Author Archives: jcs

Counting Check Marks

Posted on 2013-11-25 by jcs

Here’s my solution to the last EmacsGolf challenge. I used the apparently little-known how-many command. I normally use how-many in Elisp to count the occurrences of some regex. Here’s an example from my old blog that leverages some code from … Continue reading →

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Experience With flx-ido

Posted on 2013-11-24 by jcs

After watching Sacha Chua’s interview with Magnar Sveen, I wrote that Sveen had demonstrated some Emacs features that I wanted to try out. One of those was flx-ido. The flx package was written by Le Wang to bring Sublime Text’s … Continue reading →

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The NSA and Terrorism Fear Mongering

Posted on 2013-11-23 by jcs

Whenever ordinary folks push back against—or even question—the NSA’s extralegal surveillance of innocent citizens they are always told that it’s to protect them from terrorists. “Don’t let there be another 9/11,” they say. “Really,” they assure us, “it’s for your … Continue reading →

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What Does It Take? (European Edition)

Posted on 2013-11-22 by jcs

Just in case those of you in Europe think that you don’t have reason to be as mad as Americans should be, you might want to reconsider.

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An Easy EmacsGolf Challenge

Posted on 2013-11-21 by jcs

Here’s an easy EmacsGolf challenge that came up today. I have an org file in which some of the headings have a check mark (✓) at the beginning of the heading (but after the stars). The file is quite long … Continue reading →

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GPG/PGP Best Practices

Posted on 2013-11-20 by jcs

The Privacy and Authenticity Outreach Workgroup of we.riseup.net have published an excellent list of OpenPGP Best Practices. Most Irreal readers, I trust, have already installed and configured GPG/PGP even if most of their usual correspondents haven’t. I’ve written before that … Continue reading →

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The Iron Law of Data Collection Confirmed

Posted on 2013-11-19 by jcs

Just in case you needed more proof of the iron law of data collection, consider this McClatchyDC story about how almost 5000 people had their personal information swept up and shared with nearly 30 federal agencies because they ordered a … Continue reading →

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What Does It Take?

Posted on 2013-11-18 by jcs

Are you angry yet? How about now?1 Footnotes: 1 To be fair, there’s some controversy associated with this claim and it doesn’t even seem possible—given that Linux is open source—until you remember the greatest hack of all time.

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On Open Space Offices and Idiots

Posted on 2013-11-17 by jcs

A few days ago, Michael Flowersky wrote a blog post that asked the question, What’s the difference between an advocate of open space office and an Idiot? It was an amusing read but I wasn’t going to comment on it … Continue reading →

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Delay Update

Posted on 2013-11-16 by jcs

Just a quick note to bring you up to date on my efforts to fix the slow page loading that’s been plaguing Irreal lately. As I mentioned in my last update, the problem appears to be page generation not server … Continue reading →

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