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Table of Contents Limits to Hugo’s Native Org Support Enter Ox-Hugo Why Did I Change? The Experience So Far The Final Question For the past year I’ve written almost all of my posts here in Emacs. My workflow has typically been to create a new file in my content/posts directory with the command ```hugo new posts/filename.md```. Notice that the file has a “.md” extension. I prefer writing in markdown which is one of the reasons I settled on Hugo to start with. It made sense, then, to create a markdown file to write my posts. ...

Introduces Emacs for Neophytes

I first started looking at emacs as my writing software a number of months ago and wrote about my initial thoughts back in August of 2025. At that time I noted that I was starting with vanilla Emacs. That is the base version that has no (or at least very few) additional packages added. This minimized the complexity. Emacs is complex enough without adding more to the challenge. And, since then every post I’ve made on this blog and essentially all of the writing I’ve done since then has been on vanilla Emacs. ...

When I last posted, I was discussing preparing to pursue the “Extra” class license as a ham operator. That eventuality is now reality. I tested and passed my exam last night with flying colors! So, what does that mean? In truth, not a lot. In terms of privileges, the extra class designation gives me access to little bit of extra bandwidth on the 15, 20, 40, and 80 meter bands. That’s a bit of a mixed bag, though, since that extra bandwidth, being available to only a subset of ham operators, also limits the number of potential contacts in those frequencies. That can be both a blessing and a curse, I suspect. That is, while there are fewer users in those frequencies, that also means that there’s less congestion. So, it’s really a mixed bag. Truth be told, though, access to those extra frequencies is not why I pursued the upgrade. ...

In an earlier post I noted that have renewed my interest in amateur radio. Several years back I had given great thought to pursuing my Extra Class certificate. If you’re not familiar with amateur radio, Extra Class is the highest level of certification in amateur radio. This give you the greatest privileges and signifies, sort of, that you have a fairly decent understanding of radio theory, electronics, and so on. It doesn’t mean that you know everything there is to know or that you’re and “expert”. But it does mean that you’ve dug a little deeper, learned a little more, and that you’re likely to keep on learning. ...

Back in the early aughts, when this phenomenon called “social media” first appeared, with MySpace, Facebook, Twitter, and the like first coming into the public consciousness, I was a bit flummoxed. I couldn’t quite understand why these sites drew the kind of attention they did. Still, wanting to stay abreast of the latest trends, I tried them. Well, at least some of them. Most of my efforts revolved around the classes I was teaching at the time. ...

I joined Bluesky a month or so ago and one of the things that has caught my attention is that it seems a lot of folks who post there are posting the books they’ve read, are reading, or plan to read. Now, there’s absolutely nothing wrong with that. I have been known to do that myself. What caught my eye, though, was the number of people who boast about the number of books they’ve read or, as the new year begins, have set goals for how many books they will read this year. Can I just say I think that’s the stupidest thing you can possibly do? ...

Many months ago I started hearing a good bit about a technology referred to as “MeshTastic”. MeshTastic is a decentralized mesh communications network that uses LoRa radios to provide communications, particularly in situations where other technologies such as cell service are not available. The first question, of course, is “what the heck is a LoRa radio?” I’m going to avoid getting into the weeds here, but LoRa is a portmanteau of ‘LOng RAnge’ and refers to a technique to communicate over long distances. That technique involves “Chirp Spread Spectrum” to encode information in “chirps” or short pulses of data. Because much of the data transmitted by IoT devices is just a few bytes, LoRa is an ideal technology for IoT and, in fact, is often used for exactly that purpose. A LoRa device, for example, could be used to communicate with an remotely controlled gate, issuing commands to open or close the gate, or to check its status. ...

The last couple of weeks have been a whirlwind. Not only because of the holidays, but because my brain has been on a massive overload of information. I love learning and tend to be very curious about, well, damn near everything. While mucking around in my office/shop I pulled out my MeshTastic devices and started playing around with them again. That required that I do a bit of research to get up to speed and add to my understanding of that technology. And down the rabbit hole I went. In looking for information on MeshTastic I ran across MeshCore, so I started researching that and went through the process of installing that on my devices and experimenting with that technology. ...

After years of having only a single option for internet service in our area, two – count them: TWO – new providers have moved into our neighborhood in the past few months. Both of those providers boast that they provide fiber internet and in their marketing push the idea that fiber automatically means faster internet. I call BS. In all honesty, I truly considered switching to one of the fiber providers early on, but then really began to think about what I would be getting for my money. I realized that it was just hype and that the whole “speed” thing is essentially marketing: all aroma and no substance. ...