(Emacs+Org-Mode) Emacs: Our Home For Creativity, Learning, Fellowship, And Fun

My Emacs is like a kitchen that I’ve perfected over the years to prepare just about every kind of meal.

The meals are configurations for example of the Go language, SML, OCaml, APL, IRC, and writing LaTeX, Pandoc, or Org-Mode. Some of the meals have been around and will stay around for a long time. Some of the meals are short lived, and welcome to come back. Either way I’m glad to be able to cook in such a great kitchen.

There are always improvements to the kitchen. They are welcome because it can always get better. At this point there aren’t going to be any major changes to the kitchen itself unless I have some major changes in the way that I think. It works how I like to work. Everything is where I like it to be. It is easy for me to add new things and remove them in a pleasant manner. Most importantly it is a reflection of my cognitive landscape, so I am happy there.

Once you are at home in Emacs you will welcome new meals and say farewell to some, but you will always have a kitchen that you love. That is why the “Perfect Emacs Configuration” is never to be found and never will be: we are all unique and see the world with with a curiosity that is all our own.

Fortunately we have a lot of similarities so good ideas spread fast and they bring great ease. Of even greater fortune we have a lot of differences so we can grow and learn from perspectives and preferences so totally different from our own. It is delightful and refreshing to see a cognitive landscape different from our own. That is where the fun is: going to new lands and being welcomed to learn about how people see the world. Our Emacs configurations are a sweet reminder of the joy and creativity that comes with computing. Emacs is the selfless and benevolent home where that kitchen lives.

Long live Emacs—our eternal home of the joy and creativity of computing, shared learning, and flat out fun.

Old Fashioned Himalayan Style Chai Recipe

Chai—One Pot Method (makes two cups)

My favorite one-pot method recipe:

  • Ingredients
    • 1 cup of cow milk
    • 1 cup of water
    • ½ inch fresh ginger root
      • More or less to taste
      • More concerned with juice then mass, that is where the flavor is)
    • 1 pinch powdered saffron
      • More or less to taste
    • 6 whole pods of cardamom
      • Green
      • More or less to taste
    • 2 tablespoons sugar
      • More or less to taste
    • 1 tablespoon black tea
      • Black tea as the benefit of caffeine to which you don’t develop a tolerance. It works the same every time.
      • I like Wagh Bakri
    • 3 grinder turns of black pepper
      • Usually only during winter
      • More or less to taste
  • Tools
    • Pot big enough to hold the ingredients
    • Vessel big enough to hold the the number of cups of water and milk that you are using
    • Ginger Grater: extracts the ginger juice quickly and extracts every drop of juice
    • Mortar & Pestle: for the cardamom
      • only hold the cup over the pot instead of the grinder when you dump in the seeds otherwise the steam will get inside the grinder and make it unhappy
    • Tea Spoon: to peel the ginger
      • Or paring knife if you are a ninja
  • Steps
    • Place pot on counter-top. Add pepper, black tea, saffron, and cardamom.
    • Add water to vessel. Peel and grate ginger. Grab ginger fiber and place in pot. Use water to rinse grater into pot. Add all of remaining water to pot.
    • Bring pot to a boil. Fill vessel with milk.
    • When water reaches a boil, pour in milk.
    • Allow chai to come to a boil, then quickly remove from the heat. Stare at pot the entire time otherwise it will boil over. Maitain focus without distraction here. Do this two more times.
    • Strain through a fine strainer so as to filter out tea and herbs.
    • Either add sugar to individual servings so everyone can sweeten to their taste or add it to pot.
    • Serve. The chai party begins.

(Happiness) Who Do You Need To Be A Hero To?

If you have something that helps you be happy in life, and you want to share it with the world, then you need a detailed and structured plan for making it happen.

Put it on paper under these headings:

  • Vision
  • Skills
  • Resources
  • Incentive
  • Action Plan

If any heading is a little light, then dig into it and fill it out before moving forward.

Share it with your friends and family. Make it happen.

You might call it being a hero, or good, good friend.

Who do you need to be a hero to?

(Emacs+Org-Mode) Why Not Bind `delete-forward-char'?

Thank you Greg for the big correction here <2018-01-12 Fri>…

The documentation for delete-char suggests that delete-forward-char ought to be used for interactive use instead of delete-char 

(global-set-key (kbd "C-d") #'delete-forward-char)

Find All Locations Of A Binary Using `type’ not `which’

I can’t find the git 2.10 binary so I run

which git

/usr/local/bin/git

Excellent, found it.

And then I check it’s version to verify I am looking at the right version

/usr/local/bin/git –version

git version 2.21.0

Oops that isn’t what I wanted.

There must be another git getting loaded earlier in the search path.

Here is how to find out where all copies of git live

type -a git

git is /usr/local/bin/git
git is /usr/local/bin/git
git is /usr/bin/git

Look for the right git at version 2.10

/usr/local/bin/git –version
/usr/bin/git –version

git version 2.21.0
git version 2.14.3 (Apple Git-98)

I want the second one.

That is how to track down the location of a binary file on macOS that appears multiple times in the search path.