Category Archives: General

The//Intercept on Choosing Passwords

Posted on 2015-04-08 by jcs

The//Intercept has an excellent article on how to choose secure passwords that are (relatively) easy to remember. The problem with passwords is that they are almost never secure. Most people choose stupid ones (password, 123456, \(\dots\)) and even those of … Continue reading →

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Discovering Calc

Posted on 2015-04-06 by jcs

As some of you know, learning more about about calc has been on my TODO list for sometime (that’s literally true—it’s in my agenda). I last wrote about it just last week. I’ve finally stopped procrastinating and starting learning calc. … Continue reading →

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New Programming Jargon

Posted on 2015-04-05 by jcs

Recently, I wrote about the glories of the Jargon File and remarked that the hacker jargon it records is often hilarious. It’s easy to burn up a couple of hours browsing around in it. Now Jeff Atwood over at Coding … Continue reading →

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Britain Too

Posted on 2015-04-04 by jcs

It turns out that it’s not just the U.S. Britain, too, has bozos in charge of keeping us safe (via Nic Ferrier): Tories plan porn site age checks http://t.co/mftZlYDrHq <- more unicorn-farming fantasies from the techno-illiterate — Simon Phipps (@webmink) … Continue reading →

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No Shame

Posted on 2015-04-04 by jcs

FBI Director James Comey just hates it that he’s not able to snoop on us at will. His shameless invocation of the 4 Horsemen descends into self-parody. Sadly, his message resonates with some of our more weak minded representatives, one … Continue reading →

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Writing an Emacs Major Mode

Posted on 2015-04-03 by jcs

Wilfred Hughes has a nice post on writing a major mode for a new language. As Hughes demonstrates, it’s pretty easy to get started but there’s lots of details and nooks and crannies to worry about. His post shows how … Continue reading →

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Emacs and Exchange Web Services

Posted on 2015-04-02 by jcs

For those of you condemned for past sins to use the Exchange calendar system, this can help you keep things in the family. Actually it’s an Emacs interface for the entire Exchange Web Services API. Seems like it could be … Continue reading →

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Engine Mode

Posted on 2015-04-02 by jcs

How often have you wanted to Google some term in the document you’re working on, or look up the documentation for a function? Many of us have a few Elisp functions to do this but you end up with a … Continue reading →

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Keeping the Minibuffer Cursor Out of the Prompt

Posted on 2015-04-01 by jcs

Have you ever been annoyed when editing in the minibuffer and you accidently move the cursor into the prompt? If so, here’s a tip from Xah Lee on how to avoid it.

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News From the Emacs vs. Vim Front

Posted on 2015-03-31 by jcs

Via reddit: an oddly satisfying exchange.

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