April 23rd 2026 - Reading Summary

The Hobbit

Gandalf to the rescue

Gandalf shows up, kills the Great Goblin, and the group start running into the caves. The sword Gandalf is holding is the other sword they had found which is now glowing. They keep killing goblins as they run deeper into the caves. Bilbo is slow so the dwarves take turns carrying him on their shoulders. Eventually, the goblins catch up and pull Bilbo down to ground where he takes a hard hit and passes out.

The Eye of the World

Ghost dogs

The boys eat some honeycakes and warm cider as they're moving the goods into the inn. Mat confesses the blacksmith and his wife are upset with him for putting flour on some dogs in order to scare the children; which led to the dogs running into the blacksmith's home and making a mess.

The two strangers

One of the young boys, Ewin, comes and tells them that two strangers arrived in town; a high born lady and her guard. Nynaeve was insulted when the lady treated her like a child, not knowing she was The Wisdom.

Atomic Habits

Chapter 4 - The Man Who Didn't Look Right

  • A paramedic's intuition

    We're told the story of a paramedic who noticed her father-in-law's appearance was off despite him feeling well. He was rushed to the hospital and it was discovered he had a blockage in a major artery. He was then rushed into surgery, most likely saving his life.

    Our mind unconsciously picks up on cues and triggers cravings and responses. This can be both useful and dangerous which is why we need to intentionally create our behaviors.

  • Point-and-calling

    Japanese train staff have a practice called Point-and-Calling where they point at things like the train schedule and say the time, the light on the track and say the color, and the speedometer of the train and say the speed out loud. This leads to fewer mistakes and accidents.

    This reminds me of the Mahasi Sayadaw noting technique where one notes each experience, like pain or hearing, until it ceases.

Prot's Elisp Book

Things we can do with buffers

  • Getting and switching buffers
    • (buffer-substring-no-properties)
    • (get-buffer-create)
    • (get-buffer)
    • (with-current-buffer)
    • (display-buffer)
    • (pop-to-buffer)
    • (buffer-list)
  • Get contents as a string
    • (buffer-string)
    • (buffer-substring)
  • Erasing content
    • (erase-buffer)
    • (delete-region)
  • Buffer local variables
    • (buffer-file-name)
    • (fill-column)
    • (default-directory)
    • (setq-local)