Author Archives: jcs

Smells And Properties

Posted on 2012-03-13 by jcs

Paul Graham has posted a provocative essay on the copyright wars. He starts by recalling a childhood tale in which the owner of a food shop grows annoyed when a poor student enjoys the delicious smell of his cooking food. … Continue reading →

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Common Lisp, Scheme, Clojure, And Elisp Compared

Posted on 2012-03-12 by jcs

A month ago we had a lively discussion here at Irreal on the question of whether or not Elisp sucks. As with most questions of this sort, there were champions of both positions: some felt that Elisp is a distinctly … Continue reading →

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Spam Update

Posted on 2012-03-12 by jcs

I’m seeing yet another spike in spam so I’ve reluctantly turned on moderation again. If NuCaptcha can plug the hole that appears to be allowing this spam I will, of course, turn it off again. Interestingly, one mystery is solved. … Continue reading →

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Spam Raises Its Head Again

Posted on 2012-03-11 by jcs

After a period of virtually no forum spam I’m seeing a spike in the amount of spam. This may be because of the recent NuCaptcha break or it may be due to the spammers using a Mechanical Turk-like strategy of … Continue reading →

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Quicklisp

Posted on 2012-03-10 by jcs

After being inspired to finally start using ELPA to handle my Emacs packages, I decided to try out Zach Beane’s Quicklisp library manager for Common Lisp. Up until now, I’ve been using the manual method to get things into ASDF, … Continue reading →

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ELPA

Posted on 2012-03-09 by jcs

I’ve been meaning to install ELPA for a long time but never got around to it. Then Emacs 24 was on the horizon and I thought, “Why bother going through the pain of installing it when it will be included … Continue reading →

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TSA: Worse Than You Thought

Posted on 2012-03-08 by jcs

Jon Corbett over at TSA Out of Our Pants is making his displeasure with the TSA felt and in the process has become a real thorn in their side. After being denied access to his flight when he refused to … Continue reading →

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Script Kiddies At Work

Posted on 2012-03-07 by jcs

Kura over at SYSLOG has a really great animation showing the origins of SSH attacks on a single server during a 24 hour period. It’s another reminder, if you needed one, to lock down your machines. It’s pretty obvious these … Continue reading →

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JSON Versus S-Expressions (Again)

Posted on 2012-03-06 by jcs

I’ve written several posts concerning the relative merits of JSON vs S-expressions (1, 2, 3, 4) and concluded that while s-expressions are more powerful and flexible, JSON might be a better choice because it’s supported by virtually all programming languages. … Continue reading →

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DMR Stories

Posted on 2012-03-05 by jcs

Mike Maney over at Maney Digital has a very nice tribute up for Dennis Ritchie. While he was at the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona, Maney talked to some of dmr’s colleagues and captured their words on his Flip. The … Continue reading →

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