Just my blogroll - BlogFlock

Using speech recognition for on-the-fly translations in Emacs and faking in-buffer completion for the results - Sacha Chua

2026-02-27T20:11:58.000Z

When I'm writing a journal entry in French, I sometimes want to translate a phrase that I can't look up word by word using a dictionary. Instead of switching to a browser, I can use an Emacs function to prompt me for text and either insert or display the translation. The plz library makes HTTP requests slightly neater.

(defun my-french-en-to-fr (text &optional display-only)
  (interactive (list (read-string "Text: ") current-prefix-arg))
  (let* ((url "https://translation.googleapis.com/language/translate/v2")
         (params `(("key" . ,(getenv "GOOGLE_API_KEY"))
                   ("q" . ,text)
                   ("source" . "en")
                   ("target" . "fr")
                   ("format" . "text")))
         (query-string (mapconcat
                        (lambda (pair)
                          (format "%s=%s"
                                  (url-hexify-string (car pair))
                                  (url-hexify-string (cdr pair))))
                        params
                        "&"))
         (full-url (concat url "?" query-string)))
    (let* ((response (plz 'get full-url :as #'json-read))
           (data (alist-get 'data response))
           (translations (alist-get 'translations data))
           (first-translation (car translations))
           (translated-text (alist-get 'translatedText first-translation)))
      (when (called-interactively-p 'any)
        (if display-only
            (message "%s" translated-text)
          (insert translated-text)))
      translated-text)))

I think it would be even nicer if I could use speech synthesis, so I can keep it a little more separate from my typing thoughts. I want to be able to say "Okay, translate …" or "Okay, … in French" to get a translation. I've been using my fork of natrys/whisper.el for speech recognition in English, and I like it a lot. By adding a function to whisper-after-transcription-hook, I can modify the intermediate results before they're inserted into the buffer.

(defun my-whisper-translate ()
  (goto-char (point-min))
  (let ((case-fold-search t))
    (when (re-search-forward "okay[,\\.]? translate[,\\.]? \\(.+\\)\\|okay[,\\.]? \\(.+?\\) in French" nil t)
      (let* ((s (or (match-string 1) (match-string 2)))
             (translation (save-match-data (my-french-en-to-fr s))))
        (replace-match
         (propertize translation
                     'type-hint translation
                     'help-echo s))))))

(with-eval-after-load 'whisper
  (add-hook 'whisper-after-transcription-hook 'my-whisper-translate 70))

But that's too easy. I want to actually type things myself so that I get more practice. Something like an autocomplete suggestion would be handy as a way of showing me a hint at the cursor. The usual completion-at-point functions are too eager to insert things if there's only one candidate, so we'll just fake it with an overlay. This code works only with my whisper.el fork because it supports using a list of functions for whisper-insert-text-at-point.

(defun my-whisper-maybe-type-with-hints (text)
  "Add this function to `whisper-insert-text-at-point'."
  (let ((hint (and text (org-find-text-property-in-string 'type-hint text))))
    (if hint
        (progn
          (my-type-with-hint hint)
          nil)
      text)))

(defvar-local my-practice-overlay nil)
(defvar-local my-practice-target nil)
(defvar-local my-practice-start nil)

(defun my-practice-cleanup ()
  "Remove the overlay and stop monitoring."
  (when (overlayp my-practice-overlay)
    (delete-overlay my-practice-overlay))
  (setq my-practice-overlay nil
        my-practice-target nil
        my-practice-start nil)
  (remove-hook 'post-command-hook #'my-practice-monitor t))

(defun my-practice-monitor ()
  "Updates hint or cancels."
  (let* ((pos (point))
         (input (buffer-substring-no-properties my-practice-start pos))
         (input-len (length input))
         (target-len (length my-practice-target)))
    (cond
     ((or (< pos my-practice-start)
          (> pos (+ my-practice-start target-len))
          (string-match "[\n\t]" input)
          (string= input my-practice-target))
      (my-practice-cleanup))
     ((string-prefix-p (downcase input) (downcase my-practice-target))
      (let ((remaining (substring my-practice-target input-len)))
        (move-overlay my-practice-overlay pos pos)
        (overlay-put my-practice-overlay 'after-string
                     (propertize remaining 'face 'shadow))))
     (t                                 ; typo
      (move-overlay my-practice-overlay pos pos)
      (overlay-put my-practice-overlay 'after-string
                   (propertize (substring my-practice-target input-len) 'face 'error))))))

(defun my-type-with-hint (string)
  "Show hints for STRING."
  (interactive "sString to practice: ")
  (my-practice-cleanup)
  (setq-local my-practice-target string)
  (setq-local my-practice-start (point))
  (setq-local my-practice-overlay (make-overlay (point) (point) nil t t))
  (overlay-put my-practice-overlay 'after-string (propertize string 'face 'shadow))
  (add-hook 'post-command-hook #'my-practice-monitor nil t))

Here's a demonstration of me saying "Okay, this is a test, in French.":

Download the video

Screencast of using speech recognition to translate into French and provide a hint when typing

Since we're faking in-buffer completion here, maybe we can still get away with considering this as an entry for Emacs Carnival February 2026: Completion ? =)

This is part of my Emacs configuration.

View Org source for this post

You can e-mail me at sacha@sachachua.com.

Marathon might be the perfect 2026 shooter in that I feel like I'm stuck in a giant Nvidia graphics card - Rock Paper Shotgun Latest Articles Feed

2026-02-27T17:05:25.000Z

Among the first things you see in the Marathon reboot playtest is a close-up of a barcoded moth, gleefully chowing on some larval diodes. It’s not even the first cybernetic insect motif I’ve encountered in an FPS this week, but it speaks to me. Friends, we are all that kooky little bug, crawling down overheated silicon canyons, nuzzling at chips, for this is the Nvidia era, the Nvidiascene, and the whole world has become a GPU, dedicated to generating recipe ideas for the three edible objects in your fridge.

Teardown's multiplayer update rolls out next month, so start packing a voxel lorry with mates and explosives - Rock Paper Shotgun Latest Articles Feed

2026-02-27T16:46:50.000Z

Boom. Bang. Bash. Things falling down. Teardown. The voxel game about blowing stuff up. It's getting multiplayer via an update. Tick. Said multiplayer's been in beta testing for the past little while. Tick. It's rolling out in full in March. Boom.

[$] The troubles with Boolean inversion in Python - LWN.net

2026-02-27T16:21:11.000Z

The Python bitwise-inversion (or complement) operator, "~", behaves pretty much as expected when it is applied to integers—it toggles every bit, from one to zero and vice versa. It might be expected that applying the operator to a non-integer, a bool for example, would raise a TypeError, but, because the bool type is really an int in disguise, the complement operator is allowed, at least for now. For nearly 15 years (and perhaps longer), there have been discussions about the oddity of that behavior and whether it should be changed. Eventually, that resulted in the "feature" being deprecated, producing a warning, with removal slated for Python 3.16 (due October 2027). That has led to some reconsideration and the deprecation may itself be deprecated.

The OrangePi Neo gaming handheld with Manjaro Linux is now "on ice" due to component prices - GamingOnLinux Latest Articles

2026-02-27T15:34:56.000Z

The latest update for the OrangePi Neo handheld with Manjaro Linux is not a positive one, with the whole thing now unfortunately "on ice".

Read the full article on GamingOnLinux.

Emacs Internals Part 1 - Irreal

2026-02-27T15:20:24.000Z

Yi-Ping Pan has an interesting post that recapitulates one of my favorite hobby horses: Emacs is actually a modern day Lisp Machine that happens to ship with an embedded editor. Pan kept trying other editors but always returned to Emacs. Finally, he stopped treating it as merely a tool and started reading the C source code. What he discovered is what I’ve been preaching for years: Emacs is actually a C-based Lisp interpreter with an embedded text editor.

Pan’s post—the first in a series about Emacs internals—recounts how Emacs grew from a set of TECO macros to a stand alone application built on its own Lisp interpreter. Other editors have tried to recreate this magic but they have all failed because of Greenspun’s Tenth Rule:

Any sufficiently complicated C or Fortran program contains an ad hoc, informally-specified, bug-ridden, slow implementation of half of Common Lisp.

Emacs, on the other hand, started with an actual Lisp interpreter and layered a text editor on top of that interpreter. That enables the magic. It’s possible to modify any particular editor function simply by rewriting it in Elisp and adding it to your configuration. Similarly, you can write your own editing—or even general purpose—functions and add them to the Emacs runtime simply by adding them to your configuration.

Pan announced his post over at the Emacs subreddit and, as usual, the comments are instructive. To me, the most interesting comments lamented that Lisp was never able “to fix” the parenthesis problem. I have to admit that it makes me grumpy every time I see someone complaining about parentheses in Lisp. To me, it’s one of Lisp’s successes, not one of its failures. That’s why the planned m-expressions using a more conventional syntax never caught on. Lispers like and prefer s-expressions.

In any event, Pan’s post is worth a couple of minutes of your time. Head over and take a look.

The Steam Deck is an adequate vessel for Resident Evil Requiem, despite missing desktop-grade smoothness - Rock Paper Shotgun Latest Articles Feed

2026-02-27T15:04:09.000Z

Resident Evil Requiem has, in terms of technical fidelity versus PC power demands, one of the best bang:buck ratios to come out of a triple-A'er in donkey's ages. It’s not terribly surprising, then, that Requiem can run well enough on the Steam Deck too.

Two new stable kernels, possible regression - LWN.net

2026-02-27T14:36:33.000Z

Greg Kroah-Hartman has announced the 6.19.4 and 6.18.14 stable kernels. Shortly after 6.19.4 was released Kris Karas reported "getting a repeatable Oops right when networking is initialized, likely when nft is loading its ruleset"; the problem did not appear to be present in 6.18.14. Users of nftables may wish to hold off on upgrades to 6.19.4 for now. We will provide updates as they are available.

Steam Deck OLED prices will rise in Japan, Korea, and Taiwan next week, but it's tough to tell whether that's a harbinger of wider hikes - Rock Paper Shotgun Latest Articles Feed

2026-02-27T14:17:15.000Z

The ongoing headache of RAMnarök has seen hardware prices rise and Valve's Steam Decks go out of stock in certain regions of the world. So, today's announcement that Steam Deck OLED prices in Japan, South Korea, and Taiwan are set to rise next month is the sort than might have you clutching your wallet. Though, having done some number exchanging, I can confirm that these hikes don't actually send the affected regional prices vaulting a huge amount beyond their UK and US equivalents.

Security updates for Friday - LWN.net

2026-02-27T14:06:16.000Z

Security updates have been issued by AlmaLinux (389-ds-base, buildah, firefox, freerdp, golang-github-openprinting-ipp-usb, grafana-pcp, kernel, libpng15, munge, nodejs:20, nodejs:22, podman, protobuf, python-pyasn1, runc, and skopeo), Debian (chromium, nss, and python-django), Fedora (firefox, freerdp, gh, libmaxminddb, nss, python3.15, and udisks2), Oracle (buildah, firefox, freerdp, kernel, libpng, podman, python-pyasn1, skopeo, and valkey), Red Hat (container-tools:rhel8), SUSE (autogen, chromium, cockpit, cockpit-machines-348, cockpit-packages, cockpit-repos, cockpit-subscriptions, crun, docker, docker-compose, docker-stable, erlang, freerdp, frr, glib2, gpg2, kernel, kernel-firmware, libsodium, libsoup, libsoup2, openvswitch, python, python-pyasn1, python-urllib3, python-urllib3_1, python3, qemu, redis7, regclient, and ucode-intel), and Ubuntu (linux-aws, linux-aws-6.8, linux-ibm, linux-ibm-6.8, linux-xilinx, python-authlib, and ruby-rack).

Running With Scissors announced horror first person shooter Flesh & Wire - GamingOnLinux Latest Articles

2026-02-27T13:40:45.000Z

Diving into the roots of the POSTAL series, Running With Scissors recently revealed the new horror first person shooter Flesh & Wire.

Read the full article on GamingOnLinux.

Local Library Programming - Take on Rules

2026-02-27T13:12:48.000Z

Related Links :: Tags: < personal < poetry

Summary: Establishing intentional plans for personal enrichment.

As I understand it, in mid-2025 the topic of personal curriculum started emerging on TikTok. Jenny, then working at a small local library, sought to add a Personal Curriculum segment to the library programming. The schedule up until the turn of the year was packed.

So they scheduled a session for January; but due to inclement weather, postponed the inaugural session until yesterday.

There were five attendees with Jenny facilitating. She introduced the concept with a presentation, a mix of examples and videos, highlighting the breadth of what others had considered as well as how to write a curriculum:

topic
learning objectives and tangible outputs
secondary outcomes
potential resources
schedule of activity

Jenny emphasized that the topic should be of interest, one in which you have some basic knowledge, and identifying a goal to achieve. Everything else was in support of enriching a personal interest.

Jenny gave her example: Color Theory. With a list of weekly activities. And a final outcome.

The others of us shared our ideas:

Bassoon reed making
Mushroom foraging
Either ancient history or true crime

For myself, I came with a list of possibilities:

poetry
standing up a media server
reading chonky books
doodling

And while we were discussing our topics, I began narrowing mine. I knew that I wanted to avoid technology for my first foray; after all I’m on a computer all day. I looked to my other topics and narrowed poetry to haiku and chonky books to Don Quixote; with secondary sources.

We had a great shared conversation, I asked the young patron about their interest in ancient history. And knowing she was a young mother, made mention of Dan Carlin’s Hardcore History. Something she could listen to in those moments between parenting.

As the session wound down I settled on a 4 week exploration of Haiku. We also agreed to meet in 4 weeks to check-in and report back.

STARTED A Personal Curriculum: Haiku

Outcome: Assemble a small haiku zine (8 or so)
Secondary Outcomes: Read classic haikus. Read on writing haiku.
Timeframe: 4 weeks

Throughout:

Write with pen and pencil on paper; one goal is to disconnect from my computer.
Always carry a pen and paper.
Seek to always carry Haiku and read from, instead of glancing at my phone.

Schedule:

Week 1: Read «How to Haiku» by Bruce Ross.
Week 2: Read introduction and excerpts of Sōseki Natsume’s Collected Haiku translated by Erik R. Lofgren
Week 3: Review past haiku’s written to find samples.
Week 4: Assemble hand-written haiku zine pamphlet, reproduce 20 copies.

The Morning After

When we got home from the library, I started reading How to Haiku. I wrote a few in pencil. We went to bed early, and around 5am this morning I found myself waking, a short poem at the tip of my thought. (Sidenote: Not some Kubla Kahn, just myself parsing out a haiku.)

I needed to capture that moment:

quiet early morn
commuter cars growl on by
old dog curls on chair

From which I found myself awake, and thinking of Don Quixote, and of Borges and Me by Jay Parini, and of Terry Gilliam; and a dawn readying itself to burst upon a still frozen lake.

My phone rattled, I had a before the dawn text from my father. Yesterday he had sold off his entire wood working setup; he’s moving and downsizing. His whole life, fixing things has been his identity, and the wood shop his means of becoming. The morning text being a follow up, saying that he has had to get comfortable with reading during daylight hours.

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Gambonanza is the best Balatro-like version of chess yet and you have to try the demo - GamingOnLinux Latest Articles

2026-02-27T12:58:12.000Z

If you love strategy games and roguelikes, Gambonanza fuses together the worlds of Balatro and chess like no other and it won me over completely.

Read the full article on GamingOnLinux.

The "video game preservation service" Myrient is shutting down in March - GamingOnLinux Latest Articles

2026-02-27T12:10:42.000Z

Myrient is a popular video game preservation service that has over 390 terabytes of classics but it's about to go offline forever.

Read the full article on GamingOnLinux.

New Frostrail video delivers more survival train horror shooting plus weird underground Tomb Raider temples - Rock Paper Shotgun Latest Articles Feed

2026-02-27T12:01:44.000Z

I’ve felt surprisingly mixed so far about Frostrail, the new first-person co-op horror survival game from the folks behind Barotrauma. As a rule, I’m keen on stories about awful apocalypse trains – see Metro Exodus, RailGods, and recent Julian favourite Fogpiercer – but Frostrail has hitherto seemed a bit generic. Certainly, a bit generic for a game from the people who made a game that inspired write-ups like this one.

Heroic Games Launcher v2.20.1 brings more essential bug fixes - GamingOnLinux Latest Articles

2026-02-27T11:14:46.000Z

Heroic Games Launcher continues to bring improvements to run games from Epic, GOG, Amazon and more on Linux / SteamOS systems with v2.20.1 out now.

Read the full article on GamingOnLinux.

Smash everything apart together as Teardown goes multiplayer on March 12 - GamingOnLinux Latest Articles

2026-02-27T11:01:53.000Z

The physics-based voxel destruction game Teardown is set for a huge free upgrade on March 12th, when the multiplayer update arrives.

Read the full article on GamingOnLinux.

Frostrail gets a new trailer to showcase its freezing train-survival gameplay - GamingOnLinux Latest Articles

2026-02-27T10:44:26.000Z

Frostrail is another exciting game to keep an eye on, an open-world survival game where you and friends travel through a frozen world on a train.

Read the full article on GamingOnLinux.

He-Man and the Masters of the Universe: Dragon Pearl of Destruction arrives April 28 - GamingOnLinux Latest Articles

2026-02-27T10:28:41.000Z

Another good one for fans of retro-styled beat 'em ups, as He-Man and the Masters of the Universe: Dragon Pearl of Destruction is releasing April 28th.

Read the full article on GamingOnLinux.

Netflix's $82.7 billion deal to buy Warner has been dramatically gazumped by Paramount, to the tune of $111 billion - Rock Paper Shotgun Latest Articles Feed

2026-02-27T10:28:24.000Z

Netflix’s $82.7 billion proposal to buy the parts of Warner Bros Discovery that include Hogwarts Legacy creators Avalanche, Lego devs TT Games, Mortal Kombat studio NetherRealm and Batman Arkham outfit Rocksteady has… fallen through.