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Bare Metal (The Emacs Essay)

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197 points hpaone | 2 comments | 14 Oct 25 20:50 UTC | HN request time: 0.493s | source
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jpfromlondon ◴[21 Oct 25 14:24 UTC] No.45656224[source]▶
I didn't want the post to end I didn't want to return to an existence where people don't share these transgressive impulses with me.

This is a robust and comprehensive antidote to nihilism and anyone who has ever missed the internet of the nineties or early 00s as I have would be doing themselves an enormous favour by reading it, and then rereading it as I intend to.

It lost me for a moment at Implicity and I was worried the spell had be broken but the profound blows didn't stop.

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1. anthk ◴[21 Oct 25 19:34 UTC] No.45660582[source]▶
I think the same. Even if today I'm a die hard HJKL user, Emacs' doctor and the whole nerdiness world from M-x doctor to M-x fortune among M-x dunnet (and the rest of the games) opened a total new world instead of the damn boring Microsoft world with their own obscure terms making things nearly undiscoverable and very difficult to understand because there was no complete documentation for the end user.

Later, in mid-2000's, the 3 DVD based Debian Sarge came with everything. Documentation, serious software, programming tools, mega nerd/geek games, the Anarchist FAQ, crazy fortune files, nerd lore and whatnot. You could snoop your BTTV and later DVB signals on the fly (even decode some channels my normal TV wasn't able to do), break tons of limits on cable TV sets (even override them)... it was magical.

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2. jpfromlondon ◴[22 Oct 25 09:02 UTC] No.45666485[source]▶
I too am an apostate, however the post has gone a long way to encouraging me back into the fold, couldn't find my old .emacs when I had a quick look yesterday, dread starting again but maybe that's a meditation in itself.