Tag Archives: Tech

Mouseless

Posted on 2021-02-07 by jcs

If you grew up with computers using a GUI interface, the idea of not using a mouse probably seems ridiculous. Why would anyone want to do that? As I’ve said in other contexts, you can live without air conditioning too … Continue reading →

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A Symbolics and Space Cadet Keyboard

Posted on 2021-01-20 by jcs

If you’re a certain type of geek, especially a certain type of Emacs geek, you likely share a dream with the rest of your tribe: having a Symbolics or a Space Cadet keyboard. I’ve written about that before but now … Continue reading →

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Knuth on Writing

Posted on 2021-01-18 by jcs

Philip Kiely has an interesting interview with Don Knuth that concentrates on the writing aspects of Knuth’s career. Everyone knows about The Art of Computer Programming (AOCP) and TeX but Kiely’s interview drills down on why things are the way … Continue reading →

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Chris Wellons on State Machines

Posted on 2021-01-15 by jcs

As I’ve mentioned a few times, I love programming state machines. I spent many years writing software for communications software using odd protocols. The easiest way of implementing those protocols was almost always to use a state machine. Once you … Continue reading →

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Knuth’s Literate Programming Paper

Posted on 2021-01-14 by jcs

Literate Programming. Back in 1984 when Knuth published his paper proposing Literate Programming, he believed that the concept would take over the programming world. I remember him saying that companies that failed to adopt Literate Programming would soon fall behind … Continue reading →

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Adding a Third Monitor to EXWM

Posted on 2021-01-11 by jcs

Twelve or thirteen years ago, I got my first Mac. Fast forward to today and you’ll find that the Irreal bunker is firmly in the Apple ecosystem. One of the things I don’t miss—at all—is struggling with getting X configured. … Continue reading →

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Building A Password Generator in 3 Minutes

Posted on 2021-01-06 by jcs

Today—the whole week really—has been consumed by yak shaving so this is a short offering. Salah Qadri has a nice 3 minute video (3 minutes, 48 secs actually) in which he builds a reasonably good password generator. The generator builds … Continue reading →

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REPLs

Posted on 2021-01-03 by jcs

Mikel Evins has a lovely post that considers interactive programming and REPLs. As many of you know, I love interactive programming and am a huge fan of it. I like how you can try out bits of code and feel … Continue reading →

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A Global Hyper Key

Posted on 2020-12-30 by jcs

There’s an interesting article over at Prodtyping that illustrates how to implement a global Hyper key on the Mac. By “global” I mean it works everywhere, not just Emacs. The idea is to use Hyper as a global shortcut key. … Continue reading →

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Letting Google Control Your Home

Posted on 2020-12-17 by jcs

My immediate reaction when I saw this: Why would you give @Google control over anything in your home? https://t.co/4OwqMRTgM9 — Geoffrey Miller (@primalpoly) December 16, 2020 was absolute agreement. Why would anyone entrust Google with their home lighting? It’s the … Continue reading →

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