Author Archives: jcs

Optimizing Line Numbering

Posted on 2026-09-13 by jcs

James Cherti has been busy producing a lot of posts about optimizing various aspects of Emacs behavior. I’ve just come across his post that discusses optimizing buffer line numbering. It explains the different line numbering schemes and their relative costs. … Continue reading →

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Bedrock 2.0

Posted on 2026-09-12 by jcs

Three years ago, I wrote about the Bedrock starter kit for Emacs by Ashton Wiersdorf. Now Wiersdorf has issued a new major release of the kit. It’s mainly an update for Emacs 31 and requires that version to run. I … Continue reading →

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The 2026 Ig Noble Prizes

Posted on 2026-09-11 by jcs

We nerds have no problem understanding, at least at a general level, the Nobel Prizes. We may not understand the details of the physics, chemistry, or biology involved or the exact details of what the winners did to win the … Continue reading →

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Why Irreal Doesn’t Do Politics

Posted on 2026-09-10 by jcs

Most Irreal readers know that we here at Irreal have a strict rule against dealing with politics. It’s not that we don’t have political opinions, it’s that we think they’re mainly relevant in the voting both and shouldn’t spill over … Continue reading →

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How Advertising Corrupts

Posted on 2026-09-09 by jcs

Regular readers know that the Irreal bunker is a resident of the Apple Exosphere but we don’t consider ourselves fanbois. We like Apple but it’s not a religion. One area where we are especially critical of Apple is their embracing … Continue reading →

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Jinx Update Number …

Posted on 2026-09-08 by jcs

… I’ve lost track. I’ve been using Jinx for my spelling correction for a while now and really like it. When I first started, my main problem was that the selection procedure described in the documentation didn’t work for me. … Continue reading →

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Make Git Ignore Everything By Default

Posted on 2026-09-07 by jcs

Alex Pliutau over at Package Main has some sage advice about Git usage that hadn’t occurred to me. The advice is simple: ignore everything by default. The idea is to avoid filling up your repository with junk. Things like generated … Continue reading →

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Prot’s Doric Themes

Posted on 2026-09-06 by jcs

As many of you know, my idea of a theme is to set the background to “oldlace” and the cursor to red. For the rest of it, I just take what Emacs gives me. That sounds pretty haphazard but it … Continue reading →

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Optimizing Startup With Use-package

Posted on 2026-09-05 by jcs

James Cherti has another excellent post, this time on optimizing Emacs startup with use-package. The idea is that many configurations load a substantial number of packages and that this can cause a significant increase in startup time. Most of you … Continue reading →

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🥩 Red Meat Friday: The EU Is Becoming Tiresome

Posted on 2026-09-04 by jcs

Apologies to my European friends but the EU—or rather its regulators—is becoming tiresome. It’s bad enough that they treat American tech companies as piggy banks—like this almost billion dollar fine because Uber used automated systems to identify and temporarily suspend … Continue reading →

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