one
two
three
...
twenty

into:

one => 1,
two => 2,
three => 3,
...
twenty => 20,

You can accomplish this with an emacs keyboard macro; you just need to add a lisp eval to the mix. First, you need to add the initial digit you need to the list:

one => 1,
two
three
...

The basic logic is: select the digit of the current line, save it to a register, move to our next line, insert the text we want, insert the incremented value in the register, finish the line. I’m going to assume if you’re read this far you know the basic routine for creating an emacs keyboard macro, so here’s the commented dump of the keystrokes needed:

C-(		;; start macro defun
C-r		;; isearch-backward
SPC		;; self-insert-command
C-f		;; forward-char-command
C-SPC       ;; set-mark-command
C-s		;; isearch-forward
,			;; self-insert-command
RET		;; newline
C-b		;; backward-char-command
C-x C-x	;; exchange-point-and-mark
C-x x	;; copy-to-register
a			;; self-insert-command
C-n		;; next-line
C-e		;; end-of-line
SPC		;; self-insert-command
=>		;; self-insert-command * 2
SPC		;; self-insert-command
M-:		;; eval-expression
(insert	;; self-insert-command * 7
SPC		;; self-insert-command
(number- to- string	;; self-insert-command * 17
SPC		;; self-insert-command
(+			;; self-insert-command * 2
SPC		;; self-insert-command
1			;; self-insert-command
SPC		;; self-insert-command
C-x r g	;; insert-register
a			;; self-insert-command
C-e		;; end-of-line
)))		;; self-insert-command * 3
RET		;; newline
,			;; self-insert-command
C-e		;; end-of-line
C-)		;; end macro defun

The interesting part is the M-: line, which starts a lisp eval mini-buffer, into which I insert: (insert (number-to-string (+ 1 CURVAL))), with CURVAL being inserted from the register. You can then run the macro as many times as needed (with C-x e) to comple all lines.

All those who are now thinking that it would probably have been quicker to either a) just do it all by hand or b) write a perl/python/ruby one-liner and run it over the text; are obviously not true emacs aficiandos.

The actual development of the script was fairly easy: ruby’s built in support for option parsing, YAML, and XML made things simple. The only irritating part was the HTTP POST of the image file, which I found is not supported by the ruby’s (otherwise excellent) standard http lib. (In case you think this an unreasonable expectation, perl does this.) A rousing bout of googling lead me to this, which I used to extract a reasonably generic multipart/form-data helper class.

This is the first public release, so please let me know if you use it and if you discover any problems. If you’re a developer looking for the rest of the flickr API in Ruby, you want this. (Which I initially found here, which lead to the creation of the upload script. And now you know… the rest of the story.)

By default, anything with the strings ‘michael jackson’ or ‘scott peterson’ are ignored. If you want to change this script to alter the strings that will trigger the hiding behaviour, here’s what you do:

1. Download the script into a text file on your computer; you can call it anything you want as long as it ends with .user.js
2. look for the line var toMatch = ["michael jackson", "scott peterson"];
3. let’s say you wanted to add Robert Blake and OJ Simpson to the list and remove Scott Peterson, you would change this line to read: var toMatch = ["michael jackson", "robert blake", "oj simpsons"];. The rule is to put the bits you want matched between quotes, with the bits separated by commas. (Aside to people who know what they’re doing and are wondering about using regexps: go crazy. Whatever you put in the array is compiled to regexp objects and used as the matcher.)
4. save the file and open it in your browser. Click Tools/Install User Script. You’re done.

Happy blissful ignorance!

Update: A wee bit of tweaking: the text informing you of a hidden story now gives you the matched text. Fixed problem where multiple matches meant you couldn’t view the story (although really, you probably shouldn’t).

PS: I am a complete neophyte when it comes to JavaScript and DOM; using this code as an example of how to do things is probably unwise with a capital UN.

The question is this: What new tool are you missing out on because of your blind faith in old reliable? A better way of saying this is, what opportunity are you missing?

I will be typing C-x C-s to save documents until I die, personally.

Intel Corp. on Thursday canceled plans to introduce its highest-speed desktop computer chip, ending for now a 25-year run that has seen the speeds of Intel’s microprocessors increase by more than 750 times.

…

Both Intel and its arch-rival, Advanced Micro Devices Inc. , have shifted their focus from increasing clock speed — a measure of how fast a chip can crunch numbers — to a less quantitative goal of performance encompassing multi-tasking, security, and multimedia.

• No support for mozilla/firefox browsing history? I could be completely off base on this, but isn’t the likely early-adopter segment also likely to be using non-IE browsers?
• No option to search google mail? Seems a bit of a no-brainer to me.