Top all-time · #2043
Luc Devroye
Personal blog · luc.devroye.orgmathdesignscience
Luc Devroye's personal blog at luc.devroye.org covers math, design and science. Since 2013, 39 different Hacker News readers have linked it 42 times, most often “Giant book on random number generators”. No feed was found, so read it on the site itself.
Home page of Luc Devroye: Research in computer science, probability theory, and a deep archive of typography and type design.
Most-linked posts?
- Giant book on random number generators5 people · 6 mentions · first linked 2013-06-07
- /fonts-44934.html3 people · 3 mentions · first linked 2021-06-13
- /randomizedfonts.html3 people · 3 mentions · first linked 2016-06-12
- /fonts-27506.html2 people · 2 mentions · first linked 2025-04-23
- George Gorton Machine Co engraver typefaces2 people · 2 mentions · first linked 2019-04-10
- /fonts-27506.html2 people · 2 mentions · first linked 2023-08-28
What Hacker News says?
Ages ago, I consulted on a case where a converted font was included in a product --- it was even simpler than https://luc.devroye.org/kinch.html since no transformations were applied --- just had to figure out which version of which font editor was used to open up the font file and then which settings were used to re-generate the font in the new format used for the infringing product.
Comment linking /kinch.html
on “You wouldn't steal a font”Submitted An Encyclopedic Treatment of Type Design, Typefaces and Fonts as a story · 172 points
HN discussionIf it were the same file, it wouldn't be a "knock-off." It would be something like Optifonts. Very frowned upon, but definitely not illegal. Also, the kerning is usually trash, there will be way too many nodes in the vectors, and things may be missing. Annoying to work with, but in the case of Optifonts, free (because they're long out of business.) http://abfonts.freehostia.com/opti/ https://luc.devroye.org/fonts-27…
Comment linking /fonts-27506.html
on “You wouldn't steal a font”Submitted Smallest Typeface as a story · 170 points
HN discussionVery nice. Thanks a lot, that is good example of what I was looking for. To the curious, here is a link to the font: https://luc.devroye.org/fonts-59663.html
Comment linking /fonts-59663.html
on “Comic Mono”Submitted George Gorton Machine Co engraver typefaces as a story · 38 points
HN discussionNASA listed its preferred typefaces for workstation panels in Section 9.5.3.1.14.1 of NASA-STD-3000, the Man-System Integration Standards.[0] Engraved lettering, in order of preference, was set in Futura Demibold, Gorton Normal, or Gorton Condensed. They're also listed on page 113 of the Databook for Human Factors Engineers Volume I Human Engineering Data,[1] along with other very interesting design guidelines. The…
Comment linking /fonts-80708.html
on “Monotype launches the first redesign of Helvetica in 35 years”Submitted Ten commandments of authorship for scientific papers as a story · 4 points
HN discussionA truly ugly and yet beautiful typeface is the original Art Nouveau Paris Metro font Metropolitaines from 1901: http://luc.devroye.org/fonts-43924.html
Comment linking /fonts-43924.html
on “Routed Gothic Font”Submitted Bring on the Drugs as a story · 3 points
HN discussionEvery time I see the San Francisco font mentioned anywhere, I don't think of Apple's rather lovely neo-grotesque, but rather Apple's original San Francisco. (Which is also lovely, in an oh cool, this 1984 era computer has a variety of fonts kind of way.) http://luc.devroye.org/SusanKare--SanFrancisco-1984.png
Comment linking /SusanKare--SanFrancisco-1984.png
on “Apple File System Reference [pdf]”Submitted The Canadian Type Scene as a story · 2 points
HN discussionThe Palmer method descends from Spencerian script, an excessively flowery and not-all-that-legible form of writing from the days when people wanted to make their writing look difficult and fancy. Writing in a fancy style is fine for calligraphers making wedding invitations or whatever, but is a poor model for teaching children or for everyday use for most people. Italic (aka chancery cursive), a script of renaissanc…
Comment linking /Briem1985-IcelandicMethod.pdf
on “How the Ballpoint Pen Killed Cursive”Submitted Corporate Typefaces as a story · 2 points
HN discussionThis encyclopedia entry is a good overview of his work: http://luc.devroye.org/fonts-47641.html He was the designer of the widely-used Oswald font, hosted at Google Fonts, and was a passionate advocate for the creative possibilities of open source. This is his essay Free Fonts – Freeness as a Technological Component of Typeface Design : https://web.archive.org/web/20130514085121/http://code.newty... His blog at his…
Comment linking /fonts-47641.html
on “Remembering Vernon Adams, creator of KDE's user-interface font Oxygen”Submitted Giant book on random number generators as a story · 2 points
HN discussionThere’s the famous "random" font Beowulf [0], and also a list of such fonts [1]. [0] https://letterror.com/fonts/beowolf.html [1] http://luc.devroye.org/randomizedfonts.html
Comment linking /randomizedfonts.html
on “Handwritten thank you notes increase sales”Submitted Luc Devroye's Ten Commandments of Authorship as a story · 1 points
HN discussionBack in the 90s, this was done using Type 3 fonts (which have full access to the postscript language). This 1995 paper, for example, describes a technique for generative, random handwriting from samples. http://luc.devroye.org/mcdougallpaper.pdf
Comment linking /mcdougallpaper.pdf
on “Turn your handwriting into a font”Submitted Non-Uniform Random Variate Generation as a story · 1 points
HN discussionhttp://luc.devroye.org/randomizedfonts.html
Comment linking /randomizedfonts.html
on “Turn your handwriting into a font”Submitted Random dynamic fonts (1996) [pdf] as a story · 1 points
HN discussionAnd before that: http://luc.devroye.org/fonts-44934.html
Comment linking /fonts-44934.html
on “Comic Mono – a legible monospace font”Submitted Free Book: Non-Uniform Random Variate Generation by Luc Devroye (1986) as a story · 1 points
HN discussionWow, I didn't expect this post to have any traction. Many thanks for the diverse feedback. This is just a PoC of an idea I've created after reading https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21417026 . But who knows, a human readable QR code alternative could born out of this. When I looked up for this idea, I have found out http://hrqr.org/ but didn't find it much readable. Thanks to the comments here I came across OCR-A…
Comment linking /fonts-48273.html
on “Show HN: HR code – Designed to be recognized by humans and OCR”Submitted Non-Uniform Random Variate Generation as a story · 1 points
HN discussionOnce you've got pseudorandom bits working, the next step is generating variates from different distributions. Luc Devroye has a nice book on this freely available online, "Non-Uniform Random Variate Generation". http://luc.devroye.org/rnbookindex.html
Comment linking /rnbookindex.html
on “The Art of Computer Programming: Random Numbers”Not talks, but maybe an index into some names you can google to find talks. http://luc.devroye.org/usa-newyork.html
Comment linking /usa-newyork.html
on “Ask HN: What are the best typography talks?”Optifonts was doing something similar to that in the 90s. The results were generally mediocre to bad, but they were going for volume. I've used them in print for headlines and decorative fonts because you can adjust them manually until it looks pretty good. Both the backstory and the fonts are pretty interesting: http://abfonts.freehostia.com/opti/ http://luc.devroye.org/fonts-27506.html
Comment linking /fonts-27506.html
on “I had no idea that one company basically owns every font”For enjoyers of French-Canadian random number generation papers/books, there's also this excellent book on non-uniform random variate generation by Luc Devroye: http://luc.devroye.org/rnbookindex.html
Comment linking /rnbookindex.html
on “History of Uniform Random Number Generation (2017) [pdf]”
