(Emacs+Org-Mode) Run Two Copies of Emacs To Provide Multithreading

A couple weeks ago I was working on an analysis program in Elisp. I would write the code, run the results out to a file, study the results, make some changes, and go back to the beginning. Sometimes the code would take ten seconds to run. My fault, it just isn’t written for speed. Still I griped about Emacs’s lack of multitheading because I couldn’t do anything for 10 seconds. Then it hit me: Doh! Just start two copies of Emacs, one to run the code in and another to do everything else in.

Sure, that sounds really bad to say it, but I’ll go on: most computers today run with multiple cores and gigabytes of RAM so it has virtually no impact on your operating system to run two instances. Everybody knows this, but my gut says that this is poor OS management and just a bad way to solve problems. But, my gut still thinks about a world where it was excited to double the RAM on it’s 33MHz computer from 4MB to 8MB.

My gut needs to join modern times considering it runs a copy of macOS inside of VMWare all the day while I do everything else, including using two Emacs instances 😄😮.

(Emacs+Org-Mode) File mode specification error: (error Invalid duration format: "energy")

Today I got the error:

File mode specification error: (error Invalid duration format: "energy")

This has shown up ten or twenty times over the last year or two.

I couldn’t figure out what caused it.

When I killed all of my buffers and restarted Emacs then the error went away.

(Emacs+Org-Mode) Hydra For Committing Thing Messages

I want some statistics on my Git commits. Over a time period what did I spend most of it doing? My only questions: what was new, what was refined, and what was fixed. It is a simple question but sometimes I forget the difference between what I consider new versus refined. There are other kids of commits, too.

When I work on GitHub (or the like) I want to handle numbered tasks within my commit message. For example you can close a ticket my writing “Closes #214”. It is commit related. The last thing I use is sort of like a commit.

My Org-Mode workflow is what I feel pretty basic but uses refiling, archiving, and refiling a lot. When I make those changes, it is to me, like a commit.So I put all of those messages in here, too.

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Test Your Emacs Themes In Black And White On macOS

A hardware and operating system implementer, whom I can’t recall, once quipped that using color on computer monitors added no value and was in fact a waste of memory. Interesting. NeXT monitors started out grayscale, I wonder why.

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(Emacs+Org-Mode) Two Ways To Reload File Variables Using A Hydra

It is works anywhere but it is easier to remember if you add it to an existing Hydra.

Here is the code.

("H" (lambda () (interactive) (hack-local-variables) (message "Local variables hacked")))
("N" normal-mode)

Here is the documentation.

_H_ hack-local-variables (see also normal-mode)
_N_ normal-mode (see also hack-local-variables)

(Emacs+Org-Mode) If You Go Insane Trying To Deal With Lisp Code Squashed Into One Line Then Read On To See The Fix

There are two situations where I end up with really important Lisp code that is squashed up into one un-readable and consequently painful line:

  • Reading Backtrace when toggle-debug-on-error is true
  • Using Lisp in a YAS template like this for example

The thing is that those lines are really important to me. I need to get them readable.

My solution had always been to manually re-indent them. Uggh. But after doing this way too many times, I ran into an issue tonight that demanded my full attention. Fortunately there is a really simple solution.

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(Emacs+Org-Mode) If You Enjoy Writing Even A Little Bit With Emacs Then Add This Em-Dash Code Now

The EM-DASH provokes mixed feelings mostly in writers, and maybe readers if they notice it (probably the writers are the ones noticing it while reading). But the EM-DASH is a really nice way to break up a sentence when a COMMA or a SEMI-COLON or a COLON just won’t do it.

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