Personal

I wrote the other day, about switching to Noah Webster’s dictionary everywhere, I possibly could. Now I did that after reading this lovely James Somers post. And that post seems to be resounding through the web, with folks integrating it into their workflows in different ways. So I was really happy when I read Jon Snader’s post telling me I could have my beloved Webster’s dictionary in Emacs! This sounded too good to be true! I didn’t believe it! Because why would I believe some old, wise wizard who’s only been writing about Emacs on a near daily basis for close to fourteen years?! I had to try this out myself! So I whip out ye, old, trusty scratch buffer, type crap into it and select it.1 And then I fire up M-x dictionary-search, like Snader tells me to This is the moment of poop … err truth! I hit return and … How now brown cow?! It actually works! ...

For the past twenty years, you’ve been the bane of my existence. I slept with the phone by the bedside, never knowing when Mummy would call, and one of us would have to come find you, and dig you out of the newest hole you dug for yourself. And none of those years have been harder, than the one where we were estranged for the past year. Two decades of picking up after you had taken their toll. ...

As is our wont, we spent the day gallivanting in a jungle and having an accident. And then crying for a while and then laughing about what a story it would be for the rest of our lives. Much like our marriage. We make the best stories, don’t we? And I am who I am, because of you. Eleven years, and it still feels like only yesterday. 1 I love you. ...

Been meaning to write up a short note to some of my writing to point folks to. So here goes. This serves as a mélange of the things I write and interest me. I’ve coauthored a book on linux, Linux for You and Me Related HN discussion My blog at Janusworx Learning about Cross Site Request Forgery (CSRF) Protection in Django Models in Django (and heuristics for creating optimal models) Python Advanced Objects Iterators and Generators in Python Python Comprehensions Miniflux Fails to Start at Boot I have written long form articles, to serve as teaching material for Linux Users’ Group of Durgapur Blogging IRC on the Web 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. ...

This James Somers post, made me realise why my dictionary word lookups were so much less engaging than when I was a kid. From the post … […] go look up “flash” in Webster’s (the edition I’m using is the 1913). The first thing you’ll notice is that the example sentences don’t sound like they came out of a DMV training manual (“the lights started flashing”) — they come from Milton and Shakespeare and Tennyson (“A thought flashed through me, which I clothed in act”) ...

I started with a very simple init.el when I started using Emacs. Rather than learning it in a structured manner, I just decided to jump in at whatever end of the pool and figure it out as I go. I may not know Emacs, but I do know what I want out of a general purpose text editor. And bending Emacs to do my will, to do what I want it to do or behave in the manner I want it to behave. And Emacs to my eternal gratitude, is flexible to do all I want, thanks to the last forty six years worth of hard work and ideas of people from all over. ...