Posts on

Witnessing a Grus V-formation

Sat, 28 Feb 2026 00:00:00 +0000

On Friday, RTBF reported on the migration of the Common Crane. We can confirm.

Emacs Gnus: specify which mail folders to see at all times

Sun, 07 Dec 2025 00:00:00 +0000

The ultimate way to read, send and manage email (and RSS feeds, and Usenet) is with Emacs Gnus. Here are two ways to instruct Gnus to always show a select few mail folders.

Installing Guix on a ThinkPad X1 Carbon 5th Gen

Sat, 24 May 2025 00:00:00 +0000

I've installed Guix on a ThinkPad X1 Carbon 5th Gen, as an experiment. These are my notes on the installation.

Cognitive abilities

Sat, 10 May 2025 00:00:00 +0000

"Wasp mothers have stunning brainpower when it comes to feeding their young, according to new research", the BBC reported the other day.

Sharing our Transient Elpher menu

Sat, 26 Apr 2025 00:00:00 +0000

Matto and I are sharing our Transient Menu for Elpher, entitled TMelpher.

Run Debian like it's 2019

Sat, 05 Apr 2025 00:00:00 +0000

In three steps, you can create a VM to run any 'Old Debian release'.

Building a Transient menu for Elpher

Sun, 30 Mar 2025 00:00:00 +0000

For fun, I'm helping Matto create a Transient menu for Elpher, the Gopher and Gemini Client available as an Emacs add-on. TIL how to define transient-colums.

The bathwater of our 21st century

Sat, 01 Mar 2025 00:00:00 +0000

It could be time to modernise the expression.

Blog Question Challenge 2025

Sat, 15 Feb 2025 00:00:00 +0000

Matto challenged me to accept the "Blogging Challenge 2025".

A month passed.

Calcutta is located in Debian tzdata-legacy

Wed, 07 Aug 2024 00:00:00 +0000

For those running Debian and derivatives: is Emacs' worldclock showing Bangalore ASIA instead of IST? One option: apt install tzdata-legacy.

znc and rcirc and authinfo.pgp

Fri, 29 Mar 2024 00:00:00 +0000

The password needs to be in quotes.

How AI is hindered by the GDPR and or the ePrivacy Directive

Sun, 17 Mar 2024 00:00:00 +0000

I am experimenting with Ollama and Ellama. Then this happened:

Blog - Gopher - Elpher

Sat, 16 Mar 2024 00:00:00 +0000

Copies of my blog posts are available as Gopher posts. Here is how.

Combining Emacs and Asciinema

Wed, 03 Jan 2024 00:00:00 +0000

This shows how to record an Emacs demo using Asciinema.

Note-to-self: Org Tree Slide Mode, and Whiteroom Mode

Tue, 02 Jan 2024 00:00:00 +0000

A short blog to remind myself to combine Org-Tree-Slide and Writeroom-Mode, the next time I do a presentation.

Honk! My first systemd timer

Fri, 29 Dec 2023 00:00:00 +0000

Along with the update of Honk to version 1.2, I add a systemd timer to keep its database lean.

Updated first steps with Nix on Debian

Thu, 02 Nov 2023 00:00:00 +0000

Mixing Debian with Nix in 2023 (updated from 2021)

overcoming "Lisp connection closed unexpectedly" by cleaning .cache/common-lisp

Sun, 10 Sep 2023 00:00:00 +0000

Cleaning up whatever is in .cache/common-lisp helped me get around issues that began with the update of slime and swank to version 2.28 in Debian unstable.

Using slime would invariable go something like this:

One vowel and four consonants

Mon, 28 Aug 2023 00:00:00 +0000

For fun with Common Lisp and to help solve a certain puzzle - but just a little bit - I wrote a set of tools to analyse words of just five letters.

nonexistent spamassassin user_prefs

Tue, 18 Jul 2023 00:00:00 +0000

This is for those who combine Spamassassin, Exim and Debian-spamd, and wish to fix those nonexistent spamassassin user_prefs: "No such file or directory" errors and others.

Exim sysadmins beware, Debian Bookworm is a major update

Mon, 17 Jul 2023 00:00:00 +0000

A warning for all sysadmin using Exim on Debian Bullseye, don't switch to Debian Bookworm just yet.

Cyrus Imap sysadmins beware, Debian Bookworm might hose your mail

Sun, 16 Jul 2023 00:00:00 +0000

A warning for all sysadmin using Cyrus imap on Debian Bullseye, don't switch to Debian Bookworm just yet. Your users might lose access to their email. (Updated on 2023-07-19)

True office productivity: Emacs remote collaboration (CRDT).

Tue, 22 Feb 2022 00:00:00 +0000

To create documents, presentations, spreadsheets and the like, nothing beats Emacs with two or more users collaborating simultaneous in the same buffer.

Org-Mode piechart in a hurry (3D!)

Wed, 02 Feb 2022 00:00:00 +0000

I needed a pie chart, and had very little time. R and Org-mode to the rescue.

Modules=DEP; a remedy for update-initramfs' "No space left on device"

Mon, 11 Oct 2021 00:00:00 +0000

The fix? Add MODULES=dep to /etc/initramfs-tools/conf.d/modules, followed up by update-initramfs.

Very first steps with Nix on Debian

Sun, 27 Jun 2021 00:00:00 +0000

Mixing Debian with Nix, my first steps.

Partial solar eclipse

Thu, 10 Jun 2021 00:00:00 +0000

To catch the partial solar eclipse at noon today, a colleague at work reminded me to use a skimmer (a spoon with lots of tiny holes), to project the sun on a clean surface, for example good quality paper.

GNU Social and ActivityPub on Bullseye or Buster

Fri, 30 Apr 2021 00:00:00 +0000

How to install GNU Social and ActivityPub on Debian 10 or 11.

The Great Conjunction

Sun, 20 Dec 2020 00:00:00 +0000

On the top left: Jupiter with at least four moons - one on the left, and three on the right.