Author Archives: jcs

Bumper-Sticker Computer Science

Posted on 2018-08-23 by jcs

Back in the 1980s, Jon Bentley wrote a column for Communications of the ACM called Programming Pearls. The columns typically considered a programming technique or problem and were very popular. The columns were later published in book form as Programming … Continue reading →

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The Emacs Community

Posted on 2018-08-22 by jcs

James Gill has a nice tweet about the community of Emacs users: I’ve never encountered a community like that of #Emacs users. So many with 10, 20, 30+ years using the tool, endless resources and helpful people. And so delightfully … Continue reading →

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A Lisp Machine

Posted on 2018-08-21 by jcs

Sorta. Kedalion Daimon has a really interesting project in which he takes an old Brother EP 44 adds an Arduino Due and the very definition of a Rube Goldberg power supply to build a makeshift Lisp machine. It’s a Lisp … Continue reading →

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The Many Uses of Org Mode

Posted on 2018-08-20 by jcs

It’s almost a cliche that “I came to Emacs for X but stayed for Org mode.” Org really is the killer app for n00bs, although I believe it’s more of a gateway drug. After you’ve been here for a while, … Continue reading →

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Storing Energy with Concrete Blocks

Posted on 2018-08-19 by jcs

One of the big problems with alternative energy sources, such as wind and solar, is that they can’t generate electricity all the time. That means that that they need a way to store the excess energy they generate when they’re … Continue reading →

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Why Emacs is a Great Editor

Posted on 2018-08-18 by jcs

Ayrat Badykov has a short post on Why Emacs is a great text editor. The post is really about why he switched to Emacs and why he’s sticking with it. Although you won’t find anything in the post to convince … Continue reading →

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The Ferret Lisp System

Posted on 2018-08-17 by jcs

Nurullah Akkaya has an interesting project, Ferret, that compiles a Lisp dialect into C++. It’s very portable and can compile code not only for the major platforms but for embedded systems as well. Basically anything that can support C++ can … Continue reading →

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The Past Comes Around Again

Posted on 2018-08-16 by jcs

Many (many) years ago in the age of MS-DOS when Unix on the PC was still a dream, there was an editor called Brief. It was far and away the best editor available for DOS. It was fast, had multiple … Continue reading →

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Emacs Podcast #3

Posted on 2018-08-15 by jcs

Rakhim Davletkaliyev is back with another Emacs podcast. As I said in my first post about his podcasts, using a podcast to discuss Emacs may seem odd but it actually works pretty well. Davletkaliyev starts by telling us what’s changed … Continue reading →

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Karl Voit on Security

Posted on 2018-08-14 by jcs

Karl Voit has an useful post on good password security practices. There’s not really anything new in the post but it brings together most of the best practices in a single place. The main problem is that you no longer … Continue reading →

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