Author Archives: jcs

The DEA Supplies Another Example

Posted on 2020-12-02 by jcs

Speaking of governments supplying examples of the Iron Law of Data Collection, one of the US Government’s most notorious abusers of data collection and constitutional protections whose TLA is not NSA, has stepped up to provide yet another example. The … Continue reading →

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The Iron Law and Abuse

Posted on 2020-12-01 by jcs

I’ve written many times about the iron law of data collection. Briefly, it’s the notion that whenever data is collected No matter the original rationale given for its collection, new uses will be found for the data. The data will … Continue reading →

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Keyboards for Emacs

Posted on 2020-11-30 by jcs

One of the most important pieces of kit in our arsenal is the keyboard. It’s easy to treat them as an afterthought but if you do a lot of typing as most of us do, the choice can mean the … Continue reading →

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Cloning a Repository

Posted on 2020-11-29 by jcs

My day has been consumed by yak shaving so today’s offering is just a quickie pointing you to a very interesting post from Álvaro Ramírez. In a situation familiar to all of us, Ramírez noticed that every time he wanted … Continue reading →

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Managing Servers with Org

Posted on 2020-11-28 by jcs

Fragbot has an interesting reddit post talking about using Emacs as a standalone infrastructure that can be shared by others. The idea is that you integrate Emacs into a workflow for use by folks who aren’t normally Emacs users. He … Continue reading →

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Mastering Emacs Update

Posted on 2020-11-27 by jcs

Mickey Petersen’s excellent Mastering Emacs has a new update covering Emacs 26 & 27. If you already have a copy of Mastering Emacs, you’ve probably received an email telling you how to get the update (for free). If you don’t … Continue reading →

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Cover Your Tracks

Posted on 2020-11-26 by jcs

The EFF has a new version of their Panopticlick browser fingerprinting and tracker awareness tool. It’s now called Cover Your Tracks. The tool doesn’t prevent the malevolent adtech industry from tracking you, it’s merely a testing tool to estimate how … Continue reading →

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Emacs in the Terminal

Posted on 2020-11-25 by jcs

Wanderson Ferreira (Bartuka) has a project where the code can’t leave a remote machine at the other end of a slow connection. He’s an Emacser but GUI Emacs is too slow to be practical so he moved to terminal Emacs … Continue reading →

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Emacs Should Be Emacs Lisp

Posted on 2020-11-24 by jcs

Back in February at FOSDEM 20, Tom Tromey gave a very interesting talk of how he believes the core of Emacs should evolve. He considers most of the current proposals such as Rmacs, Guile Emacs, and rewriting the core in … Continue reading →

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The Worst Passwords of 2020

Posted on 2020-11-23 by jcs

We haven’t done this for a while but it’s time, once more, for a survey of the year’s worst passwords. Sadly, the only real question is, as usual, whether 123456 or password heads the list. This time password has inexplicably … Continue reading →

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