Author Archives: jcs

Org Mode 9.4 Released

Bastien Guerry writes that Org 9.4 has been released: 9 months after 9.3, #emacs #orgmode 9.4 is out, enjoy!https://t.co/W2c3ifoFtr This release deserves a few highlights 👇 — Bastien Guerry (@bzg2) September 14, 2020 The changes are here and Guerry also … Continue reading

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An Update for whole-line-or-region

Most of you probably know Steve Purcell as the man behind MELPA or perhaps for his Emacs configuration, which many use as a starter kit. But, in fact, he’s the author or maintainer of numerous packages, one of which is … Continue reading

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Happy Programmers Day

This being a leap year means that Programmers Day comes a day early. As a cal -j will tell you, today is, in fact, the 256th day of the year. So happy Programmers Day to all you Irreal readers who … Continue reading

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An Emacs Workflow for Videos and Podcasts

Protesilaos Stavrou has posted a very nice video that describes how he uses Bongo and Elfeed to play and control his videos and podcasts. Just being able to handle your videos and podcasts with Emacs is a win because it … Continue reading

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Life Imitates Literature

Old-time Irrealers and alert newcomers know that I’m a big fan of Iain M. Banks’ Culture novels. Indeed, this blog is named after one of his ideas from the novel Excession: the Irreal. I mention Banks because I was reading … Continue reading

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Unix Names Explained

There doesn’t seem to be much going on today but, fortunately, we’ve not yet reached the end of the internet. Instead, I offer those of you who didn’t grow up with the Unix command line some insight into where all … Continue reading

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Online Privacy; Real World Privacy

I’ve been a big fan of Daring Fireball for years. Sadly, of late it’s devolved from being a tech blog that occasionally mentioned politics to a political blog that occasionally mentions tech. Nevertheless, Gruber can still bring it when a … Continue reading

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Avi Navigation

Over at the Emacs subredit, RecursiveTraverser says that of all the Avy navigation commands he likes avy-goto-char-timer the best and asks if anyone else agrees. Those who answered agreed with him but there’s no reason to prefer it to the … Continue reading

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Gnus

I am really enjoying mu4e again after fixing the problem that caused it to be so slow. As I’ve said before, I’m very happy with mu4e and don’t have any desire to replace it. Nevertheless, I always find it interesting … Continue reading

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Grading With AI

The Verge has a story that is at once hilarious, infuriating, and deeply disturbing. In this time of COVID-19 much education has moved online. Except for scale, this isn’t really new. It’s been possible for many years for children to … Continue reading

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