(setq inhibit-startup-message t)
No more splash screen 
You can't edit video in Emacs? Don't be silly!
http://1010.co.uk/gneve.html
John, thanks for your help! It's not very fair to snipe at the splash screen, I know, but most installations have it on by default and I can honestly say it put me off Emacs when I first saw it.
Thanks for putting me straight Johan
A couple other features I really like:
ido-mode
flyspell-mode
erc
also, here are some keys for easily navigating between split screens
(global-set-key [M-right] 'windmove-right)
(global-set-key [M-left] 'windmove-left)
(global-set-key [M-up] 'windmove-up)
(global-set-key [M-down] 'windmove-down)
I would say that after a harsh start of a learning curve, emacs becomes very discoverable. Once you learn how elisp works, you can go to the definition of any function and look at how it works, as well as peruse the rather complete documentation for it.
Also, once you learn your way around elisp, it becomes fairly easy to bend emacs to your will.
It seems to me that the editor is meant to be torn apart and customized to suit the individual user, by the user. Granted, it's not the easiest thing to customize for someone totally unfamiliar with programming, but then again, I don't think it's used very widely outside of the programming field.
It's absolutely not a very newbie-friendly editor, but I would say that it more than makes up for that if someone's willing to put in the time to learn their way around it up to a base level of competence, which probably only takes a week or two for most people, if that.
Jeremiah, thanks for your thoughtful response. I've seen some similar reactions to my claim Emacs is hard to discover over at reddit and have started to question what I really meant. I think I'll have to write a follow-up note, but for now I'll just say that I *do* know how to get at Emacs help, I use it all the time, and it's flawlessly written in that accurate, spare Unix tradition. Emacs modes are certainly transparent -- the elisp is provided as source and is easy to find. Despite this, it's literally taken me years to find some commands which I now use almost every day, and I know other Emacs users have had the same experience.
Commenting by HaloScan
