Author Archives: jcs

DuckDuckGo Bang Searches

Posted on 2015-06-26 by jcs

If you’re a DuckDuckGo user—and you really should be unless you like having your search history logged and sold—there’s a very nice shortcut you can use when searching specific sites. Suppose, for example, you want to find the documentation for … Continue reading →

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Lisp Functions in Org Table Calculations

Posted on 2015-06-25 by jcs

Sacha Chua has a nice post on how she uses an Org table to keep track of medications her family needs and how it automatically calculates how many she needs to buy based on how long they need to be … Continue reading →

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2 or b

Posted on 2015-06-24 by jcs

Over at the Google+ ErgoEmacs community, Xah Lee asks is it easier to type 2 or b on a QWERTY keyboard. The majority of people said ‘b’ but I was surprised at how many felt ‘2’ was easier. If you … Continue reading →

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All Your Conversations are Belong to Us

Posted on 2015-06-24 by jcs

LWN.net is reporting on a Debian bug report complaining that Chromium, Google’s open source version of their Chrome Browser, was downloading a binary blob after it started. The responsible Debian maintainers did not have access to the code for the … Continue reading →

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There is No Cloud

Posted on 2015-06-23 by jcs

A handy reminder from vierito5 (via Karl Voit): Periodic reminder: There is no Cloud. It's just someone else's computer. pic.twitter.com/v4MxtTHR0f — vierito5 (@vierito5) June 15, 2015

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Undoing Git Actions

Posted on 2015-06-23 by jcs

Git is a wonderful thing and despite its reputation for being really hard to use, is easy to understand and use for the usual cases. The problems occur when you make a mistake and the easy mental model you have … Continue reading →

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Trust Us—We’re Wise

Posted on 2015-06-22 by jcs

The next time the government asks you to trust in their good and mature judgment, remember this.

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Org and Beamer

Posted on 2015-06-22 by jcs

Presentation software. Windows has Power Point, Apple has Keynote, and Linux has Open Office. Everyone hates presentation software and everyone uses it. If you’re someone who works on multiple platforms, you might have to learn to use two or more … Continue reading →

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I.F. Stone, Call Your Office

Posted on 2015-06-21 by jcs

Glenn Greenwald has a blistering evisceration of the recent (UK) Sunday Times front page article claiming that the Russians and Chinese have cracked the Top Secret cache of Snowden documents and that MI6 is pulling out their officers to prevent … Continue reading →

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Computer Security and the U.S. Government

Posted on 2015-06-20 by jcs

If you’re interested in security, you really should subscribe to the semiweekly SANS Newsbites newsletter. The subscription is free except for the occasional email notifications of SANS courses and events. Each letter comprises a series of short (typically a paragraph … Continue reading →

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