jameshowell

jameshowell, 1 month ago to random

You know how mitochondria are descended from ancient aerobic bacteria? And chloroplasts are descended from ancient photosynthetic bacteria?

Students always ask if I think we'll discover other endosymbiotic organelles, and the answer is always "yes."

Behold the nitroplast.

https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-024-01046-z

jameshowell, 10 months ago to random

The sheer eight-hundred-pound-gorilla BALLS required in order to personify the noun phrase "eradication of Earth's population" with the predicate "loves" and a submarine-mounted nuclear missile as the direct object is not even the most badass thing about this song #Megadeth #Polaris #RustInPeace
https://inv.tux.pizza/watch?v=y3NMhe6mWO8

louis, 25 days ago to emacs

Today marks the 555th day of uninterrupted uptime of our Emacs.ch instance. 🥳

That's also 555 days of admin work and a spending of roughly $1200 for IaaS. Donations of our users make that much more sustainable.

With consistently well over 400 monthly active users, we established a friendly and supportive Fediverse community in the Fediverse united in a passion for the world's most humane "text editor". And you helped to make that happen. 🎈

Emacs is not just a program, it is the incarnation of freedom, self-development, respect, tolerance and companionship in the software world. It will never go away and will never turn against its users.

Let's continue to grow and strengthen our community! If you'd like to contribute, please visit our donation page: https://liberapay.com/emacs-ch

Together, we can keep the spirit of Emacs alive and thriving for years to come. Thank you for being a part of this incredible journey! 🙏

#Emacs

jameshowell, 2 months ago to coffee

Okay coffee nerds. Here is the Aeropress recipe that I like the best. From the redoubtable Jonathan Gangné, with credit also to James Hoffman.

https://coffeeadastra.com/2021/09/07/reaching-fuller-flavor-profiles-with-the-aeropress/

Been using it for a couple years and I rarely get anything in a café that I enjoy as much. Then just today I got the Fellow Prismo and I was surprised at how much it improves the taste (not to mention the fussiness of the procedure).

#coffee #aeropress #jameshoffman

jameshowell, 5 months ago to pcmasterrace

ZOMG you guys I am so excited. My kid spent his Christmas money on a case, motherboard, CPU, GPU, RAM, SSD, and water-cooled radiator.

Amazon delivered the last component today and we started assembling at 19:00. At midnight we got the boot screen!

Right now it feels like bullets cannot hurt me.
#pcmasterrace #pcgaming #custompc

jameshowell, 9 months ago to animals

In god's name how does this doofus arouse such devotion in my heart #CatsOfMastodon

jameshowell, 2 months ago to til

TIL the etymology of the English word "thing:"

"A thing was a governing assembly in early Germanic society. Things took place at regular intervals, usually at prominent places that were accessible by travel. They provided legislative functions, as well as being social events and opportunities for trade. In modern usage, the meaning of this word has shifted to mean not just an assemblage but simply an object of any sort."

How am I only learning this today?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thing_(assembly)

#TIL #English #etymology

jameshowell, 3 months ago to random

Overheard my 12 year old ask my wife:

"Is it true you and Daddy kept going to school after college? To get your PTSD?"

jameshowell, 2 months ago to literature

Dr. Howell says READ THIS BOOK: the immortal Herman Melville, MOBY DICK (1851). I'm only about a third of the way through, and it ain't light reading. But holy crap: it pays you back. Penetrating, lyrical, and surprisingly hilarious.

https://standardebooks.org/ebooks/herman-melville/moby-dick

#literature #melville #mobydick

jameshowell, 1 month ago to AncientGreek

Set aside fifteen minutes and watch this. Breathtaking.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4hOK7bU0S1Y

#ancientgreek #classics #humanities

jameshowell, 1 year ago to random

Hello, everyone! :emacs:

jameshowell, 10 months ago to random

Anybody near #PennState, in the #StateCollege area in #CentralPennsylvania #Pennsylvania?

A Mastodon meetup would be fun!

jameshowell, 6 months ago to random

@vv0r I know four words of Finnish:

1. Sisu
2. Suomi
3. Sauna
4. Saatana!

howard, 1 month ago to gaming

How was your weekend? I love a rainy weekend in the Pacific Northwest corner of America, as it relieves my guilt of doing what I want to do ... staying inside. I read a little, wrote a little, hacked a little ... even played a classic #videogame from the 90s (Curse of Monkey Island on #ScummVM).

I also did a little math. Yeah, been thinking of taking the "Yes, and.." dice mechanics used for luck rolls in #rpg games (not sure who came up with it first), and fusing it with Mythic GM Emulator's Fate Chart, popular with the #solorpg crowd. Since I'm always playing with my notes written in #emacs on the screen, I hacked it in #lisp. Shared the details in case anyone wanted to do something similar in their favorite programming language.

https://howardism.org/RPG/programming-yes-but.html

jameshowell, 10 months ago to random

@louis Heartfelt thanks for giving us emacs.ch!

I finally made a small donation and I hope everyone else does too! https://liberapay.com/emacs-ch

jameshowell, 3 months ago to emacs

Periodically an #Emacs post makes it to the front page of #HackerNews. Usually it's the same tired set of opinions and misunderstandings—both in the post and the comments.

But every now and again there's a post like this one today, that steps outside the box to show why Emacs is still delightful and still relevant. Thanks, @bbatsov!

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39523122

jameshowell, 1 month ago to guix

Hey @daviwil! I'm taking the plunge! Thanks for building these guides: they're exceptionally well done.

https://systemcrafters.net/craft-your-system-with-guix/full-system-install/

#guix

jameshowell, 2 months ago to random

Explaining to my wife how me and a bunch of globally distributed armchair etymology obsessives have spent the better part of the last week geeking out over the word "thing." She hoists her eyebrows high on her forehead. I AM TELLING YOU SWEETIE MASTODON IS A PARADISE FOR NERDS

jameshowell, 2 months ago to random

@purplepadma So I have precisely two concrete references for "Wales:" you, and these two goobers

https://yt.artemislena.eu/watch?v=amU1FZ8JP0k

jameshowell, 2 months ago to random

Apparently my calloused big toe is a comfy pillow

#Caturday

jameshowell, 9 months ago to cycling

The sheer joy. The sheer joy of riding my bike. #cycling

jameshowell, 1 month ago to random

The haul. Twenty-four books for $84 USD.

The bad kitty was free

https://aauwstatecollege.org/used_book_sale_location_hours/

#bibliophile #usedbooks #aauw #caturday

jameshowell, 22 days ago to foss

Almost a year exclusively using GrapheneOS for mobile and (many years before that) GNU/Linux for all my computing.

How quickly one gets spoiled. Found myself obliged over the past few days to help relatives use Windows and iOS. It was deeply shocking.

Windows on newish hardware is so slow that I didn't think it was responding. To say nothing of the privacy and usability nightmare.

And the Apple ratchet has tightened down a few more clicks in a year. A very high quality third party app that I bought years ago now appears in a new version "with in-app purchases," and the splash screen requires me to sign in via Google or Facebook. Perfectly ghastly.

#foss #GNU #linux #grapheneos #FreeSoftware

jameshowell, 18 days ago to random

Gonna write a Great American Novel satirizing the failings of this decade called THE BONFIRE OF THE EXTERNALITIES