Hello World

You have to start somewhere

I’m worried that there aren’t enough websites.

🖱 A similar process is at work in how we access music and movies. In the not so distant past I would listen to music from a mountain of mp3 files on my hard drive, whereas now I stream it. In return for convenience, we don’t own media anymore: we rent it. Most people’s internet usage (including mine) is concentrated on a few websites, owned by private interests who are often bad stewards of the website they run. We are encouraged to access these sites through an app they own, rather than a browser. In other words, users are losing control.

To fight against this, I am planting a flag in the virtual sand and claiming this corner of the internet as my own.

Website Tour #

Go to my about page to learn about me, and say hello using my contact details.

I’ve written a simple python script to generate a list of my publications and a CV from a bibtex file.

An attempt at blogging can be found under the notes page. Subscribe to my RSS feed!

Technology #

The website is managed by the static site generator Hugo. I wanted to avoid the faff of running a dynamic website and the speed of Hugo appealed to me. I build the website using a Makefile, which also generates the publications page from a bibtex file and compiles my CV.

The theme is based on the hugo-tufte theme. I forked it and made some minor modifications like changing the colour scheme. The theme is a Hugo implementation of Tufte CSS, inspired by the work of Edward Tufte. He is best known for his book, The Visual Display of Quantitative Information.

Website Features #

The hugo-tufte theme comes with some interesting features.

Text #

Epigraphs can easily be places into the text.

I’ve never liked footnotes on websites. Unlike in a physical document, you cannot flick your eye to bottom of the page to read the footnote. A much better solution is provided by sidenotes, in which the extra text is placed in the margin, like so(1) (1)Sidenotes, like footnotes, should be used judiciously. Although Terry Pratchett mastered their use, it is important to remember that you are not Terry Pratchett. .

Code #

It’s easy to insert code into the website. Here’s some python:

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import numpy as np

def primes(upper_limit: int) -> np.ndarray:
	candidates = np.ones(upper_limit, dtype=bool)
	candidates[0] = False
	for n in range(1, candidates.size):
		if not candidates[n]:
			continue
		for c in range(2 * n + 1, candidates.size, n + 1):
			candidates[c] = False
	ns = np.arange(1, candidates.size + 1)
	return ns[candidates]

print(f"The primes below 10_000 are {primes(10_000)}")

Syntax highlighting works in other languages too, here’s some fortran

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subroutine factorial(n, fac)
	implicit none
	
	integer, intent(in) :: n
	integer, intent(out) :: fac
	
	integer :: i
	
	fac = 1
	
	do i=1,n
		fac = fac * i
	end do
end subroutine factorial

Mathematics #

KaTeX provides support for rendering maths. For example, Cauchy’s integral formula states that on an open subset $U \subset \mathbb{C}$ the values of a holomorphic function $f:U \rightarrow \mathbb{C}$ are determined by its values on the boundary of $U$. More precisely $$ f(z) = \frac{1}{2\pi i} \oint_{\gamma} \frac{f(\zeta)}{\zeta - z} \mathrm{d} \zeta, $$ where $\gamma$ is a contour contained in $U$.

Figures #

Tufte’s work is distinguished by the tight integration of figures and text. There are a variety of ways to show figures. Figures can be inserted into the main column of text:

🖱 Terrestrial carbon stocks by latitude. From Crowther et al. 2019.

If necessary I can insert a full width figure. This figure, from Judd et al.

shows the evolution of global temperatures over the last 485 million years.

As everyone loves marginalia, I can of course insert a figure in the margin.
🖱 The bifurcation diagram of the logistic map. Taken from wikipedia.

The future #

For now this website is hosted on github, but I’d like to register a nicer domain.

I don’t intend to blog very often, but I’m happy I have a place on the internet of my own.