Embedding fonts to pdf files....

.. can be painful. I've needed to do this twice, and both times it has been equally oppressive. First time, for my submission to ICALT 2009, I used pdflatex. This however, requires that you won't use eps figures and this can be sometimes impossible (especially if you have used massive amount of eps figures), and generally I just don't like pdflatex that much.

Today, it seems I found a way to embed fonts to latex based pdf files by using the latex->dvips ->ps2pdf way. So, this is what I did (and believe me, it took plenty of time to figure out):

1. I've been using these three command in my preamble. Have no idea why, but there they have been (most likely some of them are from the original template I've been using (phd thesis template of dept of CS)).
\usepackage[utf8]{inputenc}
\usepackage[T1]{fontenc}
\usepackage{amsfonts}

2. Now, I found a link which pointed out that unicode might be the problem here... thus,

3. I commented fontenc and amsfonts away.... then

4. dvitops, and then

5. using this mighty spell, I got finally all the fonts embedded to the pdf file:
ps2pdf -dCompatibilityLevel=1.4 -dPDFSETTINGS=/printer -dMaxSubsetPct=100 -dSubsetFonts=true -dEmbedAllFonts=true mainofficial.ps

(obviously, you need to change the mainofficial.ps to yourfilename if you're willing to give this a try)

Again, I don't understand all of this, but it does the trick and I'm happy with it. Now, using pdffonts and acroreads document properties it can be confirmed that all fonts are indeed embedded. Excellent. Now I can read my phd thesis with zoom levels such as 2400% and still have nice and clear fonts... what could be better than that??

http://johnnylee.net/projects/wii/
http://blogs.msdn.com/coding4fun/archive/2007/03/14/1879033.aspx

What should be automated?

What should be automated asked PhD Tedre in his article published in Proceedings of the 1st ACM international workshop on Human-centered multimedia.

Now, I'm asking how you should tell the user about the automation? Why? I tell you.

As you might know, we use this daylight saving time in Finland and that we changed to this time this year during the night between 28th and 29th of March. Naturally, this means that some of the clocks need to be changed manually to new time, and some, such as computers usually change the time automatically.

The problem with this is that you really don't know what devices change their time automatically and which dont. My wife changed her mobile phones time by herself on saturday evening. Everything fine, until this morning (Monday, March 30th). Her alarm, yes the mobile phone, went on at 5.50 instead of 6.50. Why? Because of the automated change. She had added one hour to the time on Saturday (would have caused alarm to go on at 6.50, which would have been ok) and then, at the right time, the automation did it again which, then, caused the infernal 5.50 alarm.

Thus. What should be automated is a really relevant question, but even more relavant is to let the user know what is automated. How this could be done, is a question I leave some else to answer.

PyXPlot

http://www.pyxplot.org.uk/

Handy.

1 0 5 m (dnf)

I think I mentioned some time ago that my aim for diving this year, was to reach 100 meters. And yes, without fins. Well, I'm proud to announce that it ain't just an aim anymore. Friday November 21st I dived 105 meters without fins (that is DNF, dynamic no fins).

Sami had been telling me that diving without warm up (that is, no dives before the long dive) would be good idea. I, however, had been against the idea because I always felt that diving is easier after couple of dives. Now I decided to give it a try, and yes, it worked!

Unfortunately I forgot to stop my stopwatch after the dive, but according to my rather standard speed this dive took bit more than 2 minutes.

DNF 87

This is sort of training diary post.

19.9.2008, Vesikko

warmup:
12 times 25 meters in 12 minutes, such that about 30sec dive + rest -> total 1 min each.

3 times 50 meters, with bit longer rests (couple mins, did not take time, should have).

approx 6 minutes rest.

87 meters. Quite easy, bit weird "tickling" in legs at some point and due to this I did not take the dive to absolute max.

http://www.freedivingfinland.net/results/index.php?op=profile&diver_id=105

How deep can you go?

Very.

We went today for a dive at Leinonen, a small lake nearby Ylämylly. It's nice place to dive since it has very clear water. However, this time we were not that interested about the visibility, but the depth of the lake. So, the idea today was to make deep dives.

Sami had this buoy/weight/line system with him that allows safe dives to depths. Every time someone dives he/she is attached to this system with a short piece of string; the other end at the line and other to divers wrist. At the weight, which naturally is in the depths, in order to make it easier to see where the "goal" is. Today it was around 20 meters.

I first did couple of dives to somewhere between 10 and 15 meters. It felt a bit strange, since I normally dive in places where at these depths you would already see the bottom. However, I got used to it quite soon and was able to enjoy the dives.

After some practice dives I decided that it is time to go for the max. After somewhat easy dive now 20.6 meters is the deepest I've been (without scuba diving gear, this was freediving). However, when I was come back to the surface I noticed another line about 5 meters from our line (to which I was attached to). This made me feel very strange, as I thought that I had somehow escaped the line. Luckily this was not the case, but the other line was (most likely) a old fishing net buoy.