Monthly Archives: January 2026

A New Package.el Feature

Posted on 2026-01-11 by jcs

One of the problems with the ELPA package manager is that you never know what you’re getting when you upgrade. The package manager tells you what packages can be upgraded and you can choose to upgrade or not but you … Continue reading →

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Running Emacs As A Service

Posted on 2026-01-10 by jcs

Matthias over at Ahoi Blog makes an observation that I’ve also made many times: Discussion about Emacs startup times ends as soon as you run Emacs as a daemon. The startup is instantaneous and if you prefer a Vim-like way … Continue reading →

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Another Mu4e Workflow

Posted on 2026-01-09 by jcs

It’s been a long time since I’ve written about my Mu4e configuration. Back in 2015, I read Ben Maughan’s post on his system for achieving Inbox Zero with Mu4e. I was immediately taken with the idea and although it took … Continue reading →

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Casual HTML/CSS

Posted on 2026-01-08 by jcs

I hardly ever write directly in HTML anymore. For a long time my only use was adding links and emphasis markup in WordPress comments but Disqus no longer accepts HTML so even that use has atrophied. Nevertheless, the need sometimes … Continue reading →

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Bending Emacs 9: Time-zones

Posted on 2026-01-07 by jcs

I’ve written before about Álvaro Ramírez’s time-zones app. It’s sort of like the builtin Emacs app world-clock but easier to configure and you can move the times forward and backward, which is useful for setting up remote meetings in several … Continue reading →

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Twenty One Lessons From Google

Posted on 2026-01-06 by jcs

Addy Osmani has been working at Google for about 14 years. During that time, he’s learned a few—basically non-technical—lessons about life as a software engineer. His post, 21 Lessons From 14 Years at Google, lists some of the things he … Continue reading →

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A Paean To Dumb Jump

Posted on 2026-01-05 by jcs

I’m a long term user of Dumb Jump. According to this Irreal post, I’ve been a devoted fan since 2017. As I’ve said many times in my several posts about Dumb Jump—search for “dumb jump” on Irreal if you’re interested—I’ve … Continue reading →

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How We Know C++ Is Too Complicated

Posted on 2026-01-04 by jcs

Although I am a huge fan of C and have written thousands—maybe millions—of lines of C code, I’ve never warmed up to C++. Every time I’ve had to write in it, I’ve ended up muttering things like, “this is a … Continue reading →

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Fixing My Feed From Sacha

Posted on 2026-01-03 by jcs

I’ve been following Sacha Chua for a long time. I think I started while she was still at University but it was certainly shortly afterwards at the latest. She’s been at it for about 25 years so it’s hard for … Continue reading →

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🥩 Red Meat Friday: Reclaiming The Em-Dash

Posted on 2026-01-02 by jcs

Irreal is, of course, an em-dash friendly site. We’ve extolled the mighty em-dash and our love for it many times. Recently, an odious meme has arisen claiming that “real” people don’t use the em-dash and that its use is a … Continue reading →

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