Monthly Archives: February 2026

Bending Emacs 11: Winpulse

Posted on 2026-02-18 by jcs

Last week I wrote about Álvaro Ramírez’s new Winpulse package. The purpose of the package is to flash the window receiving focus when you use the other-window command. I wrote that I chose a different solution—changing the color of the … Continue reading →

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Let’s Play How Big Is Your Emacs Config?

Posted on 2026-02-17 by jcs

Speaking of things that don’t matter at all , over at the Emacs reddit, reddit_enjoyer_47 wants to know how big our init.el files are. Despite my dismissal of the question as of no importance, it turns out that the answers … Continue reading →

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Writing SF With Emacs, Part 2

Posted on 2026-02-16 by jcs

Last week, I wrote about Theena Kumaragurunathan’s post on writing Science Fiction with Emacs and how Emacs was the inspiration for the brain computer interface in his latest SF novel. In a followup post, Kumaragurunathan discusses the philosophical and design … Continue reading →

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Traveling: Posting May Be Spotty

Posted on 2026-02-16 by jcs

I’m traveling for the next few days so posting may be spotty. The minions are guarding the Irreal bunker but are terrible at blogging—except maybe on posts concerning dark themes—so they’re no help. I’ll try to get a post in … Continue reading →

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Neocaml Released

Posted on 2026-02-15 by jcs

Bozhidar Batsov has announced the release of the first version of Neocaml, an Emacs major mode for OCaml. Batsov is a big fan of OCaml but wasn’t happy with the existing Emacs major modes for it. So, of course, he … Continue reading →

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Why I Use Ad Blockers

Posted on 2026-02-14 by jcs

If you’ve been around Irreal for a while, you know that I’ve always been conflicted about ad blockers. On the one hand, I recognize that content providers have to make money some how and that the only reasonably way in … Continue reading →

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Exporting From Org Agenda To macOS Calendar

Posted on 2026-02-13 by jcs

Aimé Bertrand has an nice post on how he exports scheduled items in his org agenda to his macOS calendar. He mostly lives in Emacs and Org mode but, like, me also likes to have his appointments and other scheduled … Continue reading →

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Writing SF With Emacs

Posted on 2026-02-12 by jcs

Theena Kumaragurunathan, a filmmaker, photographer, and writer, has an interesting post on using Emacs for writing science fiction. There’s nothing new about that, if course. Several well known SF authors use Emacs. Kumaragurunathan’s post is interesting for two reasons: The … Continue reading →

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Winpulse

Posted on 2026-02-11 by jcs

Álvaro Ramírez has a new Emacs app available. The app, winpulse, is his answer to keeping track of the active window. What happens is that every time the focus changes the new window flashes so you get a visual indication … Continue reading →

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Snippets With Regular Expressions

Posted on 2026-02-10 by jcs

It’s been years since I wrote about Gilles Castel and his astounding ability to take LaTeX notes so fast that he was able to keep up with the the instructor in his Mathematics classes. Sadly, Castel died in 2022 but … Continue reading →

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