It Starts With a Small Favor

One time the boss asked me to sketch a new product concept in our CAD program.  After an hour or so, I'd print out a paper drawing and hand it to him.

After a few weeks he stops by and asks, "How's the project going?"  "What project?"  Apparently the little favor I did, the sketch I provided, was supposed to be /my/ new project.  I was supposed to test it and get it working and make imporvements on it (in between all the other products that customers were paying for).  This wasn't the first time I was expected to be a mind reader, but it was the most egregious example.

My job, as it was explained to me when I started, was to design and order photomasks for a new IC.  I'd also provide notes on the fabrication requirements, both backend and frontend.  After that, it was somebody else's problem.  This was easy work, and I was able to fit in with only a little training.  I had time to devote to professional development, which was lacking.

At one weekly status meeting someone reported a problem with one of the chips I designed.  Suddenly everyone was looking at me.  They expected me to know what was going on and hoped I had devised a solution, Apparently, again, I was supposed to be responsible for all aspects of its manufacturing and testing.  But I wasn't even aware that it started production.  My only response was "I don't know" sung to the tune of "How the hell should I know?"  Again I was faulted for my lack of mind reading skills.

This is how things go in a small company that lacks a mentorship program.  If someone had provided a little guidance and explicit expectations, on day one, I might've developed into the ideal engineer.

Unfortunately, this happens at home, too.  "I want to paint the window sill on the porch.  Can you buy paint for me?" my wife asked last week.  Now she's saying that it's a big job and that she might have to hire someone to help.  So the todo list that she wrote today included, "Help me paint the window sill."  I'm assuming I'll have to do it myself.  But this bothers me because you're always paint the trim last, and the entire porch needs painting.  Not only is she manipulating me into doing the job, she's manipulating me into doing it wrong.

Does this happen to anyone else?  What are your experiences?

Some Monospace Fonts Available in Blogger

While editing my most recent post, I've been disappointed with the lone monospace font that's available in Blogger by default.  I'm referring to Courier.  The biggest problem with it is that it's very difficult (for me) to discern between l and 1.^*  Here's what they look like in Courier: l and 1.

Fortunately, Google has made it easy for a user to add alternate fonts.  I listed below some of the monospace fonts you can choose.  

Based on the discernment between l/1, I like these the best (ranking in alphabetical order):

Font Name	lower L vs. One
Fragment Mono	l and 1
Google Sans Code	l and 1
JetBrains Mono	l and 1
Oxygen Mono	l and 1
Reddit Mono	l and 1
Source Code Pro	l and 1
Ubuntu Mono	l and 1
Ubuntu Sans Mono	l and 1

The discernment is greatest with Reddit Mono; there's no way I'd mistake the lowercase L for the number 1.  However, I like Ubuntu Mono the best.  Not only is the discernment good, the character height is comparable to the height of the default font for this Blogger theme.  So I'll use this font for code listings from now on.

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^*That's lowercase L and the digit one in case you thought I pressed the same key twice. In fact I thought I pressed the same key twice, so I re-entered the characters very deliberately.

Courier the quick, red fox jumped over the brown, lazy dog. THE QUICK, RED FOX JUMPED OVER THE BROWN, LAZY DOG. 0123456789

Cousine the quick, red fox jumped over the brown, lazy dog. THE QUICK, RED FOX JUMPED OVER THE BROWN, LAZY DOG. 0123456789

Datatype the quick, red fox jumped over the brown, lazy dog. THE QUICK, RED FOX JUMPED OVER THE BROWN, LAZY DOG. 0123456789

Fragment Mono the quick, red fox jumped over the brown, lazy dog. THE QUICK, RED FOX JUMPED OVER THE BROWN, LAZY DOG. 0123456789

Google Sans Code the quick, red fox jumped over the brown, lazy dog. THE QUICK, RED FOX JUMPED OVER THE BROWN, LAZY DOG. 0123456789

IBM Plex Mono the quick, red fox jumped over the brown, lazy dog. THE QUICK, RED FOX JUMPED OVER THE BROWN, LAZY DOG. 0123456789

Inconsolata the quick, red fox jumped over the brown, lazy dog. THE QUICK, RED FOX JUMPED OVER THE BROWN, LAZY DOG. 0123456789

JetBrains Mono the quick, red fox jumped over the brown, lazy dog. THE QUICK, RED FOX JUMPED OVER THE BROWN, LAZY DOG. 0123456789

Overpass Mono the quick, red fox jumped over the brown, lazy dog. THE QUICK, RED FOX JUMPED OVER THE BROWN, LAZY DOG. 0123456789

Oxygen Mono the quick, red fox jumped over the brown, lazy dog. THE QUICK, RED FOX JUMPED OVER THE BROWN, LAZY DOG. 0123456789

Reddit Mono the quick, red fox jumped over the brown, lazy dog. THE QUICK, RED FOX JUMPED OVER THE BROWN, LAZY DOG. 0123456789

Roboto Mono the quick, red fox jumped over the brown, lazy dog. THE QUICK, RED FOX JUMPED OVER THE BROWN, LAZY DOG. 0123456789

Share Tech Mono the quick, red fox jumped over the brown, lazy dog. THE QUICK, RED FOX JUMPED OVER THE BROWN, LAZY DOG. 0123456789

Source Code Pro the quick, red fox jumped over the brown, lazy dog. THE QUICK, RED FOX JUMPED OVER THE BROWN, LAZY DOG. 0123456789

Ubuntu Mono the quick, red fox jumped over the brown, lazy dog. THE QUICK, RED FOX JUMPED OVER THE BROWN, LAZY DOG. 0123456789

Ubuntu Sans Mono the quick, red fox jumped over the brown, lazy dog. THE QUICK, RED FOX JUMPED OVER THE BROWN, LAZY DOG. 0123456789

No File Name Completion With org-insert-link? Try This

If you invoke org-insert-link (typically C-c C-l) in order to link to a local file, you might expect that pressing TAB will complete a partial path or file name.  Instead you’ll get the frustrating message “[No match].”

What you need to do instead is to invoke the command with a prefix argument like this: C-u C-c C-l. Then you’ll get the expected completion behavior with TAB.

But why is a prefix argument necessary?  It turns out that org-insert-link expects a link type at the "Insert link" prompt.  Some link types are file, bbdb, info, etc.  (To see a full list of link types, press TAB right after invoking the command, without entering anything.)

This is a powerful command.  You can, for example, enter bbd and press TAB to complete the bbdb: link type.  Then enter the first few characters of someone’s name or a business in your bbdb list of contacts, such as arth.  Upon pressing TAB, you should see completion fill in arthur.  Press again, you’ll get Arthur Dent and perhaps his email address.  Clicking on either will complete the entry.  Press ENTER to put the link into your buffer.¹

Completion isn’t available for all link types.  A link to an info node, for example, has to be entered manually, although usually it’s created with org-store-link (C-c l) while point is in the info node of interest.

I encourage you to read the help for org-insert-link and org-store-link.  The two hyperlinks immediately below will take you to the online manual on gnus.org.  But if you copy the link text and yank into an org file, Emacs will open the Org manual at the page for handling links.

[[help:org-insert-link][Emacs help for org-insert-link]]

[[help:org-store-link][Emacs help for org-store-link]]

I dislike getting frustrated.  But when I’m frustrated with Emacs, I expect to learn something if I dig deep enough.  It hasn’t let me down yet.

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¹ This depends on whether bbdb has been loaded.  If you use bbdb and you’re not getting completion, invoke M-x bbdb and try again.