Monthly Archives: April 2023

Improving IELM

Posted on 2023-04-10 by jcs

If you’ve been around Emacs long enough to learn some Elisp, you probably know about IELM, the Inferior Emacs Lisp Mode. It provides an Elisp REPL that is often easier to use than evaluating separate Elisp statements. It’s one of … Continue reading →

Posted in General | Tagged | Leave a comment

Beating The House At Roulette

Posted on 2023-04-09 by jcs

This post isn’t strictly within the purview of Irreal but I think it will appeal to the nerd in all of us. Most of you know that a perfect roulette wheel produces completely random results but, of course, no wheel … Continue reading →

Posted in General | Tagged | Leave a comment

Emacs Docs

Posted on 2023-04-08 by jcs

Ghislain Vieilledent reminds us of a useful Website for Emacs documentation: RT @ctietze@mastodon.socialhttps://t.co/ZPYqv8Kge9 I was looking up font parameters for #Emacs and found https://t.co/ONGPmG8h9T It claims to be “The modern documentation website Emacs deserves” And I think they’re right. They … Continue reading →

Posted in General | Tagged | Leave a comment

Red Meat Friday: Another Skirmish In The Emacs/Vi War

Posted on 2023-04-07 by jcs

As I’ve often said, I never enlisted in the Emacs/Vi wars. I’ve used and like them both but feel they serve distinct user requirements and aren’t really in competition. Still, that doesn’t mean I can’t appreciate the occasional volley that … Continue reading →

Posted in General | Tagged | Leave a comment

DALL-E in Org Mode

Posted on 2023-04-06 by jcs

If you follow Alvaro Ramirez’s work, you’ll soon discover that his usual procedure with a project is to start with a good idea and then keep pushing it to improve it and add new features. A case in point is … Continue reading →

Posted in General | Tagged , | Leave a comment

A Bit of Humor

Posted on 2023-04-05 by jcs

It’s a busier day than usual for me today so this is just a quickie. I saw this post by Jason Eckert about the disparity between Apple’s hardware and their software. It’s probably not of much interest if you aren’t … Continue reading →

Posted in General | Tagged | Leave a comment

ChatGPT in Org Mode

Posted on 2023-04-04 by jcs

There’s been a lot of excitement about ChatGPT lately so of course Emacs hackers have risen to the challenge with Emacs interfaces to it. The first I was aware of was Vivek Haldar’s contribution but there have been several others. … Continue reading →

Posted in General | Tagged , | Leave a comment

Spyware and Goodhart’s Law

Posted on 2023-04-03 by jcs

Nir Eyal has an interesting article in the Harvard Business Review about the horrible, Orwellian practice of businesses using spyware to monitor what their employees are doing. Even putting aside the Stasi element, it should be clear to anyone with … Continue reading →

Posted in General | Tagged | Leave a comment

Preferring Emacs Over VSCode and Vim

Posted on 2023-04-02 by jcs

Ken over at the code.to.the.(moon) YouTube channel has an interesting post on Why I Prefer Emacs Over VSCode and vim. That’s a question that all Emacsers have to answer, at least implicitly. Ken’s answer turns out to be “Org mode”. … Continue reading →

Posted in General | Tagged , | Leave a comment

Tracking Tax Documents With Org Mode

Posted on 2023-04-01 by jcs

As I’ve written many times, I use Org mode to organize a ridiculous percentage of my life and can’t imagine living without it. It’s just so powerful that I keep finding new uses for it. The problem is, though, it’s … Continue reading →

Posted in General | Tagged , | Leave a comment