Author Archives: jcs

A Call To Ban Surveillance Advertising

Posted on 2021-07-07 by jcs

Weather Update Tampa has once again dodged a bullet: the impact from Elsa was minimal. Here at the Irreal bunker, we had some rain and a bit of wind but nothing much worse than our usual afternoon thunderstorms. Now back … Continue reading →

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Weather Alert

Posted on 2021-07-06 by jcs

The wannabe hurricane known as tropical storm Elsa is due at the Irreal bunker later tonight. It’s currently on the line between tropical storm and hurricane but in either case the winds will likely be high enough to cause potential … Continue reading →

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Running Emacs from Systemd

Posted on 2021-07-06 by jcs

One of the perennial complaints about Emacs is that it takes a long time to start. Of course, the answer to that is just don’t do it. Or at least only do it once when you log in. Many us … Continue reading →

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The New Luddites Go After Digital Wallets

Posted on 2021-07-05 by jcs

As you know, Irreal is fond of calling out the new Luddites when they raise their heads to complain about technology, or leaving the farm, or whatever it is they’re upset about at the moment. Now, from Kontra, we have … Continue reading →

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Using Tramp

Posted on 2021-07-04 by jcs

Will Schenk has an interesting post entitled Emacs Tramp tricks. It’s not really so much about obscure things you can do with Tramp as an exposition of how to do the normal things you use Tramp for. The most unusual … Continue reading →

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Video Introduction to Magit

Posted on 2021-07-03 by jcs

Over at the System Crafters Youtube channel, David Wilson has a new video on Magit. It’s the first in a planned series so it serves as an introduction to the most important Magit facilities with more information on them to … Continue reading →

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Red Meat Friday: Dark Mode and Sanity

Posted on 2021-07-02 by jcs

The Minions, fresh off their recent victory in sneaking another light-mode/dark-mode post into the queue, have struck again. Here we have Kontra’s take on the eventual dénouement of the dark-mode fad: Mark my words: In the not too distant future, … Continue reading →

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Brian Kernighan on the Birth of Unix

Posted on 2021-07-01 by jcs

Over at CoRecursive they have a really excellent interview with Brian Kernighan on the birth of Unix. The interview starts out with this quote from Adam, the interviewer: When you work on your computer, there are so many things you … Continue reading →

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Punch Cards

Posted on 2021-06-30 by jcs

It’s likely that very few Irreal readers have ever used punch cards or maybe even know what they are. Nevertheless, they were once the mainstay of the computer industry. Indeed, IBM started out as a company that made punch-card-tabulating machines … Continue reading →

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Another Reason Elfeed Is The Best RSS Reader

Posted on 2021-06-29 by jcs

As you all know, I’m a big fan of Chris Wellons’ Elfeed package for reading my RSS feed. There’s a lot to like. Wellons reimagined what an RSS reader should be and organized it around search. Most of the time, … Continue reading →

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