Ninja Monkeys!

Script to focus and raise window demanding attention

Vaughn Dickson — Wed, 24 Feb 2010 17:17:39 +0000

I’m running Openbox with Gnome on Linux, and windows demanding attention show in
the taskbar with a yellow highlight, usually Skype IMs or something.
I’ve created the following bash script that I bind to a hotkey win-j, and pressing it changes to the correct desktop, raises the window, and focuses it. Huge time saver!

for id in `wmctrl -l | cut -d " " -f 1`; do
    xprop -id $id | grep "_NET_WM_STATE_DEMANDS_ATTENTION" 2>&1 > /dev/null
    if [ "$?" = "0" ]; then
        wmctrl -i -a $id
        exit 0
    fi
done
exit 1

Requirements: Wmctrl (sudo apt-get install wmctrl)

Here’s another adaptation I’ve added. Two scripts, one bound to Win-r to jump to the window demanding attention, and another bound to W-Shift-r that jumps back to the window you were busy with.

First:

#!/bin/bash
activeWinIdLine=`xprop -root | grep _NET_ACTIVE_WINDOW\(WINDOW\) `
activeWinId="${activeWinIdLine:40}"
echo $activeWinId > ~/activeWinId
for id in `wmctrl -l | cut -d " " -f 1`; do
	xprop -id $id | grep "_NET_WM_STATE_DEMANDS_ATTENTION" 2>&1 > /dev/null
	if [ "$?" = "0" ]; then
		wmctrl -i -a $id
		exit 0
	fi
done
exit 1

Second:

#!/bin/bash
if [ -f ~/activeWinId ]; then
	origWinId=`cat ~/activeWinId`
	wmctrl -i -a $origWinId
fi

Researchers Say Women Secretly Desire Hairy Geeks

Vaughn Dickson — Sat, 20 Feb 2010 06:25:21 +0000

“The Daily Mail has a story about a study looking into women’s preference for men. More specifically, about how women say they want one kind of man, but really want another. From the article: ‘Most women claim to be attracted to tall, dark and handsome men, but a new study has revealed that facial stubble and a geeky personality are their biggest secret turn-ons. Despite complaining that it looks unkempt and feels rough to touch, the unshaven look on a man is actually a turn-on for 41 per cent of women. A slightly geeky personality came second, proving that women really do like a guy who knows their stuff when it comes to technology. A hairy chest was voted third, followed by a man who loves to read or cries at a soppy film.’”

[via Slashdot]

Bigfoot found AKA 3-legged bear

Vaughn Dickson — Fri, 12 Feb 2010 12:16:18 +0000

Terrifying. Six beers and a shaky camera hand and you’ve got bigfoot.

Broken Tahoma font in Ubuntu 9.10

Vaughn Dickson — Fri, 12 Feb 2010 09:41:10 +0000

The Tahoma font included with Ubuntu 9.10 in the ttf-tahoma-replacement package does not handle bold and broke a lot of web pages, so either remove it or replace it with the proper windows ttf.

You can find instructions here:

sudo apt-get install msttcorefonts
sudo apt-get remove ttf-tahoma-replacement
cd ~
wget http://www.stchman.com/tools/MS_fonts/tahoma.zip
sudo unzip -d /usr/share/fonts/truetype/msttcorefonts tahoma.zip
sudo fc-cache -f -v
rm -f ~/tahoma.zip

Bash script to unrar part01.rar and .rar files recursively inside their subdirectories

Vaughn Dickson — Fri, 12 Feb 2010 05:47:28 +0000

I got gatvol of traversing directories and running unrar manually, so I wrote this script. It dives down into subdirectories looking for .rar or part01.rar files and then unrars them in the subdirectory. It also deals with spaces in filenames and directory names. Probably not the cleanest solution, but in Bash scripting TMTOWTDI. With a bit of tweaking it’ll work for unzip and all the others.

cwd=`pwd`
find . -iname '*.rar' | while read FILE
do
        d=`dirname "$FILE"`
        f=`basename "$FILE"`

        # only unrar part01.rar or .rar
        echo $f | grep -q 'part[0-9]*.rar$' 2>&1 > /dev/null
        if [ "$?" == "0" ]; then
                echo $f | grep -q 'part01.rar$' 2>&1 > /dev/null
                if [ "$?" == "1" ]; then
                        continue
                fi
        fi

        cd "$d"
        echo "Unrar $f"
        unrar x -o+ "$f"
        cd "$cwd"
done

Hearts Actually Can Break

Vaughn Dickson — Wed, 10 Feb 2010 13:39:31 +0000

“It seems that there’s a grain of truth to one old wives’ tale; it turns out that you really can die of a broken heart, especially if you’re a post-menopausal woman. The Wall Street Journal reports on a phenomena called ‘broken-heart syndrome,’ which often occurs after great emotional distress. Quoting: ‘In a conventional heart attack, an obstructed artery starves the heart muscle of oxygenated blood, quickly resulting in the death of tissue and potentially permanently compromising heart function. In contrast, the heart muscle in broken-heart-syndrome patients is stunned in the adrenaline surge and appears to go into hibernation. Little tissue is lost.’ In the article a doctor notes, ‘The cells are alive, but mechanically or electrically disabled.’ Documented cases track heart attacks in people with seemingly healthy hearts after the grief of the death of a loved one. Intense feelings can cause the heart actually to change shape. Doctors call this ‘tako-tsubo,’ after the Japanese phrase for ‘octopus trap,’ so called because the syndrome was first identified by a Japanese doctor who noticed the strange shape in the left ventricle. Doctors note that while strong emotions like grief are usually associated with the syndrome, stress or a migraine can also trigger such heart attacks.”

Link

Dragon’s Den takes down guy selling homeopathic miracle cure water

Vaughn Dickson — Tue, 09 Feb 2010 09:13:11 +0000

This would give me hope for humanity, if I believed that sleazy salesman went home and stopped taking advantage of sick people.

For some extra entertainment, watch Richard Dawkins vs Homeopathy.

Urban Hack Attack – Episode 1

Vaughn Dickson — Tue, 09 Feb 2010 09:02:17 +0000

Coolest hack I’ve ever seen, but can lights refresh that quickly?! Please don’t destroy my hopes and dreams by finding proof it’s a hoax.

The man your man could smell like

Vaughn Dickson — Tue, 09 Feb 2010 08:37:40 +0000

We’re not saying this body wash will make your man smell into a
romantic millionaire jet fighter pilot, but we are insinuating it.

None dead in mass homeopathic drug overdose

Vaughn Dickson — Mon, 08 Feb 2010 12:45:29 +0000

Mass drug overdose – none dead – health – 01 February 2010 – New Scientist

No ill effects were reported by hundreds of volunteers who took part in a mass-overdose stunt around the world to demonstrate that homeopathic remedies are nothing more than sugar pills.