Category Archives: General

Writing a Thesis with Org Mode

Posted on 2018-11-23 by jcs

I keep seeing statements from the uninformed to the effect that you can’t use Org-mode for “serious” writing. First it was, “you can’t use Org-mode for journal articles.” After John Kitchin put the lie to that story, the naysayers moved … Continue reading →

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“Refactoring” Prose

Posted on 2018-11-22 by jcs

I’ve been working on a couple of prose—as opposed to code—files. One’s fairly short (\(≈3,500\) words). The other is a bit longer (\(≈11,000\) words). I realized the other day that I was probably punctuating quotes with question marks incorrectly so … Continue reading →

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The Emacs 26.1.90 Pretest

Posted on 2018-11-21 by jcs

Nicolas Petton has announced the availability of the Emacs 26.1.90 pretest. Eli is asking everyone to build and use it so that we can have an efficient test. If you’re a macOS user, you should definitely do so even if … Continue reading →

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Statistics and Lies

Posted on 2018-11-20 by jcs

Regular readers know that we here at Irreal have occasionally been hard on researchers in the social sciences. That’s especially true for Psychology where at least one study found that only 39% of published research results could be reproduced. One … Continue reading →

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Moving the iOS Cursor

Posted on 2018-11-19 by jcs

I’m a bit under the weather today so this is just a quickie. Not only is it just a quickie, it’s a quickie of interest to only iOS users. You know how when you’re entering text in an iOS app … Continue reading →

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Longform Writing With Org-mode

Posted on 2018-11-18 by jcs

Regular readers know that I’m fascinated with how non-coders use Emacs and especially how (prose) writers leverage it to remove friction from the writing process. Phil Daniels over at The Copytist is a professional writer who’s working on a longish … Continue reading →

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A Thought for the Day

Posted on 2018-11-17 by jcs

Any OS update that breaks #emacs is broken. — Golden G. Richard III (@nolaforensix) November 16, 2018 So true. Are you listening Apple?

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Government and Cybersecurity

Posted on 2018-11-16 by jcs

This is almost too easy. Remember how governments everywhere are whining about not being able to read our encrypted communications and are demanding a backdoor? “Don’t worry,” they tell us, “we’re the government and we’re experts in this stuff. We … Continue reading →

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Is Terminal Emacs Better?

Posted on 2018-11-15 by jcs

Most people will, I think, agree that Betteridge’s Law applies to the headline of this post. Back in January, I wrote about a nice discussion on the Emacs subreddit about whether GUI or terminal Emacs was better. It was a … Continue reading →

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Deleting Mail by the Page in Mu4e

Posted on 2018-11-14 by jcs

Álvaro Ramírez is a recent convert to and fan of mu4e. He’s been using the system to handle his 4 email accounts for 5 months and is happy with the results. There is a problem though: with 4 email accounts … Continue reading →

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