Monthly Archives: November 2014

Convert Markdown to HTML Within Emacs Using Pandoc

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Okay, so there actually is a pandoc-mode, but I couldn't figure out how to configure and use it, so it was easier to just write the one command that I wanted—

(defun markdown-to-html ()
  (interactive)
  (let* ((basename (file-name-sans-extension (buffer-file-name)))
         (html-filename (format "%s.html" basename)))
    (shell-command (format "pandoc -o %s %s"
                           html-filename (buffer-file-name)))
    (find-file-other-window html-filename)))

Coffee Names

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"Hi, could I have a grande vanilla iced-coffee?"

"And your name?"

"Zack."

"Is that Zach with an ch or Zack with a ck?"

"You know, I've even seen it done with just a c. But really, isn't this what we have regular expressions for?"

"What?"

"May I?"

The barista hands over the pen and cup, whereupon the customer writes:

/Zac[hk]?/

"There. Now you can't possibly be wrong!"

Missing Words VI

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We need different words for apology in the sense of "I'm sorry; I won't do it again," and apology in the sense of "I'm sorry that this lowers your utility, but not sorry enough to actually change the behavior in question; maybe we could negotiate some other behavior change that might partially make up for it." Both can be sincere, but they mean different things.

Yet Another Idle Wish for a Future Star Trek Series

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(Previously, previously on An Algorithmic Lucidity.)

"So, I'm not convinced that deassimilating Seven of Nine was the ethically correct choice."

"Oh?"

"I'm watching 'The Gift', and Seven clearly says, quote, 'You have imprisoned us in the name of humanity, yet you will not grant us your most cherished human right, to choose our own fate. You are hypocritical, manipulative. We do not want to be what you are!' End quote. As far as I can tell, Seven is just correct here; Janeway's pretense of acting in Seven's best interests because Seven used to be human twenty years ago, just isn't plausible."

"Since when are you a big defender of humanoid rights to self-determination? Didn't you root for the bad guys in Insurrection?"

"That was a completely different situation! Anyway, on futher thought, maybe my lament isn't so much about Janeway making the wrong decision, so much as I wish that she—or some analogue of her in an episode of some future Trek series, since wishing that Joe Menosky had made a different artistic decision in 1997 would be, uh, there's a specific word I want here ..."

"Futile?"

"—could just be honest about what she was doing. You could just say, 'Yes, I'm depriving current-you of autonomy and the entire purpose of your existence, but I don't care about that, and after a few more months of captivity, Stockholm syndrome will set in and future-corrupted-you will grow to like it,' instead of appealing to some bizarre teleology of humanness."

Last Friday Night

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it's a blacked-out blur, but I'm pretty sure

* * *

$ heroku create
Creating howling-nightmare-4505... done, stack is cedar
http://howling-nightmare-4505.herokuapp.com/ | git@heroku.com:howling-nightmare-4505.git
Git remote heroku added

"Did they—did they change their random words dictionary for Halloween?"

* * *

-----> Python app detected
-----> Installing runtime (python-2.7.8)

"What?! No! What are you doing, you crazy machine?!"

* * *

$ echo "python-3.4.1" > runtime.txt
$ g a .
$ gco -m "the month of July 2010 called and wants their programming language back"

* * *

< What are you spinning up the box for?

> it's Friday night

< How does that lead to box spinning?

> previous message was an attempt at humor, as if to suggest that I'm the sort of person for whom deploying a web application fulfills a similar purpose as some sort of wild social event with drugs might for some others, about which they might offer a similarly vacuous "explanation"

* * *

it ru-uled