Category Archives: General

Casual Calendar

Posted on 2024-11-28 by jcs

Charles Choi is back with another app in his great set of Casual packages. This time it’s to provide a menu interface to the calendar/diary functions in Emacs. I don’t use either of these functionalities directly because it’s hard to … Continue reading →

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Today’s Humor: ISPs Provide Excellent Customer Service

Posted on 2024-11-27 by jcs

According to an Ars Technica report, ISPs say that their customer service is so good that customers don’t seek other providers. That claim was made by the NCTA-The Internet & Television Association, a cable industry trade association in response to … Continue reading →

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Digital Vs. Analog Notes Redux

Posted on 2024-11-26 by jcs

My post on Digital Vs. Analog Notes got some excellent comments as well as a followup post from JTR on his site. JTR mostly agrees with what I wrote but I did get some pushback in the comments on Irreal. … Continue reading →

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Why Numbering Should Start At 0

Posted on 2024-11-25 by jcs

As many of you know, Edsger W. Dijkstra was an important and prolific mathematician and computer science. He was responsible for, among other things, the widely used shortest path algorithm. One oddity of his work was that a substantial part … Continue reading →

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The Only Computer Science Book Worth Reading Twice

Posted on 2024-11-24 by jcs

Longtime Irreal readers know that I consider Abelson’s & Sussman’s Structure and Interpretation of Computer Programs (SICP) arguably the best computer science book of all time. There’s Knuth’s The Art of Computer Programming of course but for the average software … Continue reading →

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Plugins Again

Posted on 2024-11-23 by jcs

I thought we had settled this once and for all but apparently not. Over at the Emacs subreddit, sudhirkhanger asks about VS Code’s extension system as compared to Emacs’. He’s “blown away” at how great the VS Code plugin system … Continue reading →

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Some Configuration To Solve Common Problems

Posted on 2024-11-22 by jcs

Remember how, when you first started using Emacs, there were all those strange defaults that just didn’t seem right. The worst one, for me, was scrolling. I hated the way the screen would jump when you got near the top … Continue reading →

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Styling Text In Org Mode

Posted on 2024-11-21 by jcs

As most of you know, I follow Charles Choir’s work and often use and recommend his apps. I especially like his Casual Apps, which generally make dealing with little used features easier. I was, therefore, eager to read his latest … Continue reading →

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Digital Vs. Analog Notes

Posted on 2024-11-18 by jcs

Over at The Art Of Not Asking Why, JTR has a couple of posts that explore his struggle with deciding between digital and analog note taking. None of you will be surprised where I come down on the issue—I’m all … Continue reading →

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Getting Car Sick With Lisp

Posted on 2024-11-17 by jcs

Just a quickie today. Over at the Lisp subredit, breck says that he used to program in Lisp but got car sick. It’s a pretty weak pun but the commenters took up the challenge and kept the ball rolling. DrownNotably … Continue reading →

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