Monthly Archives: May 2017

How to Read the Commentary Section of Emacs Packages

Posted on 2017-05-31 by jcs

Alexandro de Oliveira has a problem that I’ve also experienced. He wants to know how he can read a complete description of a package such as that given on its Elpa page. He asked on Stack Exchange and gave as … Continue reading →

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The FBI Proves the Iron Law of Data Collection

Posted on 2017-05-30 by jcs

About a year ago, I wrote about the FBI’s use of §702 data—supposedly collected to fight terrorism—for routine law enforcement having nothing to do with terrorism. I called it another confirmation of the Iron Law of Data Collection: the idea … Continue reading →

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An Update on Microsoft’s Move to Git

Posted on 2017-05-29 by jcs

A few months ago, I wrote about Microsoft’s move to git and the scaling problems they were having to overcome. Now Brian Harry has posted an update on their work. They have what they claim is the largest git repository … Continue reading →

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Fontifying Broken Org Links

Posted on 2017-05-28 by jcs

John Kitchin answers an Emacs Stack Exchange question and provides a handy tip. The question was how to display a broken Org link in the Org-warning face. That turns out to be really simple. If you’re dealing with particularly volatile … Continue reading →

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Henry Spencer and getopt

Posted on 2017-05-27 by jcs

Kids today! They have it so easy. (Waves cane.) Eric Raymond (esr) has posted a charming vignette that, among other things, illustrates how easy we have it today. The story is set in 1984 when AT&T had just announced that … Continue reading →

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Fontifying Completed Checkbox Items

Posted on 2017-05-26 by jcs

Matus Goljer (Fuco1) has another excellent suggestion in his latest blog posting. A recent project required a large list of tasks to be completed, which he tracked with Org mode checkboxes. The problem was that it was visually confusing and … Continue reading →

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A Nice Trick for Literate Configurations

Posted on 2017-05-25 by jcs

Marco Wahl has a nice Emacs literate configuration that’s worth taking a look at for some of his ideas. What I really like, though, is his trick for making the tangled init.el read-only to remind himself and others not to … Continue reading →

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Using Org Mode for Writing

Posted on 2017-05-24 by jcs

Over at the Emacs subreddit, willmhorne asks how people use Org’s outlining capabilities for essays, books, and other long-form writing. Most Org users have their own answers to this but it’s very interesting and useful to see what others have … Continue reading →

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Importing Tables to Org with Pasting

Posted on 2017-05-23 by jcs

Ben Maughan over at Pragmatic Emacs has a nifty animation showing how easy it is to import data from a PDF by pasting it into a buffer and then using Emacs’ excellent tools to reformat it to the desired form.

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A DSL for Elfeed

Posted on 2017-05-22 by jcs

As Irreal regulars know, I’m now reading my feeds with Elfeed. It put one more frequent task under Emacs and generally makes organizing and dealing with the feeds easier. Because of my Elfeed adoption, I’ve been paying more attention to … Continue reading →

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