Author Archives: jcs

The Webster 1913 Dictionary

Posted on 2020-10-04 by jcs

If you’ve been around for a while, you may remember my Draft #4 post from 5 years ago. That post explained why you’re probably using the wrong dictionary and why the correct dictionary is the Webster 1913 + 1828. The … Continue reading →

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The Types Controversy Explained

Posted on 2020-10-03 by jcs

After yesterday’s heavy duty post on modernizing Emacs, here’s something to refresh your palate. I find this hilarious on many levels. Your mileage may vary: types are social constructs created by Big Compiler to sell more passes — (lambda () … Continue reading →

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Red Meat Friday: Modernizing Emacs

Posted on 2020-10-02 by jcs

I originally planned this as a short rant on the idea that Emacs needs to be modernized. The discussion has been raging for a while on the Emacs-devel list but was pretty much inside baseball until an lwn.net article on … Continue reading →

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Long Line Remediation

Posted on 2020-10-01 by jcs

Alain M. Lafon, whom I’ve mentioned several times before (1, 2, 3, 4, 5), has posted a useful guide for dealing with long lines in Emacs. One of Emacs’ well known weaknesses is that it can become very slow when … Continue reading →

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Gnus and Gmail

Posted on 2020-09-30 by jcs

If you’re in the intersection of Gnus and Gmail users, T. V. Raman over at Emacspeak has a bit of Elisp that might interest you. He’s a Gmail user who wants to do Gmail type searches from within Gnus. That … Continue reading →

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An Org Template for Meeting Minutes

Posted on 2020-09-29 by jcs

When I was a Unix n00b, one of the things that really impressed me was the format of the Bell Labs technical memoranda. I especially liked the cover sheet, which captured all the vital information. It was, of course, generated … Continue reading →

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The Org Agenda

Posted on 2020-09-28 by jcs

Derek Taylor over at DistroTube has another useful video. This time it’s on Org agenda. Taylor is a Doom Emacs user so the keybindings will be unfamiliar to vanilla Emacs users but a couple of minutes with the manual can … Continue reading →

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The Law of Unintended Consequences

Posted on 2020-09-27 by jcs

I find this hilarious: Brilliant: When the euro bank notes were designed, they used European-style bridges which were *non-existing*, not to have to choose between countries. The Dutch town of Spijkenisse claimed them all for the Netherlands by building them … Continue reading →

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Document Preparation with Org, LaTeX, and Docker

Posted on 2020-09-26 by jcs

Marco Ieni was tired of working with Microsoft Word so he he built a workflow that uses Org mode for document preparation. Irreal readers know he won’t be getting any arguments here. Even putting aside the brain-dead Word UI there … Continue reading →

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Blocking Melpa

Posted on 2020-09-25 by jcs

Here’s a mystery to entertain you as you segue into the weekend. Jerror was complaining on the Emacs subredit that their university had blocked MELPA. What?!? Why in the world would anyone block MELPA? It doesn’t appear to be one … Continue reading →

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