absolute favourite Vim) for editing the code... Why ? SLIME. Implementation-wise, I have used GNU CLISP (love it), Steel Bank Common Lisp (SBCL, quite nice) and GCL (rather pointless).

Of course, you cannot really learn a programming language without programming with it. Back in the day, I used the BWInf competition to learn the adorable Python language (along with a book), and this time, I solved a part of this years' BWInf round 1 in Common Lisp for starters. But, more importantly, as it was more fun and I can publish the code, I have written a bare-bones IRC bot in lisp using the CL-IRC library (which is very lacking in documentation, but both the IRC protocol and the library source code are open, so that wasn't a great problem).

You can get the code via Mercurial.

There is really only one aspect of the implementation worth noting here: the command-creation macros. Not really spectacular, but rather lispy, I'd say.

Instead of

(defun blah-command (connection source channel text)

  ; make sure the user is logged in

  ; parse the text into useful chunks

  ; more ))) than cool

)

(setf *commands* (cons (list "blah" #'blah-command

                             "blah documentation) *commands* ))

You write

(auth-irc-command admin "blah" (connection source channel) (arg1 arg2 arg3)

  ; get stuff done

)

etc.

Macro definitions are here.