Category Archives: General

An Honest Mistake

Posted on 2014-05-04 by jcs

Edward Snowden asks an embarrassing question: Why hasn’t the Director of National Intelligence been punished for lying to Congress? After all, for the relatively trivial offense of lying to Congress about steroid use, Barry Bonds was convicted of a felony. … Continue reading →

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The Weird Americans

Posted on 2014-05-03 by jcs

Yesterday, I wrote about the Pacific Standard article on problems with reproducibility in the social sciences. Today I stumbled upon a second Pacific Standard article that discusses another insidious way that distortions can creep into studies in fields like psychology … Continue reading →

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Another Argument for Reproducible Research

Posted on 2014-05-02 by jcs

As you all know, I’m a big fan of reproducible research. Most people have an idealized conception of scientific research and that, by and large, it’s all about the pursuit of truth. Sadly that’s not always the case. The problem … Continue reading →

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A TeX Spring Cleaning

Posted on 2014-05-01 by jcs

Every few years Donald Knuth raises his head from his travails on TAOCP and considers the state of TeX. From time to time people submit bugs they’ve found in TeX and during these periodic respites from his life’s work, Knuth … Continue reading →

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Whom We Spy On

Posted on 2014-04-28 by jcs

The NSA and its apologists are fond of insisting that the NSA’s mission is to monitor our enemies and that any interception of Americans’ or American Allies’ communications are incidental and that such data, once collected, is promptly destroyed. Only … Continue reading →

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Irreal Turns Three

Posted on 2014-04-26 by jcs

Three years ago on April 26, 2011, I published the first post in this instantiation of Irreal. I guess that means that the terrible twos are finally over.

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The Ultimate Privacy Guide

Posted on 2014-04-25 by jcs

From time to time I’ve mentioned articles that help you maintain your privacy. Some of us grumpy and misanthropic types have nothing to hide but do everything we can to maintain our privacy out of orneriness. If that sounds like … Continue reading →

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Guile and Emacs

Posted on 2014-04-24 by jcs

Three years ago, I wrote about a talk by Andy Wingo on the new Guile architecture. One of the most interesting things in the talk for me was Wingo’s plans to integrate Guile into Emacs by replacing the Elisp engine … Continue reading →

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Sacha’s Emacs Beginner Resources

Posted on 2014-04-23 by jcs

Speaking of Sacha Chua—as I did yesterday—she’s got a nice page on beginner resources for Emacs. Chua tasked one of her assistants to seek out resources for learning Emacs and published the results. She’s got all the sites you’d expect: … Continue reading →

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Sacha Chats with Jānis Mancēviĉs

Posted on 2014-04-22 by jcs

Sacha Chua has another Emacs chat up. This time it’s with Jānis Mancēviĉs. It’s a far ranging talk but one of the interesting aspects is Mancēviĉs’s use of Org mode for Literate Programming. He and his team mate use Org … Continue reading →

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