The Tsar liked them and ordered to put the letterforms in his Treasury. Thus, nobody could use them or even see them for the next 100+ years.

"A typical Russian story," noted Ruderman sadly.

He lives now in Riga, and his company is registered in Armenia & Georgia.

2/2

Ilya Ruderman from CSTM fonts told a funny story in his lecture about the history of Cyrillic.

Bodoni made beautiful Cyrillic typefaces (you can see the samples in his Manuale Typograficum). They were gifted to Alexander I during the short thaw between Russia and France

1/2

Opinion | Someone Tipped Me Off About a Crypto Story. What I Found Was Crazy.

An article in NYT (www.nytimes.com/2025/10/05/o...). A whiz kid who made millions in crypto has been kidnapped by his former friend, the de facto ruler of Georgia, beaten and forced to give away his crypto.

The techbros supporting Trump do not understand that this is their future as well.

A talented font artist from India Rajeesh KV added math to the beautiful typeface Arsenal by a Ukrainian artist Andrij Shevchenko: ctan.org/pkg/arsenal-...

A rare example of a sans serif font with the full math support.

#TeXLaTeX #fonts

Speaking of which, this play could be saved if the jokes were funny. I have heard this was the situation with the sitcom. Unfortunately, those in the play were rather saccharine and predictable.

Mercifully, the play was very short.

5/5

Even the bespectacled face of Kim was an exact copy of hundreds of bespectacled old workers in Soviet plays — of course, this character belonged to a petite bourgeoisie, which makes the situation funnier.

4/5

Likable but backward older people? Check. A new generation showing them the right way (in this case about interracial dating and marriage)? Check. A reformed criminal who found goodness in his soul? Check.

3/5

I did not watch the Netflix sitcom, but I liked Soulpepper, so when it brought the play to SF, I came to the show.

The play was written in the tradition of Socialist Realism and reminded me of a typical Soviet play or a movie.

2/5

Ins Choi wrote Kim's Convenience and staged it in 2011 in Toronto Soulpepper Theater with himself playing the young Jung. Then he produced a 65-episode sitcom on Netflix, and when the sitcom closed, he revived the Soulpepper show with himself playing the older Appa.

1/5

Bill English, the artistic leader of SF Playhouse, chose to direct this play himself. I think I know why.

4/4

They courageously continue despite their world collapsing. The thought that whatever happens we have the job to do, the proverbial show that must go on, the message we are given to convey — even the silly message about the importance of old-fashioned sardines — is timely

3/4

First, life has not been kind for us all recently. A good farce is a great way to get the badly needed dose of laughter.

However, there is a second layer. The characters stage a play while their own lives are being upended.

2/4

There is a quality of certain books, movies, and shows that can be called timeliness. This is exactly what one needs at the moment.

I feel that Noises Off by @sfplayhouse.org has been such a show for me.

1/4

I grew up in the USSR. I remember our leaders with dementia sending our money to prop up corrupt and incompetent regimes in Latin America and Africa because they have been "ideological allies. "

Thus, there is nothing new for me when Trump is sending money to Xavier Milei.

The Failure of 21st Century Liberalism - Lawyers, Guns & Money I strongly believe that what Trump is showing is the complete rotten core of 21st century liberalism–and I define this broadly for despite what the say, almost all the self-defined “left” are essentia...

One of the best essays I have read recently.

www.lawyersgunsmoneyblog.com/2025/09/the-...

Visa violation is not a felony. It is not even a misdemeanor in most circumstances. Law treats it like illegal parking.

So next time you get a parking ticket, you are going to prison in chains. Because a sleazy mayoral candidate wants to appear tough on parking.

2/2

Some people claim that Korean engineers violated the terms of their visas. Thus, their treatment was somehow justified.

First, we do not know whether they did. This is for the lawyers to find out. But let us for the argument sake stipulate they did.

1/2

I disagreed with the late Charlie Kirk on a lot of issues. However, I share his position on Epstein files. We must open them and punish the perpetrators.

It is possible he died for this.

The only group clearly benefitting from Kirk's death is Trumpists.

What happened to the old Cui Prodest principle?

"Thus the Tories in England long imagined that they were enthusiastic about monarchy, the church, and the beauties of the old English Constitution, until the day of danger wrung from them the confession that they are enthusiastic only about ground rent."

Karl Marx

The cat got a prescription diet after a minor surgery. Now he refuses to eat anything else.

The internet is full of advice how to make a cat to eat prescription diet. Nobody says how to make him to stop.

I have on my laptop a copy of John Bolton's memoir about Trump. I wonder, is it safe to cross the US border with this laptop? What about having with me it during a traffic stop?

Time to refresh my skills of hiding forbidden books acquired during my Soviet youth.

James Dobson, Burn in Hell - Lawyers, Guns & Money James Dobson is dead. Finally. This awful homophobe made the world a significantly worse place by his living in it. His brand of hate was tremendously influential in the modern Republican Party. Futur...

There are some good news too

www.lawyersgunsmoneyblog.com/2025/08/jame...

Government papers found in an Alaskan hotel reveal new details of Trump-Putin summit Documents with sensitive details about the meeting between President Trump and Russian President Putin were left behind on a public hotel printer.

When I was a postdoc, I once left my workstation unlocked. The student sysadmin told me, "When I see an unlocked workstation for the second time, I type there 'rm -rf ~'".

When I worked in industry, we got chewed if we left sensitive papers on the desks.

www.npr.org/2025/08/16/n...

Hannah Arendt and the Constitution of Freedom This week I gave a lecture at the University of São Paulo in Brazil that asked, Why Law Alone Can’t Defend Democracy—and why Only Power Can Check Power.  | Hannah Arendt Center...

TIL the thought I have been promoting for quite some time is actually not mine. It belongs to Hanna Arendt.

"Law, on its own, is incapable of restraining political action." Only a power can check power.

See this great lecture hac.bard.edu/amor-mundi/h...

Three decades ago, Margarita Rodnikova wrote a review of my PhD thesis (Nikolay Malomuzh was my advisor)

authors.elsevier.com/a/1lb6wc8qpi...

Die Maske des Bösen
Bertolt Brecht

An meiner Wand hängt ein japanisches Holzwerk
Maske eines bösen Dämons, bemalt mit Goldlack.
Mitfühlend sehe ich
Die geschwollenen Stirnadern, andeutend
Wie anstrengend es ist, böse zu sein.

I recalled visiting a printing museum. Most printing machines in the 19th century did not churn Wordsworth poems, Shakespeare plays, or Bibles. Instead, they printed endless lined journals for bookkeeping.

2/2

I have read a Gothic story by Conan Doyle. The character, among other things, was able to decipher cuneiform and read the ancient occult books.

He would be disappointed to know that the vast majority of tablets are mundane bookkeeping entries.

1/2