Interview with the guy who crated the vifm file manager (25.7.2008)

How to quickly edit SVG figures in Inkscape (using a custom Xlib-based shortcut manager) and insert the results in a LaTeX document. Gilles Castel is a note-taking wizard.

Takes a look at some problems in font rasterization (anti-aliasing, hinting, etc).

A valuable contribution to the oral history of pool checkers. There's also a book (I haven't read yet) by Peggy Fleming which includes interviews with every living member (in 2010) of the Capital Pool Checkers Club in Washington DC.

But this article really overstates how exotic pool checkers is, even compared to straight American checkers. It says non-crowned pieces can move backwards; but while they do capture backwards, you can't move them backward without capturing. It also says that kings move like chess queens, but unlike Frisian checkers pieces only ever move diagonally (so kings move like a bishop in chess).

Pool checkers is very much like international draughts played on an 8x8 instead of a 10x10 board (like Brazilian checkers), with the only exception that when capturing you don't have to capture the maximum number of pieces available if you don't want to.

So it is also nearly identical to Russian checkers, except a piece must end its turn on the back row to get crowned (in Russian checkers a piece can get crowned an then continue jumping).

Interview with founders of two Parkrun USA groups.

A documentary about scholastic chess in Illinois.

Short guide to analyzing chess games.

There’s something hypnotizing about watching a guy known as “the Mozart of chess”—a player who is quantifiably better than Bobby Fischer—taking a big gulp of beer, announcing his position as “completely winning,” then singing along to Dr. Dre saying “motherfuck the police” while coasting into another quick checkmate.

Useful Elo calculator.