Even though I rarely close Emacs, when it starts up a splash buffer named GNU Emacs is displayed:

2017-01-06-gnu-emacs-buffer.png

This is unnecessary for me, so I'll disable it: 

(setq inhibit-startup-screen t
      inhibit-startup-message t)

In addition to the splash screen, I feel no need to be told what the *scratch* buffer is for with it saying this each time: 

;; This buffer is for text that is not saved, and for Lisp evaluation.
;; To create a file, visit it with C-x C-f and enter text in its buffer.

We can force the *scratch* buffer to start blank with: 

(setq initial-scratch-message nil)