• Entry filtering now works on all fields.
• Templates can contain multiple occurrences of group and entry subtemplates now.
• Condition tags can perform more detailed comparisons now.
• Improved control over entry ordering.
• Grouping tags are no longer necessary if grouping is turned off.
• It is now possible to reuse parsed BibTeX for multiple conversions.
• @entryid@ has been removed; use @entrykey@ instead, which is now guaranteed to be unique.

You can find a more complete list of changes here, and more information on bib2tpl here.

A typical search result

Several weeks ago, certain channels announced that Linux Mint changed their default search engine in Firefox to DuckDuckGo. I do not care much for Linux Mint but decided give DuckDuckGo a try.

What is the matter, you might ask? I used to use ubiquitous Google for everything related to web searches (if nothing else). Whenever I would search for something, I would type some keywords in Firefox’ address bar, hit enter and pick promising Google results. For instance, instead of visiting Wikipedia by hand I would Google wiki Murphy's Law and hit the first link. Combined with bookmark completion, this worked so well that I almost never typed in a proper URL anymore.

The big issue is privacy. It is well-known that Google saves search results and tracks users for their own purposes and to set up their filter bubble¹.

DuckDuckGo, on the other hand, claims to do nothing of that: No tracking, no result saving, no filter bubble. Of course I have no way to check this but their site looks reasonably clear and transparent. Also, they offer Javascript-free and SSL encrypted versions.

I have used DuckDuckGo for some time now. Its results are generally helpful²; you have to search slightly differently than you are used to from Google, probably because there is no filter bubble. But what really changed my experience is their so-called Bang! syntax. The flashy name describes a feature as simple as search forwarding. For instance, !wiki Murphy's Law takes you directly to the desired Wikipedia article. There are lots of useful Bangs, for instance !maps, !yt, !scholar, !img, !java, !amazon and many more³.

If you like what you read and want to surf wherever you want using only your Firefox address bar, go to about:config and set keyword.URL to https://duckduckgo.com/html/?q=⁴. Similar instructions can be found for other major (free) browsers.

All happy about my new Kobo Touch, I went and downloaded a couple of short stories for free at Smashwords.

Richard L. Sanders: Betraying Nexus — Jason is a mind bender of Nexus, a global, secret organisation that prevents crime by changing the intentions of potential criminals with them non the wiser. Jason has just brought down a former friend and colleague gone rogue; now he is to be promoted. When he discovers why Nexus works at all, his loyalty falters.
The story has an interesting setup and a good conflict. It may have worked even better in a longer format, I think; as it is, the amount of progress made feels too much for the timeframe. If you liked the movie Minority Report, you like this story.

David Sartof: Gloria — Oliver finds himself inside a remote cabin deep in the woods. He holds a bloody axe, standing above another man tied to a chair. He is going to kill this man, just like he just killed his own wife. Oliver just does not know why.
Fascinating short story! The amount of twists the author put in with so few words is amazing.

Mark Aragona: Vector — An alien race carefully investigates earth. Suddenly, one of their scout parties ends up in the middle of a beginning zombie apocalypse. What happened? Is there still a way to settle on earth in a peaceful way, maybe even help humanity survive?
Interesting idea and good writing, but the twist came too soon; the ending seemed more like an afterthought. Reversing the answers to “what” and “why” would have worked better. There is potential for much more in this one!

I have never really read short fiction before but I know see that it has its appeals. Maybe I will go back for more, but first I have to read some free classics and gratis novels.

Kobo Touch next to a standard US mass paperback

Last week I wrote about my thought process that lead to me buying a Kobo Touch ereader. I have used it quite a bit since and think I should write about my experience now.

The Kobo Touch has good haptics. It is relatively light with about 185g and has a surface texture that makes it easy to hold in one hand. The E-Ink display is great; all current ereaders have one of those. Text quality depends on font and size; on the settings I read I can see almost no difference to printed books. Of course you have shadows of former pages because they completely refresh the display only every few page turns (for sake of turning speed). You can adjust the number of turns before that happens between one and six, though, so every taste should be catered.

I had my opinions about ereaderes with touch screens—basically I though they were useless—but I am very pleased with the experience. It reacts in a natural way and the system is responsive enough to avoid slowing me down too much. This is in particular true when using the on-screen keyboard which works great for the tasks you need it for. You can turn pages by swiping or tapping the display. You can adapt the regions where tapping has an effect in order to account for people holding the device with either hand, but you can not turn off tapping yet. Turning the last page prompts Kobo to leave the book which has annoyed me sometimes when I accidentally prompted a page turn while in a one-page document. There is only one key that takes you to the home screen. It can be a bit hard to press but you do not need it too often.

War of the Worlds as EPUB

EPUB reading is a real joy. You can control about every interesting display parameter, that is font, font size, line spacing, margin and justification. The shipped fonts are good but you can easily add your own, too. Images work ok-ish but are obviously not great if not edited for the display. SVG graphs and math looks very good¹; Kobo Touch outperforms more than one browser there, I think.

PDF reading better than expected. Kobo Touch does not reflow so you have to zoom and pan. Thanks to touch screen and good implementation, panning is quite comfortable. On 200% zoom typical PDFs are very readable and fit on the screen horizontally if in landscape mode, so you have to scroll only in one direction. Document internal links and some features you have in EPUB books do not work; I think this is due to the touch screen being fully devoted to navigating the document so you can not actually select anything in PDFs.

Kobo works with several image formats but is very restricted as to what it can show properly, of course — you can only do so much with 16 different gray values. The device supports a bunch of other formats I have not tested yet, including Amazon’s MOBI, HTML and CBZ.

Kobo Touch has several features that help you out. For me, the most interesting feature is word definition and translation lookup. They are easily accessible in a book (in EPUBs you can select text), look up fast and have good quality. There are multiple languages included but there is apparently no way to add more as of now. Selected text passages can also be highlighted or annotated. A book’s highlights and annotations are easily accessible via an overview screen. On the gimmicky side, Kobo Touch has Sudoku and a sketchbook. And I am happy to say it has no ads when asleep but shows the cover of the currently read book.

Some SVG math

When hooked up to the internet via Wi-Fi, Kobo Touch offers a couple of neat features. First of all, you can access the Kobo book store, their free previews and news paper service. You can also share passages on Facebook and earn achievements based on your reading stats. I don’t use any of that and have Wi-Fi turned off permanently. In fact, you don’t even have to use their software at all even if the device would like to convince you otherwise. All offline features work perfectly out of the box; in particular, you can add books by using the Kobo as a removable drive. You might want to hook your reader up once in a while for firmware updates, though.

Kobo support is not helpful². Therefore, it is a good thing you can buy it at local stores and can just take it there if something is wrong. What I dislike most is that there is no way to structure Kobo’s library, you can not even filter by author, tag or series. Library search is very good, though, and helps out in this regard. You can also add books to a list of favorites which is always shown on the home screen. They change the user interface regularly, though. I bought my Kobo with firmware version 1.9.11; updating to 1.9.16 changed a lot, so definitely make sure to upgrade! For people who are interested in audio features it is noteworthy that Kobo Touch does not have any.

I like reading ebooks with the Kobo Touch more than I thought I would. It has certain advantages over real books, both logistically and technically. There are lots of DRM free and even free books around today; I have read classics, self-published books from indie writers and books hard to get in Germany. I hope that there will be DRM free mainstream books in the future to fully exploit my ereader.

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Before They Are Hanged by Joe Abercrombie continues right from where The Blade Itself left off; in this book, the story starts rolling. While all characters converged in Adua during the prequel, they now scatter in almost all directions. Collem West travels aide to Lord Marshal Burr, the army’s commander-in-chief, into the north; Bethod has finally moved his armies into Angland and forced the Union to fight back. They lead mostly untried lads, the only experienced troops under the command of two generals who put their rivalry before military sense. As if that was not bad enough, pampered Crown Prince Ladisla tags along, his mind set to harvest glory for himself.

Inquisitor Glotka heads in the opposite direction; he has reveiced a delicate mission from the head of Inquisition himself: He is to return to the country of his downfall. The city of Dagoska, won from the Gurkish during the last war, threatens to fall to its old master. Glotka is to make sure the city holds no matter what and solve his predecessor’s mysterious disappearance while he is at it.

The rest of the cast including Logen and Jezal is dragged to the far west by suspicious magus Bayaz. Their goal is to obtain a powerful magical relic with which to fight Bayaz’ former colleague Kalul who draws the strings behind the Gurkish war effort. Not exactly role-models and trusting traveling companions, the party has to meet more than one challenge on their trip, a fair number of them between the members themselves.

If volume one was a book of introduction, this one is of transformation. Most characters are pushed outside their comfort zone, have to cope and come through changed. This is most notable in Jezal, of course, who gets his first impression of real life. In others like Glotka or West, changes are more subtle with them actively questioning themselves. Bayaz and Logen appear more settled, almost fixpoints. I am not sure why Bayaz keeps Logen around but he sure as sunset as a big plot going with none the wiser.

Oh but I like these books. I am not sure I follow all praise out there to the letter, but more on that after I finished the series. There is not much to say about this book on its own—without spoiling, that is—as it builds suspension and potential that is bound to be released in the series’ final volume. Can’t wait!

If you want to buy an e-reader in Germany, you are up for some hard decisions as the local industry has not quite jumped on the train yet. If you look for opinions on the web, you will find mostly US-based reviews. Over there, people talk—besides tablets—mostly about Barnes & Noble’s Nook and Amazon’s Kindle. As Nook is not available in Germany at all and Kindle only in old versions¹ and for much more money than in the US², what to do³?

Meet Kobo Touch! Reviews place it closely to both Nook and Kindle and it can be bought for 129€ from a major German electronics chain. If you think that is expensive, keep in mind that even the cheaper Kindles (which do not have touch displays) are only cheaper because you are exposed to advertisements; Kobo is ad-free, as far as I know. So, Kobo’s technology is about as good as the main competitor’s but it is

• available,
• affordable and,
• supports EPUB and some other less-popular formats.

Especially the last item is ignored by many US reviewers, much to my surprise. It appears to me that people over there are content to bind themselves to the store their eReader connects to⁴; not me. You can read any e-book on a Kobo, and that is a big plus.

Besides, I have major issues with Amazon trying to establish a monopoly using DRM and a format almost no one else uses⁵. Once you’ve bought a Kindle and some books for it, you are pretty much stuck.

Story:
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Joe Abercrombie’s The Blade Itself is the fist book in his acclaimed series The First Law. Tree main point of view characters stand out from the impressive cast: Logen Ninefingers, infamous warrior from the North, Sand dan Glotka, prodigy swordsman turned crippled torturer and Jezal dan Luthar, complacent army officer training for the yearly fencing contest.

Logen barely survives a vicious attack by a pack of Shanka, barely sentient and ever hungry creatures from another age. Certain that his mates are dead he moves south. He gets tangled in the schemes of ancient First Magus Bayaz who has special plans for the barbarian, including using his muscle and special fighting talents on their trip south to the city of Adua, capital of the Union.

Glotka used to be the army’s rising star in his time. Then he was captured by the Gurkish Emperor and broken during two years of brutal torture. When he returned home both his spirit and his body are disfigured beyond repair. His friends have abandoned him since so he has joined the Inquisition where he can put his cruel experience to use. His superior Arch Lector Sult uses the bitter cripple to advance his very own schemes for power, all too sure that Glotka will always get the desired answers out of prisoners unlucky enough to end up in his chair.

Noble son Jezal dan Luthar spends his time drinking, gambling and admiring himself. He regards his training with legendary swordsman Varuz as general nuisance if not torture and wonders whether the prospect of the honors he can achieve by winning the Contest is really worth the trouble. Only when he meets his friend’s unconventional sister does he start reflecting what he does and thinks and applying himself.

Unlikely as it seems, these diverse characters converge in Adua and influence each others lives. How this is going to pan out eventually is left for the sequels.

Books I enjoy do usually have heroes with interesting quirks. Abercrombie takes this to the extreme; his characters are embodied quirks with some heroism in them. Logen, for all his combat and survival skills, is hopeless around civilised people and becomes a shivering husk in a city, Jezal is a spoiled, arrogant pain in the ass and Glotka is so bitter even he himself jokes about it. Abercrombie manages to make me laugh with about his refreshingly cruel humor and never gets even close to being sappy. His characters kill, cheat, lie and mess up on a regular basis; although clearly exaggerated, they seem more real than many “real” heroes in fantasy literature. There is a lot of swearing, political incorrectness and mention of body fluids. All characters have clearly distinctive narrative voices; a great example is what and how they think about the city of Adua, its inhabitants and everyday life. Abercrombie even sacrifices literary style for message: grammar and punctuation—so many exclamation marks!—are adjusted liberally to fit the talking character.

The Blade Itself is a great book. Many critics mention its distinctiveness in the genre and its gritty tone; I have enjoyed it for more than that. Note that this book focuses heavily on characters and their relationships as well as world-building; the series’ story has yet to take off. That’s what the sequels are for, I guess.

Aesthetics aside, item placement is just bad. You would want the items to fill the available space somewhat. In normal documents, package enumitem allows you to control such things both globally and per environment. It seems to conflict with beamer, though. I headed over to tex.SE and got good answers; Werner suggests to add this to the preamble:

\usepackage{etoolbox}
\makeatletter
\patchcmd{\@listI}{\itemsep3\p@}{\itemsep3em}{}{}
\makeatother

With this, your beamer slides do way better:

Note that you can adjust spacing by changing number and unit in \itemsep3em.

I have posted about Stackexchange before. Helpful folks on various sites have solved many a problem I have had since then. I have posted a bunch of answers which—hopefully—helped out others in return. To say the least, I am convinced of the StackExchange model and am continually amazed at its effectiveness.

The wealth of knowledge saved on the StackExchange network¹ has become so extensive that if you google for programming or LaTeX related problem almost certainly a question on Stackoverflow or tex.SE comes up. If not, asking there is often faster than searching the webs and/or trying around. Especially on tex.SE you can expect great answers in a matter of hours.

Now an exciting thing has happened: A proposal for a computer science site has reached commitment phase! That means that a number of people have to vote for the site in order to move it to a beta phase after which it will be a full-fledged member of the network². The new site is to complement Stackoverflow and its derivates on one and cstheory.SE on the other side, filling the massive gap in between. I am very excited about this; if the community on cs.SE can be only half as good as on some other sites we are about to create the best resource for computer science students, researchers and users the web has seen so far.

But we are not there yet! First we have to have enough people commit to using the new site, then we need a successful beta. If you want this to happen, head over to area51, commit and be part of the community from the start!

4 ABY

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Mysterious aliens that enslave humans in order to power their odd technology attack backwater world Bakura. Because the Imperial Navy is busy reforming after the disaster over Endor, the Rebellion decides to help. Literally one day after his battle with Vader and the Emperor, Luke is to commandeer a rescue force with Leia, Han and Chewbacca tagging along. They arrive at Bakura just in time to fend of the latest alien attack and are confronted with natives who are less than eager to accept help from declared traitors.

If you accept the premise of a vile species that wants to conquer the galaxy and happens to begin with it just now, the general plot is enjoyable. Our main characters deal with the effects of the latest battle and revelations; in particular, Luke still has yet to find his place as a Jedi while Leia has to come to terms with Vader being her father. Other than that, The Truce at Bakura is a truly average book. Fans will want to read it as the depicted events are mentioned later.