It turns out that I can get something that more or less does what Iwanted sshmenu to do (per yesterday's entry ).In email Dan Astoorian pointed me at the Gnome 'Command Line' appletand that it has macro capabilities; you can define a pattern and acommand to run (using bits of the pattern) when the pattern matches the'command' that you type. Thus, you can hijack it into a 'ssh sessionlauncher' with suitable patterns.

The current patterns and commands that

There's a hot debate about whether VCSes should allow developers to'rewrite history' ( in the git sense ). The usual wayto frame the options can be wrapped up as a question: should the VCSallow developers to rewrite history, or forbid it? Put this way, a fairnumber of people will incline towards 'no'.

But this is a misleading and wrong question, because it quietly assumesthat the VCS can actually stop people from rewriting history. Thisis incorrect; no VCS that has

One of reasons that I like Chiaki is that he is that rarity in anime,a competent protagonist who understands his own competence. The usualpattern is that the protagonist is either unskilled (and learns throughthe course of the anime) or is basically an idiot savant, ferociouslyskilled but without understanding.

(Nodame herself is an example of the latter category, and one of thethemes throughout Nodame Cantabile is people trying to get her toharness and direct that ferocious skill, to think about and understandwhat she is doing

I don't use Gnome on my primary machine (it runs a peculiar, entirelycustom environment), but I do use it on a number of secondary machinesand I keep making more or less the same customizations each time. So I'mwriting them down, if only for my own reference on the next machine.

• I disable gnome-terminal's blinking cursor .

• I turn CapsLock into an additional Ctrl. This is in the Keyboardpreferences area, Layout tab, 'Layout options' button, and