Hacker News: canistel

New comment by canistel in "Helix: A post-modern text editor"

canistel — Sat, 07 Mar 2026 16:43:23 +0000

I have in fact. I use Emacs for org-mode and markdown. Because of some reason, evil and org-mode did not mix well - for me. There is evil-org, which I did not try.

New comment by canistel in "Helix: A post-modern text editor"

canistel — Sat, 07 Mar 2026 16:35:19 +0000

Thank you for mentioning this. I do have something similar...

    (global-unset-key (kbd "ESC ESC ESC"))

New comment by canistel in "Helix: A post-modern text editor"

canistel — Sat, 07 Mar 2026 04:06:17 +0000

Do have a look at the second question in the FAQ :).

I do find Helix very impressive. I remember the Python LSP working without any configuration whatsoever.

However, I have vim muscle memory built over 25 years of use. I already struggle switching between Emacs and vim (or its equivalents) - for example, after a period of vim usage, I would press ESC repeatedly in Emacs, three of which are enough close a window. While Helix borrows modal editing from vim, it introduces subtle (and meaningful - I have to admit) variations, which unfortunately wreaks havoc with my muscle memory. Maybe the worst part about muscle memory is that unlearning is almost impossible. My dilemma, not Helix's fault...

New comment by canistel in "Windows 11 Notepad to support Markdown"

canistel — Wed, 25 Feb 2026 20:12:25 +0000

Textadept is lightweight, and more...

New comment by canistel in "Debian Removes Free Pascal Compiler / Lazarus IDE"

canistel — Wed, 25 Feb 2026 12:42:47 +0000

- GTK2 is only one of the supported widget sets for Lazarus. It supports Qt5 & 6 too. I feel Lazarus should switch to Qt5 or 6 until GTK3 is mature.

- Hexchat IRC client is another popular application that is still stuck with GTK2.

New comment by canistel in "Use Microsoft Office Shortcuts in Libre Office"

canistel — Wed, 18 Feb 2026 05:11:47 +0000

Libre Office does allow customising shortcuts. I got peeved when Ctrl+Plus (or Ctrl+Shift+=) is not available to add rows or columns, but found that it is very much possible to add it within Libre Office Calc itself.

From my notes (MD):-

- The shortcut can be reassigned under Tools > Customise > keyboard

- Add Ctrl+Shift+= (Equals to not Plus) too

- Select category All commands, scroll down there are 2 Insert Cells

- Hover mouse over. It shows the Uno command. Pick the one with `.uno:InsertCell`

- Under Shrtcut Keys select Shift+Ctrl+= and click on Assign

New comment by canistel in "MS-DOS game copy protection and cracks"

canistel — Sun, 08 Feb 2026 04:39:39 +0000

Late 90s and early 2000s were the best days for Reverse Engineering. +Fravia, Woodmann's forum and SoftIce flickers in the back of my memory...

And yes, many of the old-school (and entry level) tuts were from the DOS era. ORC's?

New comment by canistel in "I spent a year on Linux and forgot to miss Windows"

canistel — Thu, 15 Jan 2026 15:32:42 +0000

Fedora has the following aliases in the root .bashrc.

alias rm='rm -i'

alias cp='cp -i'

alias mv='mv -i'

New comment by canistel in "Tech elites are starting their own for-profit cities"

canistel — Tue, 09 Dec 2025 01:13:05 +0000

There is a relatively successful corporate backed political party in Kerala, India. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Twenty20_Kizhakkambalam

They have done quite well over the years, but have limited themselves to the small area around which the company has influence.

New comment by canistel in "Surprisingly, Emacs on Android is pretty good"

canistel — Wed, 26 Nov 2025 13:08:08 +0000

It is already there and it works.

https://sourceforge.net/projects/android-ports-for-gnu-emacs...

There is a catch though, you need to download and install Termux & Emacs from this project as per the instructions. It took me a while to get it working, but after that it worked like a charm.

New comment by canistel in "Ventoy: Create bootable USB drive for ISO/WIM/IMG/VHD(x)/EFI Files"

canistel — Thu, 30 Oct 2025 14:56:41 +0000

Same here. You can drop as many ISO files as you want and select during boot...

New comment by canistel in "Like MS Excel, Pivot tables never die"

canistel — Thu, 16 Oct 2025 14:21:01 +0000

With _array formulae_ you can live without pivot tables, to a certain extent. They would auto-refresh, too...

New comment by canistel in "My AI-driven identity crisis"

canistel — Thu, 14 Aug 2025 05:34:03 +0000

This can be compared with fine art (as against photography or digital art), theatre (as against films), handmade (as against factory produced) etc. In all these cases, the originals occupy an expensive niche, usually beyond the reach of the common-folk.

New comment by canistel in "Replacing tmux in my dev workflow"

canistel — Fri, 01 Aug 2025 11:51:25 +0000

To tmux's clipboard and if required to the system clipboard too...

set -s copy-command 'xsel -i'

New comment by canistel in "Replacing tmux in my dev workflow"

canistel — Fri, 01 Aug 2025 11:06:42 +0000

From what I have seen, tmux is the _only_ multiplexer with with you can select from the scroll-back buffer using only the keyboard (without using the mouse).

New comment by canistel in "Human Stigmergy: The world is my task list"

canistel — Wed, 16 Jul 2025 03:02:31 +0000

Insightful and pithy! Well written too...

Along similar lines, after decades of struggling with the demands of multi-taskng, I came to realise that I am clearly incapable of it. I have now learned to work like Javascript. I have a list of items lined up, which is processed sequentially, in a single thread. Anything new that is not pressing goes to the bottom of the list. Urgent inescapable interruptions go to the top.

New comment by canistel in "End of 10: Upgrade your old Windows 10 computer to Linux"

canistel — Fri, 20 Jun 2025 09:02:43 +0000

An easier alternative is Ventoy. https://www.ventoy.net/en/index.html

Install Ventoy on a USB flash drive. Copy the ISO - copy as in cp. That's it.

You can add as many ISOs and select which one to boot with.

New comment by canistel in "Wikipedia's Most Translated Articles"

canistel — Mon, 19 May 2025 18:29:10 +0000

I checked the Malayalam page for David Woodard as I have native proficiency and also when it comes to translation to Malayalam, even the finer engines are patchy at best. Firstly, there is an alert at the top which says that the article seems to be translated automatically and needs improvement, and frankly, this is quite self evident too. Which makes me wonder, whether someone tried to script/automate the translation (of this article) to a large number of languages?

New comment by canistel in "In Two Moves, AlphaGo and Lee Sedol Redefined the Future (2016)"

canistel — Thu, 17 Apr 2025 06:40:24 +0000

Well, Bridge remains unconquered, although it is unclear whether it is because of disinterest or incapability. As I have highlighted before, the day a computer false-cards will be the day. (False-carding - playing a certain card with the primary intention of deceiving the opponents and forcing an error)

New comment by canistel in "Who needs a sneaker bot when AI can hallucinate a win for you?"

canistel — Sat, 22 Feb 2025 03:11:54 +0000

Ah, one more reason to access e-mail through Thunderbird then...