Category Archives: General

Emacs 27.1 Coming

Posted on 2019-11-24 by jcs

Eli Zaretskii has issued what amounts to a last call for new features to appear in Emacs 27.1. He’s planning to create an Emacs-27 release branch in about a week. After that, only bug fixes for the release will be … Continue reading →

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The Pros and Cons of a Cashless Society

Posted on 2019-11-23 by jcs

Over the last month or two, I’ve written a bit about the idea of eliminating cash and moving to a digital payment system. There are some problems with eliminating all cash so my preferred outcome is merely that it be … Continue reading →

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Chris Wellons on PRNGs

Posted on 2019-11-22 by jcs

I’ve long been an admirer of Chris Wellons’ work and have written about him many times. I almost always learn something new and useful from his blog posts so of course I take notice when he publishes something new. His … Continue reading →

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What Did They Think Was Going To Happen?

Posted on 2019-11-21 by jcs

I can’t stop laughing: Microsoft Office 365 down worldwide https://t.co/1uUw6fNN2B pic.twitter.com/Hi96L3JFnW — Newshub (@NewshubNZ) November 20, 2019 I’m evil, I know, but the schadenfreude is killing me. I don’t feel even a little sorry for these people. They’ve been warned … Continue reading →

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Ken Thompson Talks About Computer Chess

Posted on 2019-11-20 by jcs

Someone posted a pointer to a 2005 interview of Ken Thompson by John Mashey in which they discuss Thompson’s work on computer chess. It’s unusual, as far as Thompson interviews go, because it doesn’t mention Unix except to note that … Continue reading →

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Zamansky 62: Magit Forge

Posted on 2019-11-19 by jcs

Mike Zamansky has posted another great video in his Using Emacs Series. This video takes a look at Magit Forge. It’s available from Melpa and is easy to install. Zamansky shows how easy in the video. Once installed, it just … Continue reading →

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Probably the Worst Password Advice You’ll Ever See

Posted on 2019-11-18 by jcs

I have no—because there are no—words to describe what a stupid idea this is: FinecoBank: “Verify the security of your passwords. Insert it on Google: if it returns less than 10 results it means it’s a good password.” (When you … Continue reading →

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Generating Technical Documents with Org-mode

Posted on 2019-11-17 by jcs

Mike Hamrick has put up an excellent video on using Emacs and Org-mode to publish nice looking and consistent technical documents. In preparing a document, Hamrick uses literate programming and—although he doesn’t mention it—reproducible research techniques. That’s important, because as … Continue reading →

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Zamansky 61: Org-msg

Posted on 2019-11-16 by jcs

Mike Zamansky has another video up in his Using Emacs Series. This time he looks at writing mu4e emails in Org-mode. Like me, he mostly wants to send plain text emails but sometimes he’d like to send tables, source code, … Continue reading →

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Generating Gantt Charts with Org-mode

Posted on 2019-11-15 by jcs

Perhaps because I’ve always worked for smaller organizations, I’ve never had to deal with Gantt charts. I’ve always considered them yet another management fad but that may be due to ignorant prejudice. In any event, lots of people use them … Continue reading →

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