Stéfan van der Walt
mentat.za.net
Stéfan van der Walt
@mentat.za.net
Researcher at UC Berkeley, mainly focused on Scientific Python. South African raising kids in the Californian mountains. Otherwise lives in Emacs & org-mode. Enjoys running, philosophy, history, and building things with others.
mystmd 1.6 is out!

Static exports should now work with hosting services like GitHub Pages, RTD, etc. Give it a try and let us know if you run into difficulties.

github.com/jupyter-book...

You can also now preview doc builds in PRs via CircleCI, following this template: github.com/stefanv/myst...
Release v1.6.0 · jupyter-book/mystmd
What's Changed 📖 A few miscellaneous documentation updates by @rowanc1 in #2154 📖 Remove out of date readme note by @rowanc1 in #2155 🔗 Fix URLs in table of contents directive by @brianhawthorne i...
github.com
July 22, 2025 at 5:32 AM
@mystmd.org 1.5 is out, along with an updated web theme!

github.com/jupyter-book...

github.com/jupyter-book...

Improved site footers, hidden entries and external URLs in table of contents, better UI for in-browser execution plus improved docs and bug-fixes.
Release mystmd@1.5.0 · jupyter-book/mystmd
(full changelog) Enhancements made 🗾 HTML Image Width #2111 (@rowanc1, @changeset-bot) 👽 Handle external URL specified in TOC #2102 (@stefanv, @fwkoch, @choldgraf, @mfisher87, @rowanc1, @changeset...
github.com
June 24, 2025 at 10:33 PM
Reposted by Stéfan van der Walt
New seminar just announced! BIDS welcomes Peter Fackeldey (@pfackeldey.bsky.social) to campus on June 6. Don't miss his talk "Awkward Array: manipulating nested, variable-sized data with NumPy-like idioms"
events.berkeley.edu/BIDS/event/2...

#DataAnalysis #NumPy
May 21, 2025 at 2:06 PM
Reposted by Stéfan van der Walt
🚀Last week, the #ScientificPython Developer Summit brought together 32 package maintainers from across the ecosystem at eScience UW in Seattle!

✨It was a great opportunity to collaborate on improving the tools that power scientific Python research.🧑🏽‍💻

Thanks to everyone that joined! 🧡
May 19, 2025 at 7:58 PM
Reposted by Stéfan van der Walt
Wouldn't it be nice if someone went through to highlight the newly un-redacted parts of previous JFK reports? I got you! Let me introduce you to `diff-jfk`
March 28, 2025 at 8:33 AM
Libro is a fantastic audiobook service: it's like Kindle, except that your *local bookstore* gets a portion of the profit each time you buy an audiobook.
March 13, 2025 at 5:19 AM
Reposted by Stéfan van der Walt
Take a peek at the NetworkX developers' retreat with Jarrod Millman, a key member of the leadership team!
bids.berkeley.edu/news/fast-an...

#NetworkX #OpenSource #PythonPackage
March 12, 2025 at 11:18 PM
Reposted by Stéfan van der Walt
Why major in philosophy?
- can be smug after only 2-3 classes
- only major where you finish knowing less than when you started
- generally better beards than psychology
- can't find a job, but then again what even is a job?
January 9, 2025 at 9:02 PM
Reposted by Stéfan van der Walt
Recently found out that some people are actually READING all the books that they buy to put on their shelf??

Seems unbelievable but apparently it's true.
January 8, 2025 at 8:08 PM
Not to be outdone on the procrastination *ahem* I mean productivity front, I adapted @charlbotha.com's org-timer pomodoro solution for waybar: mentat.za.net/blog/2025/01...

bsky.app/profile/char...
January 9, 2025 at 7:49 AM
To escape tab hell (once again), I wrote an extension to back up my list of Chrome / Chromium tabs into an org / markdown text file. Once that's done, I can close them all! And, of course, I'll get back to them "when the time is right".

mentat.za.net/blog/2024/11...
Exporting List of Chromium Tabs · Stéfan's blog
How to export a list of all Chrome / Chromium tabs, per window, per tab group.
mentat.za.net
November 14, 2024 at 7:35 AM
Reposted by Stéfan van der Walt
just discovered litecli (github.com/dbcli/litecli), it feels like a big improvement over the default SQLite REPL (autocompletion! support for multiline queries! syntax highlighting!)
November 7, 2024 at 2:39 PM
Reposted by Stéfan van der Walt
During #PGP key-signing session with @mentat.za.net we just learned that keys.openpgp.org must strip third party signatures from public keys which complicates #WebOfTrust

keys.openpgp.org/about/faq#th...

This is such a pity, because #openpgp keyserver's WKD as a service is great!
OpenPGP
Email encryption. For all operating systems. Standing the test of time.
openpgp.org
November 3, 2024 at 6:26 PM
Reposted by Stéfan van der Walt
PGP key discovery via Web Key Directory (WKD) aka setting it up so your #email clients can automatically find your #PGP public key by friend @mentat.za.net

mentat.za.net/blog/2024/11...
PGP key discovery via Web Key Directory (WKD) · Stéfan's blog
How Web Key Directory works for discovering PGP keys associated with a given email address, and how to set up your own.
mentat.za.net
November 7, 2024 at 4:13 PM