Need to find which tags in your project contain a specific commit ID? I recently need to do this to find out when a specific bug fix (commit ID: abc123) was released in a project.
Simply enter:
git tag --contains abc123Git will then list all the tags that include the bug fix, helping you identify the release times effortlessly. This method is a time-saver for finding when issues were fixed in a release cycle.
At times, you may have set up a CloudWatch alarm that you don’t want to trigger, but you still need to ensure that the actions tied to it function correctly. This tutorial will guide you through a simple command to test your CloudWatch alarm manually without actually setting it off.
Step-by-Step:
set-alarm-state command. This command requires three parameters:aws cloudwatch set-alarm-state --alarm-name "YOUR_ALARM_NAME" --state-value ALARM --state-reason "Testing the alarm manually"
We’ve all deleted files in a folder using rm *. But have you ever had it not work you might have come across an error like this:
sudo rm *
-bash: /usr/bin/sudo: Argument list too longWhat’s happening here? Well, this is a consequence of the Linux kernel’s limitation on the number of arguments that can be passed to a command via the exec system call. In my particular environment this limit was 2097152 (2MB) which is shown by this command:
getconf ARG_MAXThankfully a handy little tool called xargs can help us here. This tool reads items from the standard input, delimited by blanks (which can be
protected with double or single quotes or a backslash) or
newlines, and executes the command in the argument.
ls | xargs sudo rmIn this way rm is executed multiple times avoiding the system exec call limit. You might assume that the command will be run once per file but xargs is smarter than that. Running once per file is pretty poor for performance in most cases. Instead, the command line for command is built up until it reaches a system-defined limit (unless the -n and -L options are used). The specified command will be invoked as many times as necessary to use up the list of input items. You can see how these limits are built using the --show-limits option.
xargs --show-limits
Your environment variables take up 2190 bytes
POSIX upper limit on argument length (this system): 2092914
POSIX smallest allowable upper limit on argument length (all systems): 4096
Maximum length of command we could actually use: 2090724
Size of command buffer we are actually using: 131072
Maximum parallelism (--max-procs must be no greater): 2147483647I’m coming from Firefox as my default browser.
What I like:
What I don’t like:
I was recently working on speeding up an Ansible playbook and found this task that was running slowly.
- name: Web Root File Permissions
command: find /var/www/somedir -type f -exec chmod ug=rw,o=r {} \;
args:
chdir: /var/www/somedir
This task runs the find command for all files in a specific directory and recursively executes the chmod command on them. The issue is with a directory thousands of files we end up executing thousands of chmod commands. This is a lengthy process. Thankfully I found a better way at https://bash-prompt.net/guides/bash-find-exec-speedup/
- name: Web Root File Permissions
command: find /var/www/somedir -type f -exec chmod ug=rw,o=r {} +
args:
chdir: /var/www/somedir
Using the “+” instead of the “\;” exec parameter concatenates all the found files to a single chmod command. This is much faster.
With Apple killing off Dark Sky, I was looking for a replacement and happened across Mary sky. It seems like a pretty darn good replacement for dark sky with an almost clone-like interface. The app is powered by the pirate weather API, so the data source is a bit different than dark skies homegrown weather prediction model. There isn’t a mobile app but it does render very nicely in a web browser. If you want to check it out, just head over to https://merrysky.net/.
I’ve had issues effectively managing a large number of terminal windows on my Mac in the past and I’ve finally arrived at an effective solution. The solution does require switching to iTerm2.
Once I had iTerm2 setup. Here’s how I configured things for myself. Under Preferences > Keys > Hotkey I created a new HotKey Window.
The most important item in the setup of the window for it to behave as a pulldown terminal is to set the Window > Style in the profile to “Full Width Top of Screen”. I’ve included the json for my profile as I currently have it here. https://mattstenson.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/01/Hotkey-Window.json_.zip
I set up the Hotkey to be a double tap of the option key on my Mac. I like the double tap of a single key instead of two key shortcut. I experimented with a double tap of the command key, but what I found was that rapid command-key combinations would also trigger the terminal. Such as copy and paste. The option key is comparatively unused.
The end result is this incredibly pleasing fast switching to the terminal:
I experimented with other settings such as transparency and different color schemes but arrived at a simple solid black style.
Jack Dorsey just wrote up a little piece on where he sees the future of content on the web going. I saw a few hot takes that seemed like they might be taking things out of context. Which I think they kind of were. So, go read it for yourself.
This is the part that stuck out to me.
But instead of a company or government building and controlling these solely, people should be able to build and choose from algorithms that best match their criteria, or not have to use any at all. A “follow” action should always deliver every bit of content from the corresponding account, and the algorithms should be able to comb through everything else through a relevance lens that an individual determines.
Jack
What some seem to have missed is Jack making an argument basically for the fediverse.
Take my mastodon account as an example. The first “algorithm” that I use is the one provided by https://mstdn.social/@stux#, the admin of the instance I joined. I get a set of content moderation rules and a server block list that blocks a bunch of instances that have been shown to not line up with mstdn.social rules. This list is transparent and I can review it.
The next level down I have my own block lists as a user. I’ve blocked one server and I believe one user so far. Then, because of how mastodon works I get to see a chronological feed of all the posts from all the individuals I follow. (chronological feeds are algorithmic btw. It’s just an algorithm we all understand).
This isn’t some kind of endorsement of everything Jack is saying. But I do think he gets it right that we don’t want our online communities to be curated by black boxes at large corporations with misaligned incentives. Instead making the internet “smaller” and more diverse is better in the long run.
I was a bit worried that in moving this blog from Hugo hosted on Render.com I would suffer a performance drop. The short answer is nope.
I am using a linode $5 a month server with the litespeed web server and MySQL. The only caching tool I am using is the Litespeed WordPress addon. I do also have cloudflare in front of the server.
This same box is also hosting two other WordPress sites. The moral of the story is that modern php / MySQL is plenty fast for personal sites. Static builders are probably only needed if you like the workflow…
I thought it would be fun to share the podcasts that I currently listen to almost every episode of. These have a wide range of topics including #skiing #mtb #linux #dev #tech etc. I find that I eventually grow out of podcasts and into new ones so I’m sure this list will change over time.
