barefootliam

XML, XSLT, Web, CSS, Fonts, spec editing... it/its or they/them or he/him...
fromoldbooks.org
delightfulcomputing.com and

lgbt2q+ safe space

Pronouns
it / they / him, as you wish
2026-02-11

A bit late for #markupmonday but here we go :)

The schedule and registration for JATSCon can be found at niso.plus/niso-plus-2026-balti

JATS is the Journal Article Tag Set, an XML vocabulary used for interchange and archiving of journals.

2026-02-07

fromoldbooks.org/Brennecke-Wec

This 1880s engraving illustrates a poem by Leonie Meyerhof (1858 – 1933), Im Waldesdom, or, In the forest Cathedral.

The sunbeams are called crepuscular rays *by people who like long words). The roof of the forest is perhaps compared to the vaulted ceiling of a Gothic cathedral.

Transcription of the poem at the linked page and in alt text for the poem image.

#vintageEngraving #vintageArt #germanPoetry #forest #crepuscular #fobo #Meyerhof

We see a forest with tall straight trunks topped by spreading branches forming almost a vaulted ceiling. The sun’s rays slant down from the left side, and a number of people are walking singly or in pairs. There is a broken tree-stump, hollow, in the foreground.Im Waldesdom.

Hoch, wo grüne Bogen Frönen

Der lebend’gen Säulen Reih’n,

Hallt es wie von Orgeltönen,

Wächst und schwillt zu mächt’gem Dröhnen

Und verschwebt in leifen, schönen,

Undachtsernsten Melodei’n.



Seines schönsten Domes Hallen

Hat der Ew’ge selbst erbaut,

Wo ihm tausend Lieder schallen,

Süsse Weihrauchdüste wallen,

Und zu seinen Betern allen

Mild herab der Himmel schaut.
 




High where green arches worship

The living columns’ rows,

It resounds like organ tones,

Growing and swelling to a mighty roar

And floating away in gentle, beautiful,

unreverent melodies.



The halls of his most beautiful cathedral

The Eternal One himself built,

Where a thousand songs resound for him,

Sweet clouds of incense drift,

And to all his worshippers,

Heaven looks down gently.
2026-02-03

Two markup/XML conferences announced today

XML Prague - xmlprague.cz/ in... er... Prague... and

26th annual meeting of the Text Encoding Initiative (TEI) tei2026.tei-c.org/ in Vancouver.

Don’t forget also Balisage - balisage.net/

#MarkupMonday #TEI #tei2026 #XML #XMLPrague #XML_Prague #conference #balisage #markup #digitalHumanities #techDoc

2026-02-02

fromoldbooks.org/Brennecke-Wec

A German poem, Abendlied, or, Evening song by Friedrich Rückert was in the blank area in this full-page illustration.

Signed i think HARLEY, prolly John J. Harley, about whom i know very little. The engraver made the lines for the sky a bit wonky, and it was hard to avoid interference fringes on downsizing.

#GIMP #Gimp_3 #vintageArt #vintageEngraving #castle #sheep #bucolicScenes #rural #rural_life #fobo

This engraving fills most of a page with a scene of a ruined stone archway with towers on either side leading perhaps to the courtyard of an overgrown medieval castle, perched on the side of a hill.

A shepherd guides sheep down the path through the arch towards us. In the background another shepherd with more sheep, and, further, perhaps haystacks. the blank space here contained a poem in German.
2026-01-30

fromoldbooks.org/Brennecke-Wec

Like the headpiece on the same page, the tailpiece ornament shown here is uncredited.

The nine-petaled crown of the Lady of the Stylized Acanthus Leaves?

But it is amazing how much work went into such small details.

#vintageEngraving #GIMP #GIMP3 #Gimp3 #FOBO #acanthus #tailpiece #ornament #face #vintageArt #blackAndWhite #slightlyCreepy

Black and white engraving. Stylized acanthus leaves and roses surround the head  of a  woman wearing a tiara or crown in this quirky end-of-chapter tailpiece or ornament.
2026-01-29

In December i received a (pdf) copy of a literary journal that uses images from www.fromoldbooks.org - toothcutjournal.com/

They are also at instagram.com/toothcutjournal/ and bsky.app/profile/toothcutjourn

Also, i don’t thi8nk i mentioned here, i can find images and clean them up, for less than King Charles pays for a pair of socks.

#toothcutjournal #poetry #toothcutjournal #canadianWriters
#creativeWriting #literaryCulture

Some 40cm more snow today (16 to 18 inches).

2026-01-28

@abcoates or for cold weather maybe, early snow goggles :)

The blindfold is not really classical, but was added during the Renaissance, as i understand it.

2026-01-27

XQuery & XPath users, watch out - i spent a day debugging!

Turns out in BaseX & i think XPath 4 (upcoming), `else` clauses are optional.

This is unexpected in an expression language -

`let $name := if ($p) then get-name($p)
return some-func($name)`

is the same as

`let $name := if ($p) then get-name($p) else ( )
return some-func($name)`

but in a multi-screen if/then/else it’s more likely you just forgot the else() or mismatched some parens.

#xquery #MarkupMonday #basex #xpath #xslt4

2026-01-26

fromoldbooks.org/ModerneKunst-

Danaë, mother of Perseus. One can almost imagine the sky-god Zeus watching her dance here.

It was a little startling to open this huge book (some 400mm/16 inches tall) and see this full-page painting reproduced: you can almost feel the brush strokes.

It’s always tempting to increase chorma/saturation & make a more modern-feeling picture!

#Schram #AloisHansSchram #vintageArt #greekMyth #toplessWoman #vintageArt #fobo #GIMP #Gimp_3 #Summer #painting #art

A young woman dances with one arm stretched out and upwards towards the warm Summer sun, the light shining down on her through the woodland trees in a cascade of yellow. She wears a diaphanous dress that seems to have fallen off, leaving her upper half bare. With half-lidded eyes and a half-smile, she is living inthe moment.
barefootliam boosted:
2026-01-25

gimp.org/news/2026/01/24/gimp-

GIMP 3.0.8 released today.

A new version of the manual, including more translation work; fixes to bugs people have been kind enough to report.

Startup performance improved on many systems; colour profiles on Windows; SVG path import;
some minor UI improvements; security fixes; see link for more.

This might be the final 3.0 release before 3.2.

#GIMP #GIMP3 #Gimp_3 #release #freeSoftware #libreGraphics #GNU #GnuImageEditor

barefootliam boosted:
2026-01-25

Today I learned some dogs not only understand sign languages, but words spelled out in them

youtube.com/shorts/eUmzK2oS768

2026-01-23

@nomis oh - do not need transcription of the one i sent by mistake, thank you though! A friend not on Mastodon sent a corrected version, i misread “w’ as “ro” in a couple of places.

2026-01-23

@nomis oops yipes, i sent the wrong one, that one was for the Justice picture the previous day, sorry!!

The greyscale one is from the scan i did, the other from an online version at digi.ub.uni-heidelberg.de/digl and digi.ub.uni-heidelberg.de/digl (i can't work the 2nd link to go forward a page but the pdf works)

caption for yesterday’s picturescanned caption, the same (they are in German)
2026-01-23
Scan of text that i think i misread, in German (maybe in Rudolf Koch’s Koch Antiqua typeface with different capitals? )
2026-01-23

@SofaFernsehFan @byggvir haha now it makes sense, i will update the description today, thank you!

2026-01-23

fromoldbooks.org/Jugend-1900/p

There’s what i think is meant to be an anti-English joke about how slowly they (we) drink beer associated with this, but Google Translate mangled it, i think. See the link - can anyone help with a better translation?

At any rate he seems to be a very ugly boy, but maybe it’s the hair giving him a skinhead look.

#Jugend #JugendStile #vintageArt #cartoon #fobo #family #GIMP #Gimp_3 #barefoot #artNouveau

A black and white sketch, almost a cartoon. A lady with a hat and long dress. A man wearing a bow tie and tweed sporting jacket. A boy, barefoot, holding a bottle or can up to his mouth to drink. It is signed PR 1900, and attributed to Paul Rieth.black and white sketch (charcoal maybe?) of a boy with short hair drinking from a beer stein. This is a detail from another picture.
2026-01-22

@linguacelta @bosak thanks, i think you have a good interpretation; i didn’t think of money sack. And for the artist, who lived in a commune and believed in eating vegetarian food and going naked in nature, this would also make sense.

2026-01-21

@bosak good point, the heart on our left seems heavier :) and maybe they relate to the people below her.

Marian and Michael Sperberg-McQueen very kindly sent me the two Jugend books i have, years ago. They are in poor condition, i think very acid paper, and hard to scan from.

#symbolism

2026-01-21

fromoldbooks.org/Jugend-1900/p

Here we see justice as represented in classical art - the blindfold of impartiality (hah) started appearing in the 15th or 16th century.

I have no idea about steaming hearts (?) in her hands, nor about the women on either side, nor what the right-hand person is standing upon. Nor the bird on her helmet actually. Clearly i am no art historian!

Any ideas?

#Justice #Justititia #nudity #woman #lion #fobo #vintageEngraving #artNouveau #JugendStile #GIMP #Gimp_3

The woman representing Justice here is blindfolded (as usual in art) representing impartiality. She rides a lion to symbolise power and authority. She holds a steaming heart in each of her outstretched hands, and her breasts are bare. She wears a helmet with a bird on top, wings outstretched. There is a long-haired naked woman to one side of her, and a clad woman standing on something at the right.

Her name, Justitia, appears at the top of the picture. We see her bare feet on either side of the lion, showing that she is riding its back.

Black line drawing on yellow background.
2026-01-20

fromoldbooks.org/Various-Musae

A knight, on foot, fighting a dragon. The image was captioned Putrefactio, or, rot, and seems to be an allegory of the knight fighting rot. It could be an early ad for bleach, but no, it’s more likely the inner journey of purification we must go through, in this occult book on the Philosopher’s Stone.

#occult #dragon #knight #battle #vintageArt #alchemy #vintageEngraving #fobo #GIMP #GIMP3 #Gimp_3 #allegory

Black and white engraving or woodcut of a knight on foot fighting a dragon.

In more detail: the dragon stands on the ground in the foreground with its mouth open, tongue extended, tail coiled, wings partly lifted. It faces the bearded knight, in leather armour, who wields a sword over the dragon’s head and holds a shield, a cape flowing behind him. There are trees on either side to frame the woodcut, and in the background a lake and behind that a castle on a hill.

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