jwr

I think the problem we have is an ill-defined concept of "human consumption". I understand the desire (instinct?) to ban crawlers, but I'd argue that bots serving human needs are different. Consider: bots that fetch the content for me so as to present it in a different form. Bots that need to fetch documentation, because they are writing software for me. Bots that read or explain the content to me because I am disabled. There are many use cases where "bots" are there specifically to fulfill human needs, and yet we ban them.

Worse, many of us outsource the control over who can access their website to a third party, in this case a corporation that is an increasingly menacing monopoly on the internet — which I think is a problem, too.

Thank you for creating this. For those of us who want to use bots to help them with daily tasks (so that AI does the chores and the human doesn't have to!) and get blocked by idiotic "anti-bot" policies, this is really helpful.

Sigh. I forgot I posted this in a crypto-related thread.

From Binance customers, not from Binance.

I tried many packages for interacting with AI agents in Emacs, and eventually, as AI became better, I settled on just running them in terminals inside Emacs (ghostel, which is fantastic).

As for AI doing the coding in my Emacs, I simply use Claude Code or codex with the emacs-direct package which exposes the Emacs REPL via MCP. That allows the AI to do quick iteration passes and try things out in my running Emacs. Or start another one for testing.

Actually, Emacs might be handling it pretty well. Safe eval of local variables is a thing. Of course, in your own code, anything goes.

I have been using Emacs for more than 30 years now. Other editors have come and gone, Emacs stayed. Parts of my configuration are more than 30 years old.

There were better and worse times in Emacs history. Recent times, however, are really good. Emacs is maintained and developed actively and there are many external packages which are impressive. Magit and ghostel are good examples of packages that I use on a daily basis to get my work done.

Recently, AI completely changed how I use Emacs, and in a very good way. I now treat AI as a fairy that can fulfill any wish. I describe how I want my editor to work, and boom! it works that way.

Examples: window and tab management, difftastic integration, markdown previews with beautifully rendered tables, markdown previews as PDFs, and many more.

What is most important, however, goes back to Stallman's original ideas. I am in control of my editor and my environment. I decide how it will look and behave. No corporation decides for me. No corporation builds in a new AI assistant. Nobody introduces ads or tracking. This is something I've learned to appreciate over the years.

This depends on the individuals' character -- when I look around, I mostly see people who become jerks/a-holes once they get money. Especially in the tech world. Look at what Google founders do with their money (evading taxes, mostly), or at others who became outright nazis and support far-right movements across the world. In the best case scenario they just keep buying yachts and villas and stay relatively quiet.

Mitchell is a beautiful exception and it makes me happy.

Ghostty is so great. I am very thankful to Mitchell for dedicating so much of his time to making a terminal that is truly great. Finally, somebody really cares and has the technical abilities to materialize that care as great software.

Also, ghostel in Emacs is fantastic as well (of course in a big part thanks to libghostty) — most of my work has now shifted into Emacs as a result.

Oh, I do design my own PCBs -- but the price and accessibility of these modules is hard to beat. Especially given that, if you're doing anything that has a radio, you probably want a pre-designed board or an integrated module rather than the chip itself. Baluns are not obvious to design on a board that you do not fully control.

BTW, I find it pretty amazing that you can buy complete ESP32-S3-Zero boards on AliExpress for $5.33. That's for a little board with the chip, a ceramic antenna, a USB connector and an LED.

ESP32-C3-Zero are $2.80 each.

These prices are absolutely ridiculous for what you get. Also, the ease of use of these boards is incredible. Just connect them via USB to your computer and off you go.

"Sorry, you have been blocked"

So, has this been Jepsen-tested yet?

Because if it hasn't, it's likely there are problems lurking.