Category Archives: General

Writing a Master Thesis in Org Mode

Posted on 2015-06-05 by jcs

One way or another, I end up using Org mode for almost all my writing. Blog posts are easy to write in Org and then export with org2blog, and Org brings all the power of LaTeX with an easier interface. … Continue reading →

Posted in General | Tagged , | 4 Comments

A System Wide Org Capture Key

Posted on 2015-06-04 by jcs

Over at Think *NIX, PRJ2 has a nice post on setting up a system wide key to invoke Org capture. The idea is that even if Emacs isn’t running it will be launched and Org capture automatically called. He assigns … Continue reading →

Posted in General | Tagged , | Leave a comment

Email Templates with Yasnippet

Posted on 2015-06-03 by jcs

Bin Chen is a busy guy and as a freelancer he gets lots of emails offering jobs. Each type of reply is mostly the same as all the others of that type so it makes sense to automate those replies … Continue reading →

Posted in General | Tagged , | Leave a comment

Metadata

Posted on 2015-06-02 by jcs

When they tell you it’s just metadata, show them this Sen. McConnell argues that 215 spying is not a problem since its 'just metadata.' Wrong – metadata matters. pic.twitter.com/XsSa0en1XE — Kurt Opsahl (@kurtopsahl) May 31, 2015

Posted in General | Tagged | Leave a comment

Reproducible Research in the Small

Posted on 2015-06-02 by jcs

As most of you know, I’m a big fan of reproducible research and have written about it many times. I usually think of it as something you do with a large project that is going to produce one or more … Continue reading →

Posted in General | Tagged , | 2 Comments

Nothing to Hide

Posted on 2015-06-01 by jcs

Edward Snowden has a nice rejoinder for those who say they aren’t worried about government surveillance because they have nothing to hide (via Jean-PhilippeParadis): In One Quote, Edward Snowden Just Destroyed the Biggest Myth About Privacy #Snowden http://t.co/dfthA4kMBd pic.twitter.com/7RbIp4sw9b — Help Edward … Continue reading →

Posted in General | Tagged | Leave a comment

From Date to Agenda

Posted on 2015-06-01 by jcs

Here’s a useful tip for bringing up the agenda for a given date. If you have the point on an Org date, typing 【Ctrl+c Ctrl+o】 will bring up the agenda for that date. This is really useful if you have … Continue reading →

Posted in General | Tagged , | Leave a comment

Ding Dong the Witch is Dead?

Posted on 2015-05-31 by jcs

Is the wicked witch really dead? Although I’m running the risk of suffering ignominy at the hands of Betteridge’s law, The Daily Beast is speculating just that. Namely, that the Patriot Act may soon be gone for good. We can … Continue reading →

Posted in General | Tagged | Leave a comment

The Power of Plain Text Explained

Posted on 2015-05-30 by jcs

In a short tweet, Karl Voit explains the power of plain text and why you should avoid lock in: Devastating: how much money/human-life-time/information is lost because #Microsoft #Word was used to archive things. #digitalhumanities — n0v0id (@n0v0id) April 7, 2015

Posted in General | Tagged , | Leave a comment

Making Open Offices Less Bad

Posted on 2015-05-30 by jcs

I’ve written many times about the evils and absurdities of open plan offices. There’s lots of duckspeak about improving communication or culture building but everyone knows that its real—and only—virtue is that it’s cheap. Given that fact, if you find … Continue reading →

Posted in General | Tagged | 2 Comments