Author Archives: jcs

Chrome Incognito Mode

Why oh why won’t you listen to me? I keep preaching the gospel but you keep ignoring me. It’s not the end times, exactly, but there is an important point to be made. That point is: STOP USING GOOGLE CHROME … Continue reading

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Emacs Keystrokes in macOS

This is your periodic reminder that you can get most of the Emacs editing keystrokes in any macOS application. I usually publish this reminder when I see a tweet or post from someone who has discovered that the Emacs cursor … Continue reading

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Red Meat Friday: Europe Brings the Regulation

There’s an old joke about some proposed device that would benefit the world. The U.S. said, “We’ll bring the design.” China said, “We’ll bring the manufacturing.” Europe said, “We’ll bring the regulation.” That’s a bit unfair, of course, but like … Continue reading

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The Ethics of (Self) Job Automation

Back in January, I wrote about the story of a developer who automated his job with some scripts and then spent the next few years pursuing his own interests at work while letting his scripts do his job. Many people … Continue reading

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Org-mode Is Easy

Gavin Freeborn posted a video in which he argues that Org-mode is easy. The reason it’s easy, he says, is the same as I’ve often written: You don’t have to learn it all or even large parts of it to … Continue reading

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A Formula for the nth Prime

As some of you know, I was trained as a mathematician. I’ve always been a bit of a math nerd and read about mathematics even as a child. Long ago, probably when I was still in elementary school, I read … Continue reading

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Extract Captions From a Youtube Video

Ag Ibragimov had a problem that many of us have experienced. He learned a term from a video but later couldn’t recall the term. We went back to the video to search for it but couldn’t find it. What to … Continue reading

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Mandated Editor

I recently came across a truly awful post to the Emacs subreddit. It wasn’t the post itself; it’s what it revealed. The post asked how to counter FUD from users of the bling-centric editors that Emacs was old technology that … Continue reading

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Dictionaries and Emacs

Somewhere in 2014–2015, I came across James Somers’ beautiful article on Webster’s 1913 dictionary and why it’s the right choice. It was a revelation to me, opening my eyes to a wonderful resource that ever since has helped me find … Continue reading

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Red Meat Friday: Is The FSF Fighting The Previous War?

This is a bit genuine red meat and perhaps a little sensitive for some people but it does raise a point that deserves discussion. A shorthand for that point is the title of today’s post. A more descriptive way of … Continue reading

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