Should I Do The Two-Speed Conversion

My single-speed is great. Won’t be out-riding this bicycle any time soon. Still, everything needs tweaks. A video about the Rekluse Clutch got me thinking about my bicycle. It wouldn’t hurt to have a two-speed without having any additional gear (weight isn’t gear). This SRAM Automatix hub seems like a great way to do it because it is totally adjustable to your preference.

BlueSky Statistics for R

[BlueSky Statistics is a] Fully featured Statistics application and development framework built on the open source R project

Basically it makes the first 80% of the stuff that you want to do with R very easy.
The very cool part is that you get the R output so it is another great way to learn R itself.

SAS and WPS

SAS (Statistical Analysis System; is a software suite developed by SAS Institute for advanced analytics, business intelligence, data management, and predictive analytics.

The World Programming System, also known as WPS, is a software product developed by a company called World Programming. WPS allows users to create, edit and run programs written in the language of SAS.

MATLAB and Octave

MATLAB (matrix laboratory) is a multi-paradigm numerical computing environment and fourth-generation programming language.

GNU Octave is a high-level programming language, primarily intended for numerical computations. It provides a command-line interface for solving linear and nonlinear problems numerically, and for performing other numerical experiments using a language that is mostly compatible with MATLAB.

R and S-PLUS

R is a programming language and software environment for statistical computing and graphics.

R is an implementation of the S programming language combined with lexical scoping semantics inspired by Scheme.

S is a statistical programming language developed primarily by John Chambers and (in earlier versions) Rick Becker and Allan Wilks of Bell Laboratories.

S-PLUS is a commercial implementation of the S programming language sold by TIBCO Software Inc.

Vintage Computer Programming Book Market About To Explode!

Last week I was day-dreaming about Forth and vintage computers again. Same old day-dreams. The TI-99/4A with TurboForth seems like the perfect place to start learning about both. TurboForth has lots of features and it runs in emulators and “on the metal”. Cool.

The best way to learn Forth is interactively. How do you do it with Org Mode, though? Can we have the same features you would expect with any other programming language even though it is running inside of an emulator? There must be an easy way to run at the command line, redirect input and output, or maybe telnet into the machine.

V9t9 is a Java-based and open-sourced emulator there on GitHub. If it doesn’t have telnet into it, then it can be added. That got me thinking (daydreaming?) again about the fun of simple computers. Whatever approach you use to access them, using Org seems like a great way to write new books about them.

They are simpler. They are a great place to start. There is tons of great literature out there already. Now add Emacs and Org-Mode to the mix to practice Literate Programming.

It seems like there is a huge opportunity for great new books about old computers and programming languages. Export to LaTeX and publish, and there you go. Very fun and very cool.

Handling 4 Kinds of Return in Org Mode

You might want more than a few ways to “return” when inside of Org; I did.

  • org-return-indent: Make it really easy to work in existing list items, headings, and tables
    • This is listed first because I often go back to modify entries
    • <return> because it is used the most
  • org-meta-return: Make it really easy to add new list items, headings, and table contents
    • M-<return> because the binding comes with Org
  • electric-indent-just-newline: For when I want to break out of the default Org indentation to start working at the beginning of the line for example when I’m done working in a list or have just created a new heading
    • C-M-<return> because it is next step “lower” in the binding

  • This: When I want to insert a new line between the current and next line then position the cursor correctly indented at the start of it. 

    (defun help/smart-open-line ()
  "Insert a new line, indent it, and move the cursor there.

This behavior is different then the typical function bound to return which may be `open-line' or `newline-and-indent'. When you call with the cursor between ^ and $, the contents of the line to the right of it will be moved to the newly inserted line. This function will not do that. The current line is left alone, a new line is inserted, indented, and the cursor is moved there.

Attribution: URL `http://emacsredux.com/blog/2013/03/26/smarter-open-line/'"
  (interactive)
  (move-end-of-line nil)
  (newline-and-indent))
    • s-<return because it is that is the last place in the modifier key chain