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{% extends "website/base.djhtml" %}

{% load i18n %}

{% load static %}

{% block title %}{% translate "About myself" %}{% endblock title %}

{% block description %}{% blocktranslate trimmed %}A page where I talk about myself, what I

	do, what I (dis)like, ...{% endblocktranslate %}

{% endblock description %}

{% block main %}

{# TODO sections: languages "link naar paper"; meer redenen voor mijn website en waarom ik trots ben daarop #}

<section>

<p>

    {% blocktranslate trimmed %}Hello! Thanks for stopping by! As I mentioned on my

    homepage, My name is Maarten. I'm a {{ age }} years old student, and I dabble in

    a lot of things that I enjoy doing.

    Some of these things I put on display here, my website, for the world to

    see!<br>

    On this page, I talk a bit about myself, my daily routine, what I do, my

    view on life, ...

    It's not all-encompassing, and I've narrowed it down quite a bit to the most

    important things. I share more about me (and other interesting things) on 

    my blog, so be sure to check that out

    as well!

    {% endblocktranslate %}

</p>

<h3 id="kodumuli">{% translate "Hacking" %}</h3>

<p> 

    {% blocktranslate trimmed %}What I do most at work and in my spare time is

    hacking/coding. It's kind of my jam. I've 

        been working and playing with computers since I was a toddler, so it

        shouldn't come as a surprise that that became a big hobby for me.

        I'm doing a lot of other things as well, but they're either not really well

        enough developed to talk about, or too minor to mention.

    {% endblocktranslate %}

</p>

<h3 id="muziko">{% translate "Music" %}</h3>

<p>

    {% blocktranslate trimmed %}I don't like rap and pop music. I get annoyed by

        hearing most of it, so I try to avoid it. Especially recent popular songs can

        irritate me to no end, almost without exception. Luckily I don't get that much

        joy out of listening music anyway, so I don't feel like I miss out a lot.<br>

    {% endblocktranslate %}

</p>

<h3 id="manĝaĵo">{% translate "Food" %}</h3>

<p>

    {% blocktranslate trimmed %}I'm an omnivore, and eat everything that I like to eat. I like

        a variety of different things, but I heavily dislike pureed food, beans

        and peas, and complex desserts. I'll seldom turn down things like

        hamburgers, pizzas, ...<br>

        Spaghettis (and other pastas) are extremely satisfying for me to eat, because

        practically

        everyone knows how to make it, but almost every time I try someone's version,

        it's a different taste. I love how many varieties of all the pastas exist!<br>

        This is quite the opposite with fries: Only Belgians seem to know how

        fries are served properly. I've seen (and sadly, tasted) the ways fries

        are prepared abroad, and it's often an insult against our national

        pride, so much so that I avoid eating them outside of Belgium.<br>

        I enjoy Belgian fries a lot, but I am picky about them. I consider my portion

        "great" if fresh potatoes are used, they're medium sized, and well baked,

        topped off with a generous amount of (real) mayonnaise. Eating them with a

        <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frikandel" target="_blank">frikandel</a>

        makes me feel like a true Belgian.<br>

        These days my diet is mostly vegetarian; I make an effort to restrict

        purchasing meat as much as possible. This definitely helps to reduce my

        carbon footprint. Even though vegetarian replacements are still

        incredibly expensive, I will keep buying them for the foreseeable

        future.

    {% endblocktranslate %}

</p>

<h3 id="narkotoj">{% translate "Drugs" %}</h3>

<p>

  {% blocktranslate trimmed %}I have banned recreational use of all drugs out of my life for as long as I

  can remember. This includes nicotine products and alcoholic beverages.<br>

  I do this for multiple reasons:

  <ul>

	<li>I don't believe drugs are necessary to have fun. When I'm with friends

	they may be drinking alcohol, but I enjoy my time just as much with

	  non-alcoholic drinks like sodas.</li>

	<li>Drugs are unhealthy. Most of them cause damage to organs, and can badly

        affect the body long-term. I have no desire for any of that.</li>

	<li>For social purposes, it's always easy that I am the person that's

	sober. This can be for multiple reasons; an emergency, being the driver of

	  the evening, ...</li>

	<li>Drugs alter the user's perception of, and actions in reality. I don't

	  have any need to go through that. I enjoy being sober.</li>

  </ul>

  That being said, I do see why people enjoy them, and I've read about how

  cannabis is sometimes used for medical purposes (which I would do as well

  should I need it, since that's not recreational), so I don't oppose to others

  using them, nor do I refrain from buying them if I know they will be consumed

  in moderation. I do oppose to usage that inflicts harm to others, or in

  general, forces other people to use it as well in a passive way.{% endblocktranslate %}

</p>

<h3 id="studoj">{% translate "Studies &amp; work" %}</h3>

<p>

    {% blocktranslate trimmed %}I hold an undergraduate Informatics degree from Hasselt University.

    (coloquially named UHasselt), and a graduate degree of Scientific

    Engineering Informatics from Ghent University, specialisation Artificial

    Intelligence.<br>

    Currently I'm employed as a doctorate researcher at the University of

    Antwerp. I chose this because I want to keep learning about informatics as

    much as possible, and researching it at a university is the best way to do

    that.

    {% endblocktranslate %}

</p>

<p>

  {% blocktranslate trimmed %}I cycle approximately 13 kilometres per day, because I use my

  bicycle to commute to work. I also use my bicycle for getting around in

  general. That way, I can combine my need for transport with my need to sport.

  This saves me a lot of time, because I don't have to spend it with going to a

  gym.

  {% endblocktranslate %}

</p>

<h3 id="politics">{% translate "Politics" %}</h3>

    {% blocktranslate trimmed %}I keep myself informed about political subjects that

    interest me. A list of some subjects I follow with hightened attention:

    <ul>

        <li>Law enforcement</li>

        <li>Public transport</li>

        <li>Climate mayhem</li>

        <li>Freedom and privacy</li>

        <li>Human rights</li>

        <li>Digital agenda</li>

        <li>Copyright abuse &amp; reform</li>

        <li>Belgian communautarian debate</li>

        <li>Governmental &amp; corporate accountability</li>

    </ul>

    I also hold opinions on many issues, which I believe to be rational (but

    who doesn't, right?), but I don't feel attached to a political orientation, nor do I

    change my viewpoint to better align with one. I will say that <em>in

    general</em> I tend to lean towards ideas that ecological parties and pirate

    parties often espouse. But again, my opinions might differ

    drastically. Do ask me if you would like to know more, I'm all for

    explaining.{% endblocktranslate %}

</p>

<h3 id="computing">{% translate "How I do my computing" %}</h3>

<p>

    {% blocktranslate trimmed %}It's what I do most, so for those interested, I

    figured I'd talk about how I do the things with computers =3{% endblocktranslate %}

</p>

<p>

    {% blocktranslate trimmed %}I have a reliable computer that I built myself, a

    companion laptop through Hasselt University, and a work laptop from the

    University of Antwerp. Both run

    <a href="https://archlinux.org" target="_blank">Arch</a>,

    the best

    <a href="https://GNU.org" target="_blank">GNU</a> distro out there.

    I do almost all my stuff in

    <a href="https://www.gnu.org/software/emacs/" target="_blank">GNU Emacs</a>, like

    programming, maintaining my diary, working, and system maitenance. 

    I sometimes also use

    <a  href="https://neovim.io" target="_blank">NeoVim</a>.

    >80% of my work is text

    related, and terminals are just better at that than a fully fledged desktop

    environment.<br>

    Languages I prefer are

    <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/C_%28programming_language%29" target="_blank">C</a>,

    <a href="https://www.python.org/" target="_blank">Python</a>,

    <a href="https://clojure.org" target="_blank">Clojure</a>,

    and (my current favourite)

    <a href="https://haskell.org" target="_blank">Haskell</a>. I'm still

    learning how to fully use the latter one, which is a very exicting journey.

    It almost feels like learning to program for the second time!<br>

    I run

    <a href="https://lineageos.org/" target="_blank">Lineage OS</a>

    on my phone (In laymen terms: It's basically

    a cool and slim Android/Linux version with next to no Google interference).<br>

    Code repositories are always

    <a href="https://git-scm.com/" target="_blank">Git</a>

    repos, no exceptions. Depending on

    the project size, I use a simple dependency listing, or a recognized project

    manager like

    <a href="https://leiningen.org/" target="_blank">Leiningen</a>,

    <a href="https://STACKLINK.org/" target="_blank">Stack</a>

    or

    <a href="http://doc.crates.io/" target="_blank">Cargo</a>.

    {% endblocktranslate %}

</p>

<h4 id="retejo">{% translate "My website" %}</h4>

<p>

    {% blocktranslate trimmed %}

    My web server runs on

    <a href="https://nginx.com" target="_blank">Nginx</a>with an enabled QUIC

    module.

    The website itself is built using 

    <a href="https://djangoproject.com" target="_blank">Django</a>, a Python

    web framework that's extremely well written. Data is stored in a PostgreSQL

    database. On that amazing foundation, I've been

    able to build a very strong and secure website that's 100% mine.

    {% endblocktranslate %}

</p>

<p>

    {% blocktranslate trimmed %}I take pride in how I present my website, since

    I do so by only using the best practices, of which a lot have been forgotten by

    other web developers, even in university courses. The most noteworthy aspect

    of that is that I do not use any JavaScript in my

    website: A cornerstone of good web

    design is that your website ought to retain its functionality even if

    JavaScript is not available. I go one step further than that, and don't

    write JavaScript at all! This way, I can show the world by example that

    you <em>can</em> create nice-looking, interactive, responsive and fast

    websites for

    both desktop computers and phones without having to resort to JS.<br>

    Compare that to other websites that, once you visit them, are caught

    with their pants on their knees and a sad line of text on the upper

    left corner (if anything is shown at all) á la “Please enable

    JavaScript for our web application”, which actually means: “We're so bad at making

    websites we can't even show you some basic text and images without client-side

    scripting, yet we're so full of it we think

    our garbage qualifies for the word 'application'.” How pathetic!

    {% endblocktranslate %}

</p>

<p>

    {% blocktranslate trimmed %}This also means I do my best to respect the

    privacy of my website's visitors as much as possible. I do not block Tor

    nodes, proxies, VPNs or any other technique that help users protect their

    privacy online.{% endblocktranslate %}</p>

<p>{% blocktranslate trimmed %}

    My friends have advised me to use Cloudflare to keep my website in the air

    when it goes down and to block (D)DoS attacks. I have looked into that and

    decided to categorically reject Cloudflare entirely because of two major problems:

    {% endblocktranslate %}{% blocktranslate trimmed %}

    <ul><li>When Cloudflare is suspicious of a visitor (i.e. if the IP address is

            flagged), it will present the user a so-called Captcha. This implies

            two ethical wrongs:

        <ul><li>Cloudflare actively checks the visitor's location based on per IP

            address. Tracking people's location is unjust.</li>

            <li>Cloudflare used to require any visitor it deemed suspicious to connect to Google and force

                that visitor to help Google with annotating its datasets through

                its reCaptcha system. To add insult to injury, it paid that same

                visitor with Google surveillance in the process.

                Since 2020, Cloudflare has moved to hCaptcha, citing privacy

                concerns with Google. However, this doesn't fix the core problem,

                as it still requires one to trust another third company 

                with per data. Perhaps hCaptcha is more trustworthy than

                Google, but we cannot presume that.

        </li></ul>

        <li>Cloudflare functions by acting as a man-in-the-middle in

            encrypted (HTTPS) communication between a server and the visitor. This is

            mandatory, because otherwise, the browser would immediately inform

            the user that an unknown party (Cloudflare) is injecting its own

            data in your communication with me (maartenv.be).

            Note that I don't call this an 'attack' because I don't see this as

            malicious intent by Cloudflare. However, it does imply that

            everything you send to my server is technically completely visible

            to Cloudflare as well. This requires my visitors to put blind trust

            in Cloudflare and I cannot and will not ask them to do so.</li>

    </ul>

    {% endblocktranslate %}{% blocktranslate trimmed %}

    These are the ethical injustices that I will not impose on my users because

    of the Cloudflare convenience, and if you have a website, I hope you refuse

    it as well.<br>However, there is also a big technical issue with

    Cloudflare that gives me pause (aside from not working without JavaScript): 

    Its sheer ubiquity makes it a so-called 

    <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Single_point_of_failure">"single point of failure"</a>

    on the internet, and as such, problems with Cloudflare can ripple throughout

    all the websites it touches. These range from major data leaks (like

    <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cloudbleed">Cloudbleed</a>) to

    worldwide server outages, which can (and do) occur

    <a href="https://www.theverge.com/2022/6/21/23176519/cloudflare-outage-june-2022-discord-shopify-fitbit-peleton">from time to time</a>.

    {% endblocktranslate %}

</p>

<p>

    {% blocktranslate trimmed %}I regularly add new texts to my website, or do general

    maitenance. I try to extract time where I can, but maintaining a website

    (and doing it well) is not an easy job. 

    Nevertheless, if I find a free spot somewhere, I might very well be updating

    my website. It's satisfying work to see my own place grow under my

    fingertips, albeit slower than I want it to.<br>

    Sometimes, it might seem I've not been doing anything on my website for a

    while. This might indicate real-life obligations, but might also be

    invisible changes to the source code, which are just as important as

    anything else I do around here. 

    {% endblocktranslate %}

</p>

<p>

    {% blocktranslate trimmed %}

    I try to make my website available in multiple languages, more specifically

    in those languages that I feel comfortable enough with to translate myself.

    To this end, I use a translator program that can translate from and to more

    than 100 languages. The core of that program is made up of 

    <a href="https://apertium.org" target="_blank">Apertium</a> and the 

    <a href="link naar paper" target="_blank">M2M-100</a> neural translator

    model.

    Both of these are free/libre software, and can operate without any

    internet connection, so I highly recommend both projects for your (digital)

    translation tasks.<br>

    I refuse to use any

    <a href="https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/who-does-that-server-really-serve.html"

    target="_blank"><abbr title="Service as a Software

        Substitute">SaaSS</abbr></a> (especially if made by

    <a href="https://stallman.org/google.html" target="_blank">Google</a>),

    which means I won't use Google Translate (or any other SaaSS), because these

    services are made to take away digital independence (i.e. freedom) from the people, in the

    same way that proprietary software tries to embed digital dependence in our society.<br>

    While machine translators lack the quality of a human translator, that's no

    problem for me: I only use my program to do the "bulk translations", which are very

    tedious and can take

    up months of my time, time that I simply don't have. After those translations

    are made, I go over them manually to fix all the remaining mistakes, and add

    the missing details and contextual nuances (if necessary) that machine

    translators have a lot of trouble with. That is how I'm able to maintain

    so many different translations of my website on my own.

    {% endblocktranslate %}

</p>

<p>

    {% blocktranslate trimmed %}I use Esperanto for hyperlinks, because I want my web

    pages to be navigated in the most language-agnostic way possible, and in those cases, a

    politically neutral, international language is best.{% endblocktranslate %}

</p>

<h4 id="sociaj-retejoj">{% translate "Social media" %}</h4>

<p>

    {% blocktranslate trimmed %}I do not have/use a social media account on any big platform.

    Most of these platforms (like Facebook, Instagram, Whatsapp, ...) vehemently

    violate their <s>users'</s> useds'

    privacy in order to get more profits. I will not create an account on those.

    I also hope others will follow me in this decision, as being on platforms like

    Facebook compels others to do the same. An easy way to break their power is to

    refuse being used, and additionally, this makes it easier for others to act

    similarly.{% endblocktranslate %}

</p>

<h4 id="retumili">{% translate "Browsing" %}</h4>

<p>

    {% blocktranslate trimmed %}I fully condemn the practice of tracking people's (browser)

        habits for financial gain without proper consent (and no, clicking "I agree"

        does not imply giving proper consent),

        and I refuse to tolerate it. That's why I often browse using

        <a href="https://torproject.org" target="_blank">Tor</a>

        to conceal my identity. You can do so likewise, even for practical purposes;

        the network is steadily gaining more speed because of the growing amount of

        people concerned with their privacy. Some offer Tor nodes that speed the

        network up and increase the security. If you really want to, you can also

        help by becoming a <strong>non</strong>-exit node (because exit nodes

        may get blocked by some websites, I don't recommend doing that 

        unless you know what you're doing).

    {% endblocktranslate %}

</p>

<p id="kontrareklamo">

    {% blocktranslate trimmed %}I normally would not use an adblocker to browse the web. As much as I

    resent the use of advertisements, I understand that keeping a website up

    costs money, and advertising is an easy way to fund that, a practice of which traces

    can be found back until the Roman empire. Because their existence is not

    harmful to society either (they're merely annoying), I see no valid ethical objection to an

    advertisement on a website. I also don't oppose the

    use of adblockers by others: I think people have a right to decide whether they

    want to see ads or not.<br>

    However, I do use

    <a href="https://noscript.net" target="_blank">NoScript</a>,

    which is a <em>script blocker</em>. It helps me stay anonymous on the

    internet by blocking (mostly client side) scripts that may reveal my

    identity.<br>

    Unfortunately, a lot of websites have started using tracking scripts to

    trace what I see, what I do, what I surf to on the internet, and use that

    for advertising, profiling, and identifying me, which is ethically wrong.

    Because I oppose this practice, I go one

    step further by using <a href="https://adnauseam.io">AdNauseam</a>, which goes beyond simply

    blocking spyware-like advertising, but also randomly clicks on the ads in the

    background, which causes the advertiser to pay for a worthless

    advertisement, while at the same time 

    <a href="https://ceur-ws.org/Vol-1873/IWPE17_paper_23.pdf">it obfuscates the data obtained by Google</a>,

    <a href="https://rednoise.org/AdNauseamVsGoogle.pdf">making it decrease in value</a>.

    This is a zero-effort way for me (and you!) to

    legally rebel against an unjust system that violates our privacy for profit,

    and you get an ad-free experience in return! If there's anything I'd want

    you to remember from this entire page, is that you should install AdNauseam right

    now. Really, do it now! Do it 

    <a href="https://github.com/dhowe/AdNauseam/wiki/Install-AdNauseam-on-Chromium-based-browsers#install-adnauseam">on Chrome!</a>

    Do it 

    <a href="https://microsoftedge.microsoft.com/addons/detail/adnauseam/mlojlfildnehdpnlmpkeiiglhhkofhpb">on Edge!</a>

    Do it 

    <a href="https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/adnauseam/">on Firefox!</a>

    Do it 

    <a href="https://addons.opera.com/en/extensions/details/adnauseam-2/">on Opera!</a>

    <strong>Just do it!</strong>{% endblocktranslate %}

</p>

<h4 id="libera-programaro">{% translate "Free software" %}</h4>

<p>

    {% blocktranslate trimmed %}I am a very strong supporter of the free/libre software

    movement and organizations that battle to preserve our computing freedom,

    which I regard as a human right. I go out of my

    way to find replacements for any proprietary software, and have a high

    tolerance for practical ease of use I'm willing to sacrifice.<br>

    Very seldom, I use Windows for some programs that I need to 

    run for my university courses, as annoying and terrible I might find that.<br>

    I also voluntarily help people move from using proprietary software to free

    software. I feel responsible for doing so, because I'm an informatician, and

    not many people understand these subjects well.

    If you want to try it (on your own), you can find a lot of GNU/Linux distros on the

    internet that are pretty easy for novice free/libre software users. You can

    also install them alongside an existing operating system, giving you the

    chance to make an easy transition to computing freedom (which I admit, is

    difficult when you're not used to it). For your freedom's sake, I implore

    you to give it a shot too.{% endblocktranslate %}

</p>

<h4 id="kulturo">{% translate "Cultural works" %}</h4>

<p>

    {% blocktranslate trimmed %}Although I avoid proprietary software, I take a mild

    approach to proprietary video games. This is because games

    serve a cultural/entertainment purpose, not a general/functional

    purpose. They're a form of art, so to speak. That's a fundamental

    difference from other types of software, and that reflects in how I

    experience (the lack of) freedom in games.

    I do draw the line with

    <a href="https://www.gnu.org/proprietary/malware-games.html" target="_blank">games that

    are distributed with malware</a>, most often taking the form of

    <a

    href="https://www.defectivebydesign.org/what_is_drm_digital_restrictions_management"

    target="_blank">intrusive DRM</a>.

    <br>

    However, I still think that games also ought to be free software, because

    that would also make them free cultural works.

    Proprietary games can get

    lost because of technical changes (ranging from instruction set architecture

    to a specific high-level library or simply the DRM), making them unplayable

    as time goes on.

    {% endblocktranslate %}

</p>

</section>

{% endblock main %}