57 pounds and counting

So I am starting a new project with a friend, we have been meaning to do something for a while, but we have never got round to it.

There is a problem of course and that is we really don't know what we are creating, we have a few ideas (even some code) but no real direction. Because of this we have spent a lot of time discussing how do we show value in a project which does not yet have a name. We at least know how much we have spent on it so far. 57 pounds. Which consists of: two lunches, coffees and beer.

We expect this number to grow before we get anywhere, but the concern is that how do we claw back some of this number in at least in virtual terms. We have no ideas for now, but we are certain that we will work something out (even if it is the amount of electricity we leech from coffee shops)

Emacs Replace Carriage Return for Line Feed

I recently got a file from a main frame with some crazy use of line feeds and carriage return, thanks to this blog it became really easy. It comes down to replace Carriage Return (if by itself will be shown as a ^M) for Line Feed (which is the same as a ^J). The problem is getting emacs to replace one non-printable character for another. As it turns out C-q lets you type in a linefeed (C-j) as a quoted character. The final steps were:

• M-% [Search and Replace]
• C-q C-m [search for quoted character ^M (carriage return)]
• C-q C-j [replace with quoted character ^J (line feed)]
• ! [replace all]

StackOverFlow

After a while of lurking around Stack overflow I have taken the plunge and answered a question or two. I can see why people can be addicted to it. Much more fun than checking my email :)