Author: grant

An asynchronous web server written in Emacs LISP

Elnode is an asynchronous web server written in Emacs LISP.
Emacs has had asynchronous socket programming facilities for some time and a few years ago asynchronous TCP server sockets were introduced. I couldn’t quite believe that no one had written an asynchronous webserver with EmacsLISP before. So now I have.
When I started looking at actually doing this I intended to knock up just a silly demo. But the more I got into it the more it seemed to me that this could be an important addition to Emacs and that, sometimes, an Emacs LISP async web server could actually be useful.

(via nic)

Managing bibliography references with JabRef

JabRef is an open source bibliography reference manager. The native file format used by JabRef is BibTeX, the standard LaTeX bibliography format. JabRef runs on the Java VM (version 1.5 or newer), and should work equally well on Windows, Linux and Mac OS X.

Addendum: 2019-09-24

JabRef continues to be an excellent bibliography manager.

Using BibTeX as the master database and JabRef to populate, manage, and export from it has been really nice. The key has been letting Emacs manage the keys and sorting.

DSLs are still fun

Now the popularity of DSLs may have waned, but the fun surrounding them surely has not.
A while back James and I looked into implementing a DSL for modeling insurance products in Java that worked really nicely:

  • built on top of Java we’ve full access to all its goodies like the libraries and object system and containers
  • integrates with Eclipse to get code-completion and error-reporting and intelligent-debugging
  • open-source so we can tweak and bug-fix as needed

If that is your cup of tea, you might have a look at this super awesome tutorial on implementing a brainf*ck interpreter on top of the Racket programming language:
http://hashcollision.org/brainfudge/
Basically you get all the power of what Racket has to offer as a language, its libraries, it’s IDE, and the great users.
The article is sort of funny in that the first version of the DLS was deemed “too slow” at 37 second vs 16 second for the version running on the PyPy interpreter; so the author went about optimizing it with all sorts of tweaks that are might be inappropriate for an entry-level article, but for bragging rights… dropping its benchmark speed down to 1 second.

Great motorcycle boots: TCX X-Five Plus

The guys on the list vouched for this boot; and all of the online reviews are great. After trying the TCX X-Five Plus boots out by standing in them (at my standing desk aka the entertainment center) and walking around in the house (so as not to void the return policy) for two straight hours, I found them to be very comfortable, so I kept them. Here is the kicker:
I wear a Men’s US size 11 with a 4E width and could not find any boots online that claimed to fit either via the retailer or via reviewers. As it happens: The TCX X-Five Plus, size 46 (US 12) fits perfectly!
Having worn them for a month, they have turned out to be an awesome (albeit my first) pair of motorcycle boots; especially for the wide-footed among us.
ADDENDUM: 06/25/11
Here are some pics and additional commentary (thanks to Marty!):

Aesthetically the boots are not irritating which doesn’t hurt.

No frays or anything so far after wearing them for a few weeks and kneeling down on pavement and stuff.

This boot is staying put on your foot; unlike my old engineer style boots.

Blue jeans fit underneath just fine.

The heel is super-sticky; totally unlike my old boots. It is awesome. It does get caught on the Roadcrafter quite easily though; and I suspect it was designed to irritate me (solution is to put boots on last of course). I can stand for hours in these things; walking is relegated to the parking lot and back to the office, to work, to school, to Lake Michigan, and it feels fine for all of these.

Radians Custom Earplug Review

Fed up with disposable earplugs becoming un-seated mid-ride, I figured that custom plugs would be the logical next step. Radians offers a very reasonably priced solution ($10USD) for custom so I ordered a set of the orange color.
The directions are straightforward, and I also followed the video on their site. The process was very simple. There is one thing that I would do differently next time.
The material was very gooey. This was not really problem until I had to split the material up into halves; basically one half was bigger, so one plug looks a little bigger. In theory it doesn’t make any difference because you can throw away excess material. In practice, I didn’t notice the excess until it had “settled” and sort of looked funny, but I didn’t want to mess with it at that point as it was already 10 minutes. In the future I would throw it in the fridge first to make the material more firm.
After that, my earplugs were ready, and the process was really easy. Then I tried them out and found that my custom plugs didn’t work very well. I think that it has something to do with my ears.
What happens with my ears is that for earplugs to get seated right for me; I sort of have to perk my ears up. If you’ve ever seen someone move their ears, that is what I mean. My problem is that when I am riding and my ears perk up; the plugs get un-seated. This really isn’t a problem with the plugs; rather I think they just won’t work me.
Having determined that holding my ears in that position 10 minutes is not realistic; I figured that I will stick with disposables for the near future.
Conclusion: while they didn’t work for me, I’m sure that they would work for most people, they are a great deal and a no-brainer if you wear plugs more than a couple times a year.