Author Archives: jcs

Collecting and Using Data in Schools

Posted on 2015-05-20 by jcs

Regular Irreal readers have probably figured out that I’m a data freak. I’m always collecting, tabulating, and analyzing data about myself and the things around me. That’s one of the reasons I found the use of digital methods in hospitals … Continue reading →

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Emacs on OS X

Posted on 2015-05-19 by jcs

If your platform is OS X and you’re an Emacser, Bozhidar Batsov has a nice post on setting up Emacs. He shows you how to get Emacs (if you don’t compile it yourself), how to set the path or alias … Continue reading →

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Counting Words

Posted on 2015-05-18 by jcs

For years, I’ve used this bit of Elisp that I stole from DJCB at Emacs-Fu. The latest versions of Emacs now have this functionality built in so I thought I should move on. The new functionality is bound to the … Continue reading →

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Matt Blaze Testimony

Posted on 2015-05-17 by jcs

Back in April, Matt Blaze, a cryptographer and security expert from the University of Pennsylvania, testified before Congress concerning proposals to require “back doors” in encryption systems—especially in communication applications. The idea is that law enforcement would have a special … Continue reading →

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Make Scroll Up and Scroll Down Symmetric

Posted on 2015-05-16 by jcs

A handy tip from Wilfred Hughes: Emacs tip of the day: (setq scroll-preserve-screen-position 'always) will ensure that M-v always undoes C-v, so you can go back exactly. — Wilfred Hughes (@_wilfredh) May 16, 2015

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A New Common Lisp Book

Posted on 2015-05-16 by jcs

Lispers have traditionally eschewed regular expressions but the truth is that they are often useful and sometimes the most practical way to deal with a problem. Because of the bias against regular expressions, the CL specification does not include them. … Continue reading →

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Coffee

Posted on 2015-05-15 by jcs

Not that we needed any affirmation but the New York Times makes it official.

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Peep-dired

Posted on 2015-05-15 by jcs

Asok has a nice little utility called peep-dired that’s available from MELPA. It’s a Dired minor mode that displays the file at point in the dired buffer in another window. You don’t have to select the file or do anything … Continue reading →

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SBCL 1.2.11 is Out

Posted on 2015-05-14 by jcs

I downloaded, compiled, and installed SBCL 1.2.11, the latest monthly release of the SBCL system. When I ran the regression tests (on OS X 10.10.3) I got one failure. The main development platform is Linux so I’m assuming this is … Continue reading →

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Digitization at the Hospital

Posted on 2015-05-13 by jcs

Due to a sick family member, I recently had the occasion to spend time at one of our local hospitals. If you’ve ever been through that, you know that it involves a lot of waiting around, which gave me a … Continue reading →

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