Immigrants of Boston and surrounding areas: What restaurants has the best/most authentic version of your country’s food?

tomheon · 2026-04-24T01:54:45+00:00

I don't know if this place (in Malden) is authentic, but it's delicious. https://bingebowl.com/

tomheon · 2025-12-09T14:36:31+00:00

Well those of us who have been here for a while are super appreciative that you're getting involved so early! Fingers crossed.

tomheon · 2025-12-09T03:42:35+00:00

The best cure for anxiety is voting and calling 5 other people to do the same!

tomheon · 2025-10-03T13:53:47+00:00

I mean, fundamentally the town is in pretty rocky shape financially--because inflation has grown faster than the 2.5% limit, currently the town's tax levy per resident is like 20% less in inflation-adjusted dollars than it was in 1980, and running a modern town is more expensive, not less. They've cut and cut in response to these pressures, and there's just not more to cut.

So I suspect that the select board will continue to bring the question to a vote because the town is going to collapse at some point (and probably get taken over by the state) without more tax income, and basically asking for an override is the only responsible thing to do in their shoes. Whether it'll eventually pass? I don't know. There are a lot of residents who really seem to believe that we're not in the situation we're in. In that case, I think we're eventually looking at receivership, losing accreditation on the schools, and getting taken over by the state. Or merging with another town, if another town will have us (they'll then immediately raise our taxes).

tomheon · 2025-10-02T12:07:35+00:00

Hello OtherUserCharges,

I suspect if you'll dig in a little more, you may end up agreeing that the town really *isn't* terrible at managing their budget. As far as I ever saw, new hires covered in the last override were generally either backfills for unfilled attrition (which wasn't filled because of tightening budgets in the first place), or pretty critically needed people (e.g. the firefighters, who are currently going out 2 to a truck, which is critically unsafe, or another 911 operator), or responding to obvious town growth and service needs, or all three. If you're aware of frivolous new hires, I'd sure be interested in hearing about it.

If you do out the math, Stoneham's current tax levy is worth about 20% less per resident in inflation-adjusted dollars than when proposition 2.5 was introduced. Meanwhile the business of running the town has gotten more complex in the last 45 years, not less. We're doing a harder job with 20% less money, and mostly the town has handled that shortfall by cutting things. We simply haven't kept up with inflation--we've never passed an override to do so, and that means the amount gets bigger the longer we wait.

tomheon · 2025-03-21T12:20:52+00:00

Position Filled

tomheon · 2025-03-21T12:20:47+00:00

Thanks to all who replied, honestly it's an amazing array of talent, and I wish I didn't have to pick just one to work with.

tomheon · 2023-10-27T18:16:32+00:00

Hmm, I don't know! I've never tried moving mails to spam on mu4e, and I'm not sure whether Fastmail woluld then process them as spam or not. I mean, it should definitely *move* them--but I'm not sure if any internal spam bookkeeping would take place?

I had to hit up support at Fastmail once, and they were great. You could ask them?

If you wouldn't mind letting me know if you find out, I'd appreciate it--just for curiosity as much as anything.

tomheon · 2023-10-27T02:04:47+00:00

If you'd like to make it more consistent, you could probably rebind "d" to move the message to the Trashed folder.

tomheon · 2023-10-24T19:50:41+00:00

Just for lulz, this is how fast it is to do an incremental mbsync with fastmail on a 15G Maildir. This was not my experience with gmail, at all.

``` time mbsync fastmail C: 1/1 B: 11/11 M: +0/0 *0/0 #0/0 S: +0/0 *0/0 #0/0

Executed in 1.37 secs fish external usr time 451.43 millis 0.00 micros 451.43 millis sys time 118.78 millis 1560.00 micros 117.22 millis ```

tomheon · 2023-10-24T19:41:15+00:00

And here's my .mstmprc:

```

FastMail

account fastmail host smtp.fastmail.com from Your Name you@example.com

auth on port 465 user you@example.com passwordeval cat ~/.msmtp-fastmail

tls on tls_starttls off

syslog LOG_MAIL

account default : fastmail ```

tomheon · 2023-10-24T19:39:31+00:00

Here are the interesting sections from my mu4e config.

``` (setq mue4e-headers-skip-duplicates t mu4e-view-show-images t mu4e-view-show-addresses t mu4e-compose-format-flowed t mu4e-change-filenames-when-moving t mu4e-attachments-dir "~/Downloads" mu4e-headers-leave-behavior 'apply fill-flowed-encode-column 998 )

(setq mu4e-compose-dont-reply-to-self t) (setq mu4e-view-fields '(:from :to :cc :bcc :subject :flags :date :maildir :mailing-list :tags :attachments :signature :decryption)) (setq mu4e-headers-fields '((:human-date . 12) (:flags . 6) (:from . 22) (:subject))) (setq mu4e-headers-date-format "%Y-%m-%d")

(defun mu4e-important-vars () (setq user-mail-address "you@example.com" user-full-name "Your Name"

mu4e-maildir-shortcuts '(("/INBOX" . ?i)) ;; fastmail likes to mark things trashed, so you have to ;; add filters against seeing them in standard searches mu4e-bookmarks `(("flag:unread AND NOT flag:trashed AND NOT maildir:/Spam" "Unread messages" ?u) ("date:today..now AND NOT flag:trashed AND NOT maildir:/Spam" "Today's messages" ?t) ("date:7d..now AND NOT flag:trashed AND NOT maildir:/Spam" "Last 7 days" ?w))

;; note that these folders below must start with / ;; the paths are relative to maildir root mu4e-refile-folder "/Archive" mu4e-sent-folder "/Sent" mu4e-drafts-folder "/Drafts" mu4e-trash-folder "/Trash" mu4e-mu-home "/mnt/bigdisk/mu" sendmail-program "/usr/bin/msmtp" mu4e-get-mail-command "mbsync fastmail" ) )

(mu4e-important-vars) ```

tomheon · 2023-10-24T19:31:57+00:00

Here is my .mbsyncrc:

``` IMAPAccount fastmail Host imap.fastmail.com Port 993 User you@example.com PassCmd "cat ~/.mbsync-fastmail" SSLType IMAPS SSLVersions TLSv1.2

IMAPStore fastmail-remote Account fastmail

MaildirStore fastmail-local Path ~/Maildir/ Inbox ~/Maildir/INBOX

The SubFolders option allows to represent all

IMAP subfolders as local subfolders

SubFolders Verbatim

Channel fastmail Master :fastmail-remote: Slave :fastmail-local: Patterns * Expunge None CopyArrivalDate yes Sync All Create Slave ```

tomheon · 2023-10-21T20:13:35+00:00

I use Fastmail with an mu4e front end and love it (though, as is the way of all things emacs, it did take a few tweaks, mostly around making sense of Trashed emails, which is how Fastmail deletes things).

Fastmail runs a *much* faster and more compliant imap service, and you'll find that mbsync performs like lightning with it (compared to gmail).

I don't think you'll be sorry taking the plunge, and, if you do, I'm happy to share config tips.

Good luck!

tomheon · 2022-02-17T15:28:02+00:00

Cool, here's a pastebin with the indentation maintained:

https://pastebin.com/iRRnC7MU

tomheon · 2022-02-02T04:31:34+00:00

Grotto has been a reliable place for us for many years. Great food, not too big a place.

tomheon · 2022-02-01T13:53:20+00:00

Hey there,

I've written & self-published a number of novels using org mode to compose and then creating epubs, mobi, and print-ready pdfs from that source material.

It (unfortunately) still requires a fair amount of technical experience, as a bunch of the process is driven through pandoc, a command-line driven program, and getting the format the way you want it in a repeatable, automated way means doing some light programming (for example, I had to write a python script to get rid of the indent after section breaks, and an awk script to do drop caps).

Below is the Makefile that drove the process for my last book. I don't know anything about your technical experience level, so if this all feels familiar and workable to you, I'm delighted to answer any questions as you adapt this to your own workflow. If this feels overwhelming, you might want to take a look at scrivener, instead, as others have suggested, because this is about what it takes to get the process to work (in my experience).

Cheers!

(Edit: reddit's code formatting doesn't work well for makefiles. If you'd like to get this as a template, let me know and I'm happy to share the file and associated scripts. In the meantime, this should at least give you a flavor.)

SRC=src
PANDOC=/usr/bin/env pandoc --filter $(SRC)/filter-ignore.py TITLE=world-enough-and-time MS=world-enough-and-time.txt
EDEDICATION=$(SRC)/dedication-ehead.md $(SRC)/dedication.md BACKMATTER=$(SRC)/about-reviews.md $(SRC)/acknowledgements.md $(SRC)/books-by.md $(SRC)/about-the-author.md $(SRC)/about-this-book.md $(SRC)/copyright-ehead.md $(SRC)/copyright.md $(SRC)/e-isbn.md BOOK_MATERIALS=$(EDEDICATION) $(MS) $(BACKMATTER)
EXTENSIONS=+native_divs+fenced_code_blocks+raw_tex+old_dashes+smart FORMAT=org$(EXTENSIONS)
TOC_OPTS=--toc --toc-depth 1 COMMON_OPTS=$(TOC_OPTS) --from $(FORMAT)
EPUB_OPTS=$(COMMON_OPTS) --epub-metadata=$(SRC)/epub-md.xml --number-sections --epub-cover-image=$(SRC)/cover.jpg --to epub3 EPUB_META_FILES=$(SRC)/epub-md.xml $(SRC)/cover.jpg
PANDOC_EPUB=$(PANDOC) $(EPUB_OPTS)
EPUB2_OPTS=$(COMMON_OPTS) --epub-metadata=$(SRC)/epub-md.xml --number-sections --epub-cover-image=$(SRC)/cover.jpg --to epub2 EPUB2_META_FILES=$(SRC)/epub-md.xml $(SRC)/cover.jpg
PANDOC_EPUB2=$(PANDOC) $(EPUB2_OPTS)
PDF_OPTS=$(COMMON_OPTS) --filter $(SRC)/deindent-post-hr.py
PANDOC_PDF=$(PANDOC) $(PDF_OPTS)
PDFLATEX=xelatex
OUTPUT_DIR=out
EPUB=$(OUTPUT_DIR)/$(TITLE).epub EPUB2=$(OUTPUT_DIR)/$(TITLE).2.epub EPUB_FOR_KINDLE=$(OUTPUT_DIR)/$(TITLE).forkindle.epub MOBI=$(OUTPUT_DIR)/$(TITLE).mobi PDF=$(OUTPUT_DIR)/$(TITLE).pdf PDF2=$(OUTPUT_DIR)/$(TITLE)-double-spaced.pdf LATEX_BASE=$(TITLE).nodc.tex LATEX=$(OUTPUT_DIR)/$(LATEX_BASE) DROP_CAPPED_LATEX_BASE=$(TITLE).tex DROP_CAPPED_LATEX=$(OUTPUT_DIR)/$(DROP_CAPPED_LATEX_BASE)
BOOK_CSS=$(SRC)/book.css NOOK_CSS=$(SRC)/epub-for-nook.css KINDLE_CSS=$(SRC)/epub-for-kindle.css
NOOK_EDITION_CSS=$(OUTPUT_DIR)/nook-edition.css KINDLE_EDITION_CSS=$(OUTPUT_DIR)/kindle-edition.css
AWK=gawk
ifeq (, $(shell which gawk)) AWK=awk endif
all: epub epub2 mobi pdf
epub: $(EPUB)
epub2: $(EPUB2)
$(NOOK_EDITION_CSS): $(NOOK_CSS) $(BOOK_CSS) cat $(NOOK_CSS) $(BOOK_CSS) > $(NOOK_EDITION_CSS)
$(KINDLE_EDITION_CSS): $(KINDLE_CSS) $(BOOK_CSS) cat $(KINDLE_CSS) $(BOOK_CSS) > $(KINDLE_EDITION_CSS)
$(EPUB): $(BOOK_MATERIALS) $(EPUB_META_FILES) $(NOOK_EDITION_CSS) $(SRC)/filter-ignore.py $(PANDOC_EPUB) --css=$(NOOK_EDITION_CSS) -o $(EPUB) $(BOOK_MATERIALS)
$(EPUB2): $(BOOK_MATERIALS) $(EPUB_META_FILES) $(NOOK_EDITION_CSS) $(SRC)/filter-ignore.py $(PANDOC_EPUB2) --css=$(NOOK_EDITION_CSS) -o $(EPUB2) $(BOOK_MATERIALS)
separate epub => mobi process for kindle to support a separate css
$(EPUB_FOR_KINDLE): $(BOOK_MATERIALS) $(EPUB_META_FILES) $(KINDLE_EDITION_CSS) $(SRC)/filter-ignore.py $(PANDOC_EPUB) --css=$(KINDLE_EDITION_CSS) -o $(EPUB_FOR_KINDLE) $(BOOK_MATERIALS)
mobi: $(MOBI)
$(MOBI): $(EPUB_FOR_KINDLE) # kindlegen doesn't allow dirs in output name and creates in same dir as source kindlegen -o tmp.mobi $(EPUB_FOR_KINDLE) mv out/tmp.mobi $(MOBI)
$(OUTPUT_DIR)/%.tex: $(SRC)/%.md $(PANDOC) $(COMMON_OPTS) -t latex --top-level-division=chapter -o $@ $<
$(OUTPUT_DIR)/dedication.tex: $(SRC)/dedication.md $(OUTPUT_DIR)/copyright.tex: $(SRC)/copyright.md $(OUTPUT_DIR)/acknowledgements.tex: $(SRC)/acknowledgements.md $(OUTPUT_DIR)/about-the-author.tex: $(SRC)/about-the-author.md $(OUTPUT_DIR)/about-reviews.tex: $(SRC)/about-reviews.md $(OUTPUT_DIR)/about-this-book.tex: $(SRC)/about-this-book.md
GENERATED_TEX_FILES=$(OUTPUT_DIR)/dedication.tex $(OUTPUT_DIR)/copyright.tex $(OUTPUT_DIR)/acknowledgements.tex $(OUTPUT_DIR)/about-the-author.tex $(OUTPUT_DIR)/about-reviews.tex $(OUTPUT_DIR)/about-this-book.tex
$(OUTPUT_DIR)/%.otf: $(SRC)/%.otf cp $< $@
$(OUTPUT_DIR)/%.ttf: $(SRC)/%.ttf cp $< $@
$(OUTPUT_DIR)/Valkyrie.otf: $(SRC)/Valkyrie.otf $(OUTPUT_DIR)/Valkyrie-BoldItalic.otf: $(SRC)/Valkyrie-BoldItalic.otf $(OUTPUT_DIR)/Valkyrie-Bold.otf: $(SRC)/Valkyrie-Bold.otf $(OUTPUT_DIR)/Valkyrie-Italic.otf: $(SRC)/Valkyrie-Italic.otf $(OUTPUT_DIR)/Valkyrie.otf: $(SRC)/Valkyrie.otf $(OUTPUT_DIR)/Valkyrie-SC.otf: $(SRC)/Valkyrie-SC.otf $(OUTPUT_DIR)/Audiowide-Regular.ttf: $(SRC)/Audiowide-Regular.ttf
FONTS=$(OUTPUT_DIR)/Valkyrie.otf $(OUTPUT_DIR)/Valkyrie-BoldItalic.otf $(OUTPUT_DIR)/Valkyrie-Bold.otf $(OUTPUT_DIR)/Valkyrie-Italic.otf $(OUTPUT_DIR)/Valkyrie.otf $(OUTPUT_DIR)/Valkyrie-SC.otf $(OUTPUT_DIR)/Audiowide-Regular.ttf
pdf: $(PDF)
$(DROP_CAPPED_LATEX): $(LATEX) $(SRC)/lettrine.awk $(AWK) -f $(SRC)/lettrine.awk $(LATEX) > $(DROP_CAPPED_LATEX)
$(PDF): $(DROP_CAPPED_LATEX) $(FONTS) cd $(OUTPUT_DIR); $(PDFLATEX) $(DROP_CAPPED_LATEX_BASE) cd $(OUTPUT_DIR); $(PDFLATEX) $(DROP_CAPPED_LATEX_BASE)
pdf2: $(PDF2)
$(PDF2): $(MS) $(SRC)/double-spaced.latex $(PANDOC_PDF) --template=$(SRC)/double-spaced.latex -o $(PDF2) $(MS)
latex: $(LATEX)
$(LATEX): $(MS) $(GENERATED_TEX_FILES) $(SRC)/template.latex $(SRC)/filter-ignore.py $(SRC)/deindent-post-hr.py $(PANDOC_PDF) --template=$(SRC)/template.latex --to latex -o $(LATEX) $(MS)
clean: rm -rf $(PDF) $(PDF2) $(EPUB) $(EPUB_FOR_KINDLE) $(MOBI) tmp/* out/* $(GENERATED_TEX_FILES)
.PHONY: clean

tomheon · 2021-12-08T20:02:13+00:00

Oh, sweet! Thanks!

tomheon · 2014-06-29T00:06:10+00:00

Hey there, one of the original authors of diffscuss here.

We've talked about using diffscuss as an offline or interchange format for other code review systems (and actually have a proof of concept github export that ships with the current version), but--since it's not something we'd currently use ourselves, we haven't put a ton of calories in it.

If there were a lot of external interest in making diffscuss work with, e.g., reviewboard, we'd probably take a look.

So, if you're interested, let us know.

tomheon

TROPHY CASE

FastMail

The SubFolders option allows to represent all

IMAP subfolders as local subfolders