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Updated to Emacs 29.2, just now. Took me and my four core workhorse about fifteen minutes tops, from start to finish. Emacs 29.0 was the first version I compiled from source, because I wanted the latest release as soon as it was out and I no longer had the patience for the kindly distribution folk (or third party packagers) to give me a binary. The first time was a nightmare. I didn’t have various bits and bobs that were needed. Stuff that the guides say should work a certain way wouldn’t. But it did happen eventually and I learnt a lot along the way about what I wanted compiled in, in my Emacs. I also appreciated just how much easier it is now to compile stuff and recover from errors. I tried this last in the late 90s1 and it scared me off. ...

I went and fulfilled an old dream of mine. A signed copy of Neil Gaiman’s, What You Need to Be Warm. Click to see bigger A New Year’s Gift! From me, to me 😂 ...

With eternal gratitude to Bruinhilda the Librarian, for writing this. And with lots of apologies for stealing it wholesale and making it my new reading manifesto :) As a library worker, there’s something I want to say to you. You do not have to apologize for the books you choose to read. At all. To anyone. You owe nobody any explanations; you need no excuse or “good reason” to be reading the book. ...

I normally hide Easter eggs or just random comments into my footnotes. And so normally it does not matter if you folk read it or not. But this post was really off the cuff and there are some details that have snuck into the footnotes. So, please do give ’em a peek courtesy, Tom Gauld ...

Click to enlarge To be a Flower, is profound Responsibility — — Emily Dickinson, Bloom Feedback on this post? Mail me at feedback@janusworx.com P.S. Subscribe to my mailing list! Forward these posts and letters to your friends and get them to subscribe! P.P.S. Feed my insatiable reading habit. ...

I’ve had a rash of folk1, unsubscribing from the newsletter after last few I’ve sent. I guess a few of you signed on, for techy posts and because of life, most of my recent newsletters have mostly been photography, or writing or other stuff.2 So, I went ahead, reworked the subscribe page on the blog and segmented the rest of you folk. Hopefully, you see only the emails you are interested in. I’ve sent out emails to each list, asking if they’re interested in the other (or all) list, so if you’d like alternatives, mail me and tell me so :) For new folk, the page now asks for the kind of emails, you would like to receive and automatically puts you in said bucket. Yes, there’s a bit more friction, but I cannot help it. Better to err on the side of safety. ...