Cătălin Frâncu

cata@francu.com (GPG key: 0x22020DE9)

my face

dignitas.png Dignitas

Dignitas is a collaborative fact-checking site for political statements. Volunteers can add statements and analyze them. As they do so, they gain reputation and administrative privileges.

dexonline.png dexonline

dexonline is the online Romanian dictionary. Volunteers can help digitize printed dictionaries. I launched the project in 2001 and as of 2021 it learned 980,000 definitions. It runs on home-brewed free software and its database is freely available.

nilatac.png Nilatac

Nilatac is an antichess engine I wrote back when "free time" had a meaning. It is active 24/7 on Lichess and its opening book is available online. Antichess, is played with a standard chess board and pieces, but the goal is to lose all your pieces (and captures are mandatory).

clef.png Music

In my spare time I typeset some Romanian choral scores. I used Lilypond, the music notation software. All the resulting scores are free for you to copy, modify and/or redistribute. They include Christmas carols, folklore, and a complete score for the Orthodox liturgy in Romanian.

train.png Toy Projects

Random things that I've worked on.

sticks.png Family

Naturally, I have more family members than these (in fact I have a large and vivid family), but here are the ones with web pages:

nerd.png Academics

I'm a proud MIT nerd (MEng 2002). Before that I was a mediocre student at the Politehnica University of Bucharest and before that I went to the High-School of Computer Science in Bucharest (nowadays Tudor Vianu College). I also taught there for one year, which I greatly enjoyed.

gnu-head.png Free software

I am an adept of the free software philosophy.