Monthly Archives: November 2014

Animated Paredit Guide

Posted on 2014-11-30 by jcs

Dan Midwood has posted an excellent animated paredit guide. The post consists of animated gifs and supporting text. Midwood’s experience mirrors mine. For a long time he used only the most basic paredit features but then decided to optimize his … Continue reading →

Posted in Programming | Tagged Emacs | 2 Comments

Handwriting Update

Posted on 2014-11-29 by jcs

It’s been a while since we’ve visited the fronts in the cursive wars. Here in the United States the trend away from cursive is moving fitfully forward with occasional counterattacks from traditionalists and their talk of Armageddon. It’s harder here … Continue reading →

Posted in General | 1 Comment

Lisp for the Web

Posted on 2014-11-28 by jcs

Adam Tornhill has a new book: Hard to believe I got 1000+ readers of my #Lisp book @leanpub . I mean, Lisp? I'm happy and proud! https://t.co/QFp86ulLnA — Adam Tornhill (@AdamTornhill) October 19, 2014 I just bought and downloaded my … Continue reading →

Posted in Programming | Tagged Common-lisp, Lisp | Leave a comment

`eshell` Examples

Posted on 2014-11-28 by jcs

I’ve written before about how I’ve integrated eshell into my workflow. I’ve been using it for some time and really like it but mostly I might as well be in bash. I don’t use any of its special features and … Continue reading →

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The `loop` Macro Explained by Example

Posted on 2014-11-27 by jcs

Long time readers are probably aware that I don’t care for the Common Lisp loop macro. It’s not Lispy and I always have a hard time remembering its syntax. Happily, Chris Bagley, who I’ve mentioned before, has a video for … Continue reading →

Posted in Programming | Tagged Common-lisp, Lisp | Leave a comment

Installing a Lisp Development Environment on Windows

Posted on 2014-11-26 by jcs

Chris Bagley (Baggers) has a nice video from last year on installing a Common Lisp development enironment on Windows. He walks us through installing Emacs, Slime, SBCL, and Quicklisp on a Windows machine. That includes defining a working directory and … Continue reading →

Posted in Programming | Tagged Common-lisp, Emacs, Lisp | 1 Comment

Adaptive Queries

Posted on 2014-11-25 by jcs

Jeremy Kun has an amusing and startling trick: pick any polynomial \(p(x)=c_{0}+c_{1}x+\cdots+c_{n}x^{n}\) where the \(c_{i}\) are non-negative integers and the degree, \(n\), is any positive integer you like. Kun will then ask you one at a time for the value … Continue reading →

Posted in General | Tagged Math | Leave a comment

`query-replace` in Emacs 25.

Posted on 2014-11-24 by jcs

A nice feature of the query-replace function is that you can scroll through the history of previous parameters and perhaps avoid retyping them. Unfortunately, you can’t edit that history so if your new input is even a little bit different, … Continue reading →

Posted in Programming | Tagged Emacs | Leave a comment

They’re Doing it for Your Own Good

Posted on 2014-11-23 by jcs

Britain calls forth the four horsemen and apparently without shame or self awareness.

Posted in General | Tagged Privacy | Leave a comment

The Problems with Gratuitously Collecting Data

Posted on 2014-11-23 by jcs

Over at Neustar Research, Anthony Tockar has an interesting if terrifying post on the analysis of anonymized data from New York City’s Taxi and Limousine Commission. The data, which was obtained through a FOIA request, contains details of every Taxi … Continue reading →