I learned to program on a CDC-1604, then a CDC-6400 (but those were punched cards), then a TI-990 (no memories of that editor).
Then at my first real job, there was a PDP-11/34 which later turned into a VAX-11/780. So I learned to hack in EDT, followed by TPU, and they are deep in my muscle memory. Enough so that when the VAX, then the Apollo, then NeXT, then the IBM RISC mini, got Emacs, I wrote a set of scripts that emulated the EDT numeric keypad functions on VT-101 keyboard. No, I don’t want the tpu-edt.el emulation – I want crunchy Emacs control-meta goodness; I just want it with the EDT keypad macros that my right hand knows and loves. And the left hand pinkie control-RSI that I hate.
These, then, followed me around for years, and many OSes.
At some point, I counted the number of different text editors I had had to learn (the number was in the dozens), all different, and I decided – that’s it. No more native editors. I’m going to use Emacs. Forever. On any system. On every system. Emacs and TeX. Emacs, LaTeX, and an HP-48 RPN. An early fuddy-duddy, I think I might have been 27 when I decided this. But, hey, in the nascent computer world, after 20 some-odd different editors, and 20 some-odd different sets of key combos….
Of course, businesses live and die by Word, and Powerpoint, and Excel, so I haven’t avoided those. Though if I can, I do. And there have been a few other editors. Matlab, for instance, in which I spend a good deal of my waking hours, broke the Emacslink connection long ago, so there’s no escaping their native shitty editor. Dammit. (So there are a couple of keys on that keypad that are available to be reassigned.) I have fond memories of using XEDIT and REXX on the IBM mainframe at Princeton (sigh, split screens in the same file, and rational text processing). BBedit isn’t bad. If I want to find the error in LaTeX, I still have to fire up TeXShop, though I refuse to write in it. If an editor doesn’t have a rectangular copy and paste (^xrk, ^xry), it’s never going to be my favorite.
But the worst part was that the EDT scripts I wrote for Emacs have been broken on Macs for years, because OS X didn’t distinguish between the keypad and the number keys. There was no way to tell Emacs on OS X to execute an Emacs macro when you hit the keypad – without losing all the number keys. And that just ain’t workable. Emacs on Windows sucks, as does most everything else, and having still used Linux on laptops for the last few years (Xylinx doesn’t make an FPGA compiler for OS X), the Linux desktop is still maddening. I’d rather use the editors on a Mac laptop than Emacs on Linux desktop, so Emacs got relegated to writing publications. Not unused, but daily editing was in the Mac system. At least OS X enforces a consistent set of key-combo functionalities.
However, sometime between Emacs 23 and Emacs 24, this functionality was restored (sadly, it looks like in 2014 but that seems like about the last time I tried to make it work, so I missed it.). Today, I found out about it. I am one happy geek, now that the muscle memory I developed at age 22 on a PDP-11 can come into play again!
Maybe I’ll look into SciPy again, if I can use Emacs and Matlab won’t let me… Ha! Not really, I still have to work with other people.
I am, however, writing the GSE user manual in LaTex and Emacs, and screw NASA. Still far superior to Word in every way except Track Changes.
And PCalc does a pretty fair job of emulating an HP-48 on my desktop, and iPhone, though the scripts that my original 48 had programmed in are long gone…
Adios, Steve. I hope you get to hang with these mutts again. Keep an eye on them, will you?
It’s called under-the-gun in THE. When you’re first bet after the dealer, and you have to act first. Ginsburg should retire tomorrow. She’s 83 and has had two different cancers.
The GOP might be able to stall for a year on replacing Scalia.
But they couldn’t stall if two justices need to be replaced.
Do what’s best for American, Ruth!
Airplane movie reviews, December-February Swiss
Swiss hasn’t really changed their lineup in three months, so it’s been kinda boring. They seem to have made a deal with the Broccoli family, so they have all 26 James Bond movies, and who really needs to see any of those again? But they do clutter up the lineup and take up all the disk space on the entertainment system. And annoyingly they’re listed under all the choices, so you have to scroll through one at a time through all 26. Action? 2/3 JB. Classics? 2/3 JB. Drama? 2/3 JB. World movies? 2/3 JB, in different languages. Note to self: load up the iPad next time with decent movies and crappy books.
I did end up watching Mr. Robot (promising, worth following up on, but not streamed online for free anywhere), Person of Interest (interesting, and I hear it gets better), Humans (interesting), and The Good Wife (meh). That said, JB was taking up all the disk space, and they had one episode of each, so I couldn’t even binge a little bit.
- The Martian. Three times. I’m bored and I don’t sleep well on planes.
- Room. Oscars, good reviews, etc. Sorry, I just can’t watch this.
- Spectre. About what you’d expect. Gratuitous Monica Belucci.
- The Man from UNCLE. I feel dirty.
- 99 Homes. Again, it’s probably good, great reviews, and I like Michael Shannon, but just can’t watch it.
- Steve Jobs. About what you’d expect from Sorkin. Lots of walk-n-talk. Better than I expected, really.
- Bridge of Spies. About what you’d expect from Spielberg. Lots of emotional button-pushing. “We’ll give you one.” “No, you’ll give us both.” “One.” “Both.” “One.” “Two.” I’ve heard more high-level negotiation from a pair of five year olds arguing over who gets the bigger slice of cake. Spoiler, in the end, they give him both, for no particular reason other than it’s Tom Hanks so what else are you gonna do.
- Southpaw. This got good reviews, surprisingly.
Tagged airplane movie review, AMRAlso Spielberg fails to mention that the hero lawyer defending the American Way by representing the Russian spy was a shill for the CIA, and was General Counsel, i.e., the top lawyer, for the OSS (CIA precursor) in WW2 (the big one), without ever disclosing this rather substantial conflict of interest to his client. Of course the lawyer didn’t mention this at the time either. It’s a bit unclear to me why Spielberg decided to make a movie about a shady lawyer who represented a client without disclosing a conflict of interest and who in all likelihood tanked the case for his former employer. Unless that is the message of the movie – hero-worship people who break the constitution in service of our betters at the intelligence agencies.
That is of course the American Way, really.
It’s also a bit unclear to my why Mark Rylance who barely had 20 lines in the film, most of them the same one (“Would that help?”) managed to get a BSA Oscar instead of say, Sly Stallone. I haven’t seen Creed, but I’ve got a fiver that says his supporting role was a bit more substantial. I understand Rylance is an excellent actor, but there’s no evidence of that here.
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