U.S. Department of Health & Human Services investigates Emacs keybindings

The United States Department of Health & Human Services (HHS) is starting an official investigation of standard keyboard bindings of Emacs, a popular extensible, customizable, open source text editor.

Emacs is often ridiculed due to its complicated and esoteric keybindings, such as Ctrl-X Ctrl-Shift-2 or Ctrl-X Ctrl-k Ctrl-p or Meta-X package-install evil. However, power users often change the default keybinding to something more approachable.

After numerous injuries related to hands, fingers and wrists were reported by heavy Emacs users, the officials from HHS decided to investigate the issue. Many assume that the default Emacs keybindings could become illegal on the federal level. The states, however, may still be able to legalize them.