Author Archives: jcs

Quitting Safari

Today’s post is specific to those Irreal readers who use the Safari browser. As I’ve written many times, almost all my tube time is spent in either Emacs or Safari. A typical workflow occurs when I’m reading my RSS feed … Continue reading

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Prot on Bookmarks

Protesilaos Stavrou has a new video out on the Emacs bookmarks system. If you don’t use bookmarks, you should give them a try. They’re really handy for files you use often but don’t want to keep loaded all the time. … Continue reading

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Enabling Multiple Minor Modes

Timo Geusch has a nice quickie post on setting multiple minor modes for a buffer. Often it’s convenient to have several minor modes associated with a buffer. For example, when I’m writing blog or prose text I like to have … Continue reading

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Embedding Images in Text Files

Yuan Fu likes to take notes in which he can embed images. You can do that with Org, of course, but Fu doesn’t like that Org’s solution boils down to a link to a file. That means you have to … Continue reading

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The Technical Problems with Apple’s CSAM Scanning

I’ve written several posts (1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7) about Apple’s planned CSAM scanning project but those posts have always focused on how Apple was betraying their long held promise to protect our privacy and not allow random … Continue reading

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Apropos Library

Recently a post by jao, who’s written a whole bunch of excellent software, popped up in my feed inbox. It’s just a very short (15 words) mention of apropos-library, a function that lists all the variables and functions in a … Continue reading

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Covid Warnings

Another datum for those of you following the origins of COVID-19 debate. Josh Rogin, writing over at Politco notes that US diplomats were warning about problems in the Wuhan labs as early as 2017, a good two years before the … Continue reading

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Some Prerequisite Reading

As I said in my last post, I’m planning to write a bit about some of the technical aspects of Apple’s CSAM scanning project. Happily, Apple listened to the avalanche of criticism and put their plans on hold. I hope … Continue reading

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Apple and Backdoors

In the ongoing Apple CSAM saga, Irreal has mostly been concerned with Apple’s betrayal of their promise to protect their users’ privacy but there’s also the issue the long term security consequences of Apple’s decision. We’ll take a look at … Continue reading

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Yet Another Win For Open Access

For those of you, like me, interested in open access, there’s more good news. There’s good evidence that the scales are finally tipping to the side of open access. If things continue, we could soon see open access considered the … Continue reading

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