Author Archives: jcs

The Trial

Posted on 2020-11-02 by jcs

It’s like something out of Kafka. C. awoke one morning to find that after 15 years, all of his Google accounts were locked. He’d been accused of violating the terms of service. What violation? They wouldn’t tell him. He didn’t … Continue reading →

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Unix Pipes

Posted on 2020-11-01 by jcs

This post is a blast from the past \(\times 2\). One reason it’s a blast from the past is that it discusses the Unix V6 code. The other reason is that it discusses some of the code that first helped … Continue reading →

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James Bond

Posted on 2020-10-31 by jcs

In the end, there can be only one.

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The Map

Posted on 2020-10-31 by jcs

Although I’ve never lived in New York City, I love being there, have family who are lifetime New Yorkers, and visit regularly. One of the things I love about the city is that I can walk to most places I … Continue reading →

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Taking Math Class Notes With Emacs

Posted on 2020-10-30 by jcs

A year and a half ago, I wrote about Gilles Castel’s video on taking math class notes. I found his workflow astounding. He was able to take LaTeX notes in Math class at speed. By “at speed” I mean he … Continue reading →

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The NSA Stonewalls Congress

Posted on 2020-10-29 by jcs

I don’t get this. Reuters is reporting that the NSA is refusing to tell congress about its seeking of back doors. It’s certainly true that an argument can be made that the NSA should be seeking back doors but how … Continue reading →

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Literate Calc Mode

Posted on 2020-10-28 by jcs

Robin Schroer has an interesting project that recently landed in MELPA. Many of you know that I’m a big fan of reproducible research and its handmaiden literate programming. Schroer’s project is a sort of light-weight Jupyter Notebook that’s integrated with … Continue reading →

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Algol 68, Pascal, C, and All That

Posted on 2020-10-27 by jcs

Apropos of nothing, here’s a really nice short video by Professor David Brailsford of The University of Nottingham about the days when Algol 68 and Pascal were in contention for the language to be taught in various computer courses. Some … Continue reading →

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Orgmode.org Has a New Look

Posted on 2020-10-26 by jcs

Just a quickie today to note that the Org-mode site, orgmode.org, has a brand new look. That’s thanks to the work of Tecosaur who completely revamped the site. According to his announcement over at Reddit, the core pages are smaller … Continue reading →

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The Danger of Web Forums

Posted on 2020-10-25 by jcs

Karl Voit has an interesting diatribe on his Web site that really resonated with me. The TL;DR is that you shouldn’t commit anything relevant to Web forums like Reddit, Hacker News, or Facebook. What Voit terms as “relevant,” I would … Continue reading →

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