Erik L. Arneson :emacs: (@pymander.fosstodon.org.ap.brid.gy)

A frustrating thing about developing software: those bugs that surface problems that require a LOT of rewriting of underlying systems. Ugh, the delays!!! #softwaredevelopment #programming #frustration

05.03.2026 18:44 👍 0 🔁 0 💬 0 📌 0

Original post on fosstodon.org

If you are a freelance writer, graphic designer, video producer, or other type of content creator, and you are interested in beta testing a new project management tool that I've been developing, please contact me via private message or via the contact page on my website […]

12.02.2026 18:44 👍 5 🔁 1 💬 0 📌 0

A Citroen C15 van

I often hear Americans & rich brits justify buying oversized, polluting vehicles by claiming they need them because they live in the "countryside".

I call bullshit, Ladies and Gentlemen, allow me to introduce, the Citroen C15⬇

08.01.2026 17:13 👍 33 🔁 10 💬 3 📌 0

Bach's "The Well-Tempered Clavier" from Schirmer's

Santa is obviously trying to keep me busy. I'll see y'all in 96 years. #piano #bach #baroquemusic

25.12.2025 17:55 👍 0 🔁 0 💬 0 📌 0

I'm in the middle of making beef Wellington for Christmas Eve dinner with my parents. This is not an easy dish! A big portion of the process involves sitting around while things chill. #cooking

25.12.2025 00:28 👍 0 🔁 1 💬 0 📌 0

I've been getting in to Blood Bowl again. I played in the 1990s, but it's been a 30 year break. It's such a fun dumb game, even losing is a hoot. #BloodBowl #tabletopgames

17.12.2025 00:02 👍 4 🔁 0 💬 1 📌 0

Currently completely overhauling my database model to use transactions so I can take advantage of row level security. Grumble, grumble. #SQL #RLS #PostgreSQL

12.12.2025 23:33 👍 1 🔁 0 💬 0 📌 0

CSO Advisory: Atmospheric river leads to combined sewer overflow to the Willamette River A combined sewer overflow (CSO) advisory has been issued for the Willamette River.

Hey #PDX, the Big Pipe overflowed, so stay out of the river! https://www.portland.gov/bes/news/2025/12/9/cso-advisory-atmospheric-river-leads-combined-sewer-overflow-willamette-river?stream=top

10.12.2025 14:43 👍 1 🔁 1 💬 0 📌 0

Original post on mastodon.social

A lovely #AdventureTime build next, in the form of a #RaspberryPi-powered BMO running a Java-based "quasi-OS" that can play games, videos, and... err, sometimes farts.

https://www.hackster.io/news/this-bmo-build-brings-its-own-quasi-os-to-emulate-games-play-videos-and-fart-9729b074cc56 […]

24.11.2025 16:12 👍 0 🔁 2 💬 1 📌 0

I think this was a #meteor that caught my eye and luckily one of my security cameras caught it. Seen at 21:58 PST over cascade head north of Lincoln City, OR. #bolide

01.12.2025 06:10 👍 1 🔁 1 💬 0 📌 0

Image of Ursula Le Guin and OP from her exhibit

If you're going to be in Portland, Oregon before February 8th, there is a great - and very interactive - exhibit on Ursula Le Guin, at the Oregon Center for Contemporary Art. Can't recommend this enough.
#dao #tao #scifi #sciencefiction

28.11.2025 21:22 👍 9 🔁 31 💬 0 📌 0

12 inches of Citadel Quickly and easily listen to Wiz Biz with Alexx and Erik for free!

After a long break, my podcast about Adventure Time (the cartoon!) has returned for its 6th season. https://player.captivate.fm/episode/f5d3cf65-97f2-4a00-86fc-226cbc7dd203
#AdventureTime #podcast

26.11.2025 14:54 👍 1 🔁 0 💬 0 📌 0

There are some interesting marketing lessons in this video about (blecch) Fireball Whisky. #marketing #youtube https://youtu.be/pG6cOaQqXYw

25.11.2025 18:44 👍 0 🔁 1 💬 0 📌 0

@curmudgeonaf I'm gonna miss them!

23.11.2025 06:10 👍 0 🔁 0 💬 0 📌 0

最后一枚便士硬币将于今日在费城铸造 The last-ever penny will be minted today in Philadelphia (www.cnn.com) 00:10 ↑ 141 HN Points

The very last United States penny was minted on my birthday this year. #penny #money #history https://www.cnn.com/2025/11/12/business/last-penny-minted

22.11.2025 18:44 👍 0 🔁 1 💬 0 📌 0

Original post on fosstodon.org

Uff da, I was just reading through some old blog posts, including this #orgmode post from a year ago. I had a lot to do that month! This month feels relatively lazy, I haven't even been checking my agenda every day. (Bad Erik!) #emacs #productivity […]

21.11.2025 23:33 👍 2 🔁 0 💬 0 📌 0

Creating a Desktop Launcher for Emacs Calc

Oh yeah, I really like this method for launching the #Emacs calc from the application menu. Thanks @tiang! https://taingram.org/blog/emacs-calc-desktop-entry.html

21.11.2025 18:44 👍 1 🔁 0 💬 0 📌 0

It is so cool that Synth Library Portland exists! I won't be in town for their Black Friday event, but if you are, you should go to it! #PDX #music #synthesizers https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GNK42lQntFc

20.11.2025 18:44 👍 1 🔁 1 💬 0 📌 0

An Emacs Application Launcher for Regolith I run the Regolith Desktop Environment on my laptop, which I love because it provides a convenient GNOME wrapper and interface for the i3 tiling window manager. Regolith relies on a program called `ilia` for application launching, and sometimes `ilia` gets caught in some kind of CPU-churning state that locks up my whole system. I have not been able to figure out what is causing it, so I (of course) turned to Emacs for a solution. ## Turning to `consult-omni` Armin Darvish has created a powerful Emacs package called `consult-omni`, which provides a wrapper around `consult` for searching through any number of information sources. I believe `consult-omni` was originally intended to query web search engines and document databases, but Darvish has also provided a search mode for your local desktop applications, and can act as an application launcher. Darvish provides an example application launcher in his `consult-omni` YouTube tutorial. The source code is straightforward, but I wanted to tweak it just a little. You can view his original on the project’s wiki on GitHub. You can watch him explain his technique below. After a few tweaks, here is what I came up with. (defun consult-launcher () "A launcher suitable for use from a window manager." (interactive) (let* ((width (floor (* 0.6 (display-pixel-width)))) (height (floor (* 0.6 (display-pixel-height)))) (left (floor (* 0.2 (display-pixel-width)))) (top (floor (* 0.2 (display-pixel-height)))) (params `((name . "omni-launcher") (width . ,(cons 'text-pixels width)) (height . ,(cons 'text-pixels height)) (left . ,left) (top . ,top) (minibuffer . only))) (frame (make-frame params))) (with-selected-frame frame (select-frame-set-input-focus frame) ;; If i3 is running and there is a control socket, let's tell ;; it we are a floating frame. (if (getenv "I3SOCK") (call-process "i3-msg" nil nil nil (format "[id=%s] floating enable" (s-trim (shell-command-to-string "xdotool getactivewindow"))))) (unwind-protect (progn (consult-omni-apps-static ".*" (propertize "> " 'face 'consult-omni-path-face)) nil) (progn (when (frame-live-p frame) (delete-frame frame)) nil))))) I made two changes to get this to work nicely with `i3`. First, I removed the `yequake` dependency. Second, I added a call to `i3-msg` that sets the launcher frame as floating, which makes it much nicer to use. Like Darvish’s version, you can run this from the command line: emacsclient -e '(consult-launcher)' ## Adding an `ilia` fallback Don’t tell all the other Emacs users, but I don’t have Emacs set up to launch automatically when I start my computer and log into X11. I probably should, huh? Also, there are times when I (gasp!) shut down Emacs, usually to restart it or fix something that I have broken. When those times happen, I want to be able to launch applications, so I need a failsafe in case `consult-launcher` isn’t available! To solve this, I created a simple shell wrapper script, which looks like this: #!/bin/bash # Check if Emacs server is running by looking for the server socket # Default server name is "server", but you can change this if needed SERVER_NAME="${EMACS_SERVER_NAME:-server}" SERVER_FILE="${XDG_RUNTIME_DIR:-/tmp}/emacs/${SERVER_NAME}" if [ -S "$SERVER_FILE" ]; then # Emacs is running, use emacsclient to launch your application emacsclient -e '(consult-launcher)' else # Emacs is not running, fall back to ilia ilia -p apps fi If you want to use this, the important part is that `SERVER_FILE` points to the socket that your Emacs server uses. Make sure that `emacsclient` and `ilia` are both in a reasonable location so your shell can find them, then bind this command to whatever you usually use to launch `ilia`. By the way, if you are using Regolith’s normal method of launching `ilia`, you can add your shell script to your Regolith configuration pretty easily. Open `$HOME/.config/regolith3/Xresources` in your text editor, and add the line: wm.program.launcher.app: /path/to/your/launcher.sh You can then run `xrdb -override $HOME/.config/regolith3/Xresources` and it should work! Good luck. ## Drawbacks One of the nice things about `ilia` is that it keeps track of applications your run frequently, so they tend to bubble up to the top of its application listing. The Emacs method doesn’t do that. I don’t mind so much, I always end up typing in application names. It is fun to use Emacs as an application launcher, and I hope that it helps me avoid the CPU-churn problem that `ilia` has been experiencing far too often. Have I come up with a clever solution, or a lazy workaround? I’m looking forward to hearing your thoughts.

I wrote up something about an #emacs application launcher that I am using with #Regolith and #i3wm. Enjoy! https://arnesonium.com/2025/11/regolith-emacs-launcher

19.11.2025 19:07 👍 1 🔁 1 💬 0 📌 0

WordPress Services Erik L. Arneson is a freelance writer and software developer located in Portland, Oregon.

WordPress. You love to hate it, but a lot of small businesses rely on it. And it breaks! All the time! I can help, I have a new range of emergency WordPress services I am offering. Check them out! #WordPress #freelance #fediwork https://arnesonium.com/wordpress/

18.11.2025 18:44 👍 0 🔁 0 💬 0 📌 0

A screenshot of an internal server error page showing a Cloudflare error in Portland.

It looks to me like the #CloudFlare outage is continuing in Portland. I didn't realize how many websites use it; I've been trying to research an Arduino project and fully half the search results are unreachable.

18.11.2025 15:03 👍 1 🔁 0 💬 0 📌 0

I love the party of this episode when the cohosts have to explain Snuffleupagus to an incredulous Jody. #history #podcast #SesameStreet https://play.prx.org/listen?ge=prx_282_8c32fcbc-1d3c-4fe7-8604-cb84691f32a0&uf=https%3A%2F%2Fthisday.feed.electionhistory.show%2F

17.11.2025 14:43 👍 0 🔁 0 💬 0 📌 0

A vibrant rainbow arcs across a cloudy sky, set against a backdrop of the Rogue Valley, mountains and lush greenery. A leafless tree stands in the foreground, surrounded by various plants and shrubs. The scene captures a peaceful natural landscape during golden hour.

Oregon’s Rogue Valley looks pretty awesome in the late afternoon after a brief rain. #PNW #Oregon

14.11.2025 00:57 👍 5 🔁 2 💬 0 📌 0

The Independent Podcaster Report 2025: Inside the Minds of 558 Creators The 2025 Indiepod Survey reveals how 558 indie podcasters balance passion, growth struggles, and monetisation. Discover key trends in audience, goals, and the future of podcasting.

I enjoyed reading Alitu's Independent Podcaster Report 2025! There is a lot of interesting data in here. #podcast #podcasting
https://creator.alitu.com/creator/content-creation/the-independent-podcaster-report-2025/

13.11.2025 18:44 👍 1 🔁 0 💬 0 📌 0

Outside of the new Amtrak Accela train

View of the interior of the new Amtrak Acela trains. Very European.

A new awesome cup holder in the seat-back in front of me.

Who dis? New train. #Amtrak

13.11.2025 15:13 👍 0 🔁 1 💬 0 📌 0

@howard The argument I've seen is that jQuery is the bloated, overkill way.

12.11.2025 20:42 👍 0 🔁 0 💬 1 📌 0

@linkplay All the jQuery stuff! You know, DOM manipulation, event listening, etc. And yes, inside Svelte.

12.11.2025 20:41 👍 0 🔁 0 💬 0 📌 0

Frontend development with #Svelte is remarkably less painful than plain old #JavaScript. But I am having trouble breaking my #jQuery habit. Is jQuery still cool? Am I doing it wrong?

12.11.2025 18:44 👍 3 🔁 1 💬 2 📌 0

Erik L. Arneson :emacs:

Latest posts by Erik L. Arneson :emacs: @pymander.fosstodon.org.ap.brid.gy