Protesilaos Stavrou

🌲 I provide private lessons on Emacs, Linux, and Life in general: https://protesilaos.com/coach/.

Curriculum Vitae

Protesilaos Stavrou

Website: https://protesilaos.com
Email: public@protesilaos.com
Residence: Cyprus (Troodos mountain range)

Profile

I am a self-taught programmer and philosopher.

I maintain lots of packages for GNU Emacs, including the modus-themes which are a part of core Emacs and the increasingly popular denote note-taking system (watch its demo). My code focuses on clarity, correctness, and composability. I place great emphasis on documentation. All the manuals I write are thorough and comprehensive. My themes (modus-themes and ef-themes projects) are designed in accordance with accessibility standards for colour contrast (WCAG AA and WCAG AAA), as well as to empower users with red-green or blue-yellow colour deficiency (deuteranopia and tritanopia, respectively)—inclusiveness is of paramount importance.

I talk, write, and do philosophy. I generally try to express myself in plain terms and make my thoughts relatable to everyone. I consider my theories “practical”, in the sense that I put them to the test and live by those precepts.

I am an original thinker, an independent spirit, a patient and attentive listener, a prolific writer, as well as a disciplined person in all aspects of my life.

Skills

  • Writing
  • Public speaking (video format)
  • Conceptual analysis
  • Technical documentation
  • Emacs Lisp
  • Git
  • Shell (Bash)
  • HTML
  • CSS
  • Jekyll
  • Colour palette design
  • Arch Linux

Activities

  • 2019 – Present: Started working with Emacs. Learnt to program in Emacs Lisp, without a background in programming. I maintain more than 10 packages and have contributed to core Emacs, among other projects in the community. The Free Software Foundation awarded me the 2021 Award for Outstanding New Free Software Contributor: https://www.fsf.org/awards/onfsc-award.

  • 2016 – Present: Switched my computer to the GNU/Linux operating system and began learning about Unix tools. My distribution of choice is Arch Linux.

  • 2011 – Present: Launched my personal website, protesilaos.com, which now contains more than 1000 publications on a range of topics, including philosophy, programming, and politics. The website also hosts all the technical documentation of my Emacs packages. My publications are provided for free and in freedom.

  • 2012 – 2016: Worked as a parliamentary assistant at the European Parliament. Also did some minor freelancing jobs related to European Union politics.

Education

  • Bachelor’s Degree in European Politics, Economics, and Law from the European University Cyprus (2012).
  • Self-taught programmer.
  • Self-taught philosopher.
  • Native Greek speaker.
  • Proficient English speaker.
  • Competent with French.
  • Decent with Spanish.
  • Rudimentary understanding of Portuguese and Italian.

Publications

  • Books and essays :: This index includes items that are central to my work. It covers essays and video presentations. The content is philosophical.

  • Comments on life :: Here I post comments about general life issues. These typically are in response to an email I receive. The focus is on practical philosophy.

  • Interpretations and critiques :: In this section I blend the artistic with the philosophical, as I provide my interpretation of cultural works. The lessons to be learnt are philosophical and thus not limited to the art they reference.

  • My poems :: My poetry is but an attempt to record feelings. All poems are written in one go. I do not tend to their aesthetic appeal, as that requires extra processing which detracts from my truth in the moment.

  • Coding blog :: In this index I write and/or talk about free/libre software and related issues. It is my de facto blog for Emacs.

  • Politics blog :: Analyses on current affairs and/or political theory. Many entries concern the European Union.

  • All publications :: Unfiltered list with all entries posted on this website.