Author Archives: jcs

Lisp and Slime on Windows

Posted on 2013-09-01 by jcs

I haven’t used a Windows machine in decades but my general sense is that using Emacs on Windows can be—er—challenging. Even more so, apparently, is using Slime with Emacs on Windows. It’s nice, then, that Jisang Yoo has come to … Continue reading →

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Common Lisp versus Emacs Lisp

Posted on 2013-08-31 by jcs

As a user of both Elisp and Common Lisp I sometimes have a hard time remembering the small differences. Many of these are “hidden” in the sense that identically named functions behave differently. One such example is that functions such … Continue reading →

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A Surveillance Timeline

Posted on 2013-08-30 by jcs

The revelations from the NSA scandal are coming so fast and furious that it’s easy to become confused. Now, the EFF has come to our rescue with Timeline of NSA Domestic Spying. It starts with the ratification of the bill … Continue reading →

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Another Emacs Challenge

Posted on 2013-08-29 by jcs

Over at the Emacs reddit, zoldberghoneydew presents an interesting problem and solution. The problem boils down to creating a hosts file of the form host1 ip-address-of-host-1 … host64 ip-address-of-host-64 where the address of host-n can be looked up in DNS … Continue reading →

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Fourteen Years of SQL Injection

Posted on 2013-08-28 by jcs

Mavituna Security has a nice post up on SQL Injection. They give a brief history of SQL injection and the three common mistakes that enable it. They have some astounding facts. Here’s a small sampling: In 2012, 97% of all … Continue reading →

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Dinner With General Alexander

Posted on 2013-08-27 by jcs

Jennifer Granick has an excellent article, My Dinner With NSA Director Keith Alexander, in Forbes. Unlike most reporters, Granick doesn’t waste her (and our) time with sideshows such as the whereabouts of Edward Snowden. Instead, she zeros in on the … Continue reading →

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Is the NSA Really Abuse-Proof?

Posted on 2013-08-26 by jcs

President Obama, General Alexander (the Director of the NSA), and Senator Dianne Feinstein (Chairman of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence) have all assured us that we needn’t worry about NSA snooping on Americans because the NSA has several systems … Continue reading →

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Keeping the French Safe From Terror

Posted on 2013-08-25 by jcs

Rick Fallvinge has a jaw droppingly funny (or sad, depending on your point of view) story about French efforts to stop terror. His story is at the expense of the French but, really, I’m sure no country is immune to … Continue reading →

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The Joys of Java

Posted on 2013-08-24 by jcs

Jean-Philippe Paradis retweeted this pithy observation from Branimir Karadžić about a developer’s life in the Java world. Evil of me, I know, but sometimes the truth is too screamingly funny to ignore.

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Implementing Prism Break

Posted on 2013-08-23 by jcs

A while ago I wrote about Prism Break, a site dedicated to helping you choose private and secure alternatives to many popular proprietary systems and programs. Now Laurent Eschenauer has posted a description of his personal Prism Break. Some of … Continue reading →

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