2024-06 Austin Emacs Meetup

There was another meeting a week ago of EmacsATX, the Austin Emacs Meetup group. For this month we had a predetermined topic, but it only lasted for a few minutes. As always, there were mentions of many modes, packages, technologies and websites, some of which I had never heard of before, and some of this may be of interest to you as well. I was only on for an hour before I had to drop off. This post also includes my opinions and commentary beyond what was discussed at the meeting.

My connection had some issues, and there were several moments when I had trouble understanding what the then-presenter was saying; I did not feel like interrupting and disrupting the flow of the meeting.

#1 was the organizer.
#2 was a developer in the Dallas area.
#3 was again a no show.
#4 was a developer in SF.
#5 was a grad student, I think in California. He was the same #5 from last time.
#6 was a developer in Austin.

Here is a list of the modes and packages that were mentioned (I will not list the big ones here, like Org, Doom, Spacemacs):

• go-translate –
• elfeed –
• EWW – The Emacs browser. Like “Emacs” and “Eshell”, EWW should always be written in upper case.
• gpt.el. I think people meant the one that gets updated frequently called gptel; there is another one called gpt.el that as of 2024-06-07 has not been updated since 2023-11-12.
• org-ai –
• whisper.el
• consult-web
• org-media-note
• elfeed-tube

Here are the non-Emacs topics that came up:

• Framework laptop
• Mozilla Readability library
• AI (again)
• Ollama
• whisper.cpp

#4 informed us he had started using a Framework laptop. There was some discussion of hardware. I missed a chance to evangelize for System76.

#1 gave a brief presentation on using go-translate to read Kafka. He also showed us some poetry. I do not remember if it was his or Kafka’s. He wanted the poetry to be a variable-width font while leaving the rest of the file fixed-width. #4 shared some Emacs Lisp code to make a block variable width (although he said this was off the top of his head and might not work as-is):

(setq-local org-fontify-quote-and-verse-blocks t) 
(face-remap-add-relative 'org-verse :inherit 'default :family "My VariableWidth Font Here") 

#2 talked about elfeed, but his voice broke up, and I had a hard time following. I think he was using elfeed and a Mozilla library called readability to look at pages in EWW instead of Firefox. I think when he said “EWW” he was referring to the Emacs browser; perhaps he was expressing his disgust for all things not Lisp. There are a few other pages about using readability in Emacs (a post from 2024-04 on Reddit here and a blog post here).

There was a lot of talk of AI. One of the members said that as a non-native English speaker, he used to use Grammarly, and now uses ChatGPT to help him write. A few members use LLM for translations and speech to text. The tools used include:

• Ollama: This can run many LLMs using your CPU. I tried it, and it seemed very slow. Site here, Github repo here.
• org-ai: This package can be used to incorporate text, image and speech AI software into your Org files.
• whisper.el: This interfaces with the speech-to-text package whisper.cpp, made by the dean of CPU AI, Georgi Gerganov, famous for llama.cpp. His AI software puts the “you” in CPU (it’s cheesy slogan, but you heard it here first).

#5 gave a demo of consult-web. This package will perform web searches against multiple engines, and dispay the results in your buffer. It requires consult. He also demoed org-media-note. This package enables you to take notes for videos and audio. He displayed a transcript, and he was able to jump to different parts of the video by highlighting different words and phrases in the transcript.

The last demo while I was there was for elfeed-tube. He got a lot of videos listed for each channel. I tried it a long time ago, and I only got 20 entries per channel. Maybe I configured it wrong, or I just used vanilla elfeed. I will add it to my ever-growing TODO list.

This post was created in Emacs with Org Mode and Love. You’re welcome. And stop looking at your stupid phone all the time.

I give people numbers since I do not know if they want their names in this write-up. Think of it as the stoner’s version of the Chatham House Rule. I figured that numbers are a little clearer than “someone said this, and someone else said that, and a third person said something else”. Plus it gives participants some deniability. Most people’s numbers are based on the order they are listed on the call screen, and the same person may be referred to by different numbers in different months. A few regulars have regular numbers.

I am not the official spokesperson for the group. I just got into the habit of summarizing the meetings every month, and adding my own opinions about things. The participants may remember things differently, and may disagree with opinions expressed in this post. Nothing should be construed as views held by anyone’s employers past, present or future. That said, if you like something in this post, I will take credit; for things you don’t like, blame somebody else.

Image from Évangéliaire de la Sainte-Chapelle – BNF Lat8851, housed at the Bibliothèque nationale de France; source: Gallica; image assumed allowed under public domain.