Author Archives: jcs

Lean and the Mathematical Library of the Future

Posted on 2020-11-12 by jcs

Over at Quanta magazine, Kevin Hartnett has an interesting article about using computers in the service of Mathematics. That’s nothing new, of course, but this isn’t about numerical methods or LaTeX, it’s about using computers to help develop mathematical proofs. … Continue reading →

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Weather Alert

Posted on 2020-11-11 by jcs

Just a quick note that Hurricane Eta is in the area of the Irreal bunker and may interfere with posting. The current path calls for Eta to come ashore a bit north of Tampa as a tropical storm so we’re … Continue reading →

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Adtech and Bad Data

Posted on 2020-11-10 by jcs

If you aren’t in Marketing, it’s really easy to hate Adtech. It turns out that even if you are in Marketing, you should still hate it. The fact is, the numbers that Adtech produces are pretty much worthless. Although that’s … Continue reading →

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Mu/Mu4e on Linux

Posted on 2020-11-09 by jcs

It’s no surprise to anyone at this point that I really like the Mu/Mu4e mail client. It runs in Emacs, has excellent search capabilities, and is fast and easy to use. I run it on top of macOS and get … Continue reading →

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Dijkstra

Posted on 2020-11-08 by jcs

Most Irreal readers probably know the name Dijkstra, if only from his famous letter to the ACM entitled “Go To Statement Considered Harmful” and his celebrated shortest path algorithm. In fact, Edsger Wybe Dijkstra was a giant in the field … Continue reading →

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Unix As Literature

Posted on 2020-11-07 by jcs

Someone has reposted Thomas Scoville’s article from 1998 on Unix as Literature. The article’s premise is that Unix (and these days, Linux) users are different from the users of other systems. That seems like a low calorie assertion but it’s … Continue reading →

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Ball Point Pens

Posted on 2020-11-06 by jcs

What could you buy for the price of a ball point pen? No much. Not a newspaper, not a cup of coffee, and certainly not a hamburger. You can get one of the ubiquitous Bic pens for a little over … Continue reading →

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File and Directory Local Variables

Posted on 2020-11-05 by jcs

David Wilson over at the System Crafters Youtube channel has a useful video that discusses file and directory local variables. File local variables are Emacs variables that are specific to a particular file. A common use is to set the … Continue reading →

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Another Org Workflow

Posted on 2020-11-04 by jcs

Wai Hon has thought carefully about his workflow and how he can leverage Org-mode to make it as efficient and seamless as possible. He’s concerned mostly about task management so of course Org-mode is a perfect fit. He’s published a … Continue reading →

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Reproducibility

Posted on 2020-11-03 by jcs

I’ve written several times about the reroducibility crisis. That crisis is the fact that an astoundingly large percentage of scientific experiments can’t be reproduced by other researchers. That, of course, calls into question the validity of the original results. My … Continue reading →

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