Category Archives: General

Mathematical Typesetting

Posted on 2017-10-16 by jcs

I’ve always been fascinated by the typesetting process and have a particular fondness for the old mechanical typesetters such as the Linotype. I wrote about that in this post from a couple of years ago. That post has a link … Continue reading →

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Start an Engineering Notebook

Posted on 2017-10-15 by jcs

Camilla over at Winterflower argues that software engineers should keep an engineering notebook. That’s advice that everybody knows they should follow but that too many of us don’t. We’re busy and we think, “I’ll remember what I just did, I … Continue reading →

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Everybody Wants to Get Into the Act

Posted on 2017-10-14 by jcs

BuzzFeed—I know, I know—is reporting that the Treasury Department is now spying on Americans and their financial data. As the late, great Jimmy Durante used to say, “Everybody wants to get into the act.” This spying is so egregious that … Continue reading →

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Elisp for Configuration

Posted on 2017-10-13 by jcs

Chris Done has a nice introduction to Elisp for configuration. This introduction is aimed at programmers who are relatively new to Emacs and want to start doing some simple customization. He doesn’t intend to provide an thorough guide to the … Continue reading →

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Emacs Pretest 1 Is Available

Posted on 2017-10-12 by jcs

Nicolas Petton has announced the release of Emacs 26.0.90, the first pretest for Emacs 26. I’ve already been reading very favorable reviews, some saying it’s the best release available. If you don’t mind living on the edge, you can help … Continue reading →

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C-q and ASCII in Emacs

Posted on 2017-10-11 by jcs

LigerLearn has a nice video on using Ctrl+q in Emacs to insert arbitrary ASCII (or even Unicode) characters into the current buffer. The video begins with a discussion of ASCII control characters and the “caret notation” used to represent them. … Continue reading →

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Bookmarks, Eshell, and Docker

Posted on 2017-10-10 by jcs

Fuco1 is really good at investigating how Emacs’ systems work and extending them to better suit his workflow. The latest example of this—or at least the latest that I know of—is his work in extending the Emacs bookmark system. The … Continue reading →

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Unix History

Posted on 2017-10-09 by jcs

The other day I saw a reference to this great history of Unix. It’s Chapter 2 from Eric Raymond’s The Art of Unix Programming. I hadn’t read it for some time and enjoyed it all over again. Many—or maybe even … Continue reading →

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Kontra Nails It on Open Offices

Posted on 2017-10-08 by jcs

How many bean counters does it take to finally grok giant open-space office layouts are counterproductive? — Kontra (@counternotions) October 8, 2017 He also points to this New York Times article on office design, which describes a movement away from … Continue reading →

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Org Mode Completion

Posted on 2017-10-07 by jcs

By far the most useful weapon in my Emacs efficiency arsenal is abo-abo’s Ivy library and associated utilities. Everything from simple string searches with swiper to finding files with counsel-M-x is easier and faster than before. Therefore, when abo-abo suggests … Continue reading →

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