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Great meeting last night!
by Tim Keller Jan. 15, 2022

Jan. 15, 2022

Hey Everybody, The meeting last night was amazing and Kalman showed us was a power emacs users looks like. I've downloaded the video, I'm going to trim it down a bit and upload the video to the wlug youtube account. Once it's uploaded I'll send out the link. Thanks, Tim. -- I am leery of the allegiances of any politician who refers to their constituents as "consumers".

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linux.conf.au
by Lexi Haley Jan. 15, 2022

Jan. 15, 2022

This is random and literally last minute, but it's day one of Linux.Conf.Au - anyone else virtually attending any sessions? https://linux.conf.au/ Lexi

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Reminder: Virtual Meeting today at 7PM Topic: Emacs awesomeness.
by Tim Keller Jan. 13, 2022

Jan. 13, 2022

Hey Gang, This is a reminder we've got a meeting today. The presenter is my co-worker, lisp ninja, emacs badass Kalman. Beyond being a emacs wizard, he's also a mainframe guru, a unix/linux guru and is/was deeply involved in the writing/maintaining of the symbolics lisp operating system. Today he's going to show off some of his emacs foo. If you think emacs is an editor of a bygone era when things were more civilized, kalman will likely not change your mind. However, if you want to take your emacs usage to the next level you'll love this talk. If you're totally not into emacs, that's okay, come along for the ride all the same. Expect the usual banter, tangents and fun. We'll also talk about what we'll want todo for the next meeting. See ya at the meeting! Tim. -- I am leery of the allegiances of any politician who refers to their constituents as "consumers".

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"apt list --installed" ... even has chrome on Mint...and other raves
by Doug Mildram Jan. 13, 2022

Jan. 13, 2022

Hi from doug in Maine ...former WPI netops geek, before that a *NIX admin back to when Vax and Sparc were corporate choices (I guess I've gotten over pining for BSD variants). I supported many emacs geeks (sw/hw developers) then, but never adopted emacs in my pea brain. I guess I preferred vi's stupid modes and ESC and ":" , over CTRL-everything? in emacs. Or maybe I got bit by a macro as a child. For some ancient emacs lore...its security hole Way Back Then is lovingly(ha) mentioned in Clifford Stoll's awesome/fun? book "The Cuckoo's Egg". Just to get root, back then. Access via hopping thru dialup 1200baud modems, and a world where security was off-radar to the engineers owning systems. Even MilNet systems. What fun ! Dumb hacker paradise! One fun line from below: What do you feed a Trojan horse ? Oooh, found a 52-page scan of the book at http://nationalsecurity.gmu.edu/wp-content/uploads/2020/12/Cuckoos-Egg-Read… But as always, I ramble. George: Great question. I "(d)evolved" into a dumb linux Mint user (a great Ubuntu-based distro ..though you gotta choose, Cinnamon,MATE,Xfce. I chose Mate, 20.1 is stable. I forget the why's, but I know it's good with a few beloved windows keyb tricks like ALT-TAB). As a sysadmin responsible for reloading/building systems, I had to fret packages once, .....obviously this was the cat's meow compared to rebuilding from sources and "make". I remember studying our typical < 1000 RedHat packages and feeling like I knew what most of them were. Now I've got > 2000 on Mint, and barely recognize half of them. Today for fun (Thanks Tim), I looked to see... if the one thing I recall needing to install off-package a few years ago = "chrome" showed up in either my sudo logs (nope) or package list. Chrome got into Mint's distros. So my "apt list --installed" output (3mo old desktop load) shows 2028 packages having chosen the "want 3rd party stuff?" install question...so wonderful..so I have both emacsen-common/focal,focal,now 3.0.4 all [installed] and google-chrome-stable/now 91.0.4472.77-1 amd64 [installed,upgradable to: 97.0.4692.71-1] From cmd line, google-chrome (I no longer need on Final side track, I remember years ago saying "amazing...YouTube just works out of box!". Final backtrack...wonder what emacsen-common has, since if I try to launch "emacs" I get Command 'emacs' not found, but can be installed with: sudo apt install e3 # version 1:2.71-2, or sudo apt install emacs-gtk # version 1:26.3+1-1ubuntu2 sudo apt install emacs-lucid # version 1:26.3+1-1ubuntu2 sudo apt install emacs-nox # version 1:26.3+1-1ubuntu2 sudo apt install jove # version 4.17.2.7-1 Pardon my endless rant, hope it doesn't sidetrack today/tonite. I'll be fascinated to see what a recorded session looks like...with chat/comments?

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January 13th 2022 Virtual Meeting! Topic: Using Emacs for fun and pro fit.
by Tim Keller Jan. 10, 2022

Jan. 10, 2022

Hey Gang! We've got a meeting on Thursday! In light of the recent surge in Omicron (I managed to get exposed on NYE) I'm going to make this month's meeting virtual. Hopefully next month we can get back to our regularly scheduled in person meetings! Date/Time: January 13th 2022 @ 7pm! Location: Our virtual meeting place: https://meet.jit.si/WlugMA Topic: Using Emacs for fun and pro fit! Presenter: Kalman Reti This meeting's guest speaker is my amazing co-worker Kalman Reti. If you've never used emacs or used it for years, you'll love this talk. If you hate emacs, well, there's nothing to be said other than to come along and jeer. Kalman is many things, but one of them is a power user of emacs. He's agreed to show off some of his emacs kung fu. In this talk you'll learn some emacs history, likely some lisp and definitely some tricks. Beyond being an emacs guru, he's also a fountain of knowledge of all things unix/linux and beyond! Along the way, I'm sure we'll engage in our usual banter, side tracks and fun. Thanks, Tim. -- I am leery of the allegiances of any politician who refers to their constituents as "consumers".

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Interactive regular expression tutorial
by kstratton＠fastmail.us Jan. 7, 2022

Jan. 7, 2022

Found this. It might be old news, but I thought it was cool enough to share. https://regexone.com -- kstratton(a)fastmail.us

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Re: Bug in the news
by Joseph G Dec. 15, 2021

Dec. 15, 2021

Here's a good read on log4shell... https://www.lunasec.io/docs/blog/log4j-zero-day-mitigation-guide/ and an ongoing list of vendor responses.... https://gist.github.com/SwitHak/b66db3a06c2955a9cb71a8718970c592 It's bound to bring us 'joy' in the holiday season and beyond! Joe

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Reminder: December meeting! 12/09/2021 @7pm Hudson Public Library!
by Tim Keller Dec. 15, 2021

Dec. 15, 2021

Hey Everybody, We've got a meeting this Thursday at the Hudson Public Library! Topic: Jail breaking that Wii you've got laying around to run Linux! Then I'm sure it'll get even more interesting! I'd like to brain storm about topics we'd like to talk about next year! Ideas that have been talked about: 1. Pi-hole. What it is, how it works and why you want one! 2. Raspberry Pi clusters.. How to build one and what would you do with one? 3. Ham radio and Linux. I'll have snacks and refreshments on hand, we'll head off to dinner afterwards! Later, Tim. -- I am leery of the allegiances of any politician who refers to their constituents as "consumers".

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Reminder: November WLUG Meeting at the Hudson Public Library! Topic: Intel Management Engine.
by Tim Keller Nov. 19, 2021

Nov. 19, 2021

Hey Everybody, We've got a meeting this Thursday November 18th, 2021 at 7pm - 8:30pm at the Hudson Public Library! Firstly, a big shout out to Joshua Stone for making the reservation at the Hudson Public Library. Secondly, the meeting will also be online at our usual Jitsi location for people who can't make it in person. https://meet.jit.si/WlugMA The topic we'll be discussing at the meeting is the Intel Management Engine technology buried in every Intel CPU. This technology includes a version of Minix running on a separate core inside your CPU you don't control. Moreover, with the right software, changes to your machine can be made remotely, even when the system is powered off (but connected to power). As with all this stuff, of course since the whole thing is cooked into the firmware, it's full of security flaws, etc.. We'll talk about those flaws and how to disable it! We'll also likely touch on the Tesla Dojo D1 processing unit. They've made some claims that I've posted to the mailing list. Logan did some digging and it turns out their claims are not as blow your mind as would be first interpreted. The Hudson Public Library does allow food and drink, so I will bring the usual pretzels and snacks. Afterwards we will be going to Rail Trail Flatbread <https://railtrailflatbread.com/>for dinner. Toss me a line privately if you'll be attending so we've got an idea of how many people will be going out for dinner. I look forward to seeing you there! Later, Tim. -- I am leery of the allegiances of any politician who refers to their constituents as "consumers".

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Dojo D1
by Tim Keller Nov. 16, 2021

Nov. 16, 2021

I just finally got to see the stuff about Tesla's Dojo Processor stuff. 9 PFLOPS per "tile" and 36 TB/s of bandwidth. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pPHX7e1BxSM Um..wow. Tim. -- I am leery of the allegiances of any politician who refers to their constituents as "consumers".

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