Dispatches

# Get function list as array
funcs=($(declare -F -p | cut -d " " -f 3))

# parse out functions and non-functions
i=1
declare -a cmdargs
declare -a otherargs
for var in "$@"; do
    if [[ " ${funcs[@]} " =~ " ${var} " ]]; then
        cmdargs[i]=${var}
    else
        otherargs[i]=${var}
    fi

    ((i++))
done

echo ${cmdarg[*]}
echo ${otherargs[*]}

A question in a mail list I’m on introduced me to a git feature that was very new to me: it’s possible to have git rewrite the repository URLs to always use HTTPS or git+ssh, etc.

This one-liner seems to force https:

git config --global url.https://github.com/.insteadOf git://github.com/

Or you can add these to your .gitconfig:

# Use https instead of git and git+ssh
[url "https://github.com/"]
  insteadOf = git://github.com/
[url "https://github.com/"]
  insteadOf = git@github.com:

# Use git and git+ssh instead of https
[url "git://github.com/"]
  insteadOf = https://github.com/
[url "git@github.com:"]
  pushInsteadOf = "git://github.com/"
[url "git@github.com:"]
  pushInsteadOf = "https://github.com/"

Tony Zhou’ video is genius, as are the nine principles of action comedy he’s identified:

1. Start with a DISADVANTAGE
2. Use the ENVIRONMENT
3. Be CLEAR in your shots
4. Action & Reaction in the SAME frame
5. Do as many TAKES as necessary
6. Let the audience feel the RHYTHM
7. In editing, TWO good hits = ONE great hit
8. PAIN is humanizing
9. Earn your FINISH

Read the full video description for more, and consider donating to support his work.

Sarah Lewis on mastery:

Mastery is in the reaching, not the arriving. It’s in constantly wanting to close that gap between where you are and where you want to be

You are receiving this e-mail because we just received a mass e-mail and the sender forgot to blind cc your addresses. We will only be sending this one e-mail so as to not pester you, so please contact us if you would like more information.

In a typical LAMP environment, but don’t have or can’t trust that mcrypt is available in PHP? Try MySQL’s AES_ENCRYPT and AES_DECRYPT. Go read the docs.

It’s not like these aren’t documented, but I keep forgetting where.

WOEID place types:

$woetype = array(
	'7'  => 'town',
	'8'  => 'state-province',
	'9'  => 'county-parish',
	'10' => 'district-ward',
	'11' => 'postcode',
	'12' => 'country',
	'19' => 'region',
	'22' => 'neighborhood-suburb',
	'24' => 'colloquial',
	'29' => 'continent',
	'31' => 'timezone',
);

They can be queried via YQL:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
&lt;placeTypes xmlns="http://where.yahooapis.com/v1/schema.rng" xmlns:yahoo="http://www.yahooapis.com/v1/base.rng" yahoo:start="0" yahoo:count="1" yahoo:total="1">
	 &lt;placeType yahoo:uri="http://where.yahooapis.com/v1/placetype/35" xml:lang="en-us">
	 	 &lt;placeTypeName code="35">Historical Town&lt;/placeTypeName>
	 	 &lt;placeTypeDescription>A historical populated settlement that is no longer known by its original name&lt;/placeTypeDescription>
	 &lt;/placeType>
&lt;/placeTypes>

Stowe Boyd, remarking on the Pew Internet Project report on Gamification in which he was quoted:

The need for a renewed push in the enterprise to reengage every person with their personal work, to find meaning and purpose, has never been greater. But adding badges to users’ profiles on whatever work management tool the company is on, showing that Bette is a super expert customer support staffer, or whatever, is the shallowest sort of employee recognition, like giving out coffee mugs to the folks with the lowest number of sick days.

Facebook Connect went down hard tonight. HuffPo reports that their site was redirecting to a Facebook error page, even when people weren’t attempting to log in.

Yep. Busted third-party JavaScript brings portions of the Internet to its knees: huffingtonpost.com/2013/02/07/fac…

— Kent Brewster (@kentbrew) February 8, 2013

It makes me more comfortable with our decision to strip so many 3rd party javascripts from GigaOM during our last redesign.

My iMac screen is dark and isn’t lighting up like I expect it to when I tap the keyboard. I can, however, SSH into it and see what it’s doing when not responding to me.

I found GoogleSoftwareUpdateAgent running, this FAQ item vaguely tells me it’s part of Chrome, and that if I try to uninstall it without also uninstalling Chrome it will simply “be reinstalled after a few hours.”

Two instances of PTPCamera are running. This may be related to Picture Transfer Protocol used in some cameras and has caused more than a few people to ask why it’s running.

com.apple.iCloudHelper is using a lot of CPU (100% of one of the cores). Googling for it reveals other people inspecting their systems while the screen refuses to awaken. I’m guessing it’s related to, um, iCloud and syncing, but the interwebs don’t say much more about it and killing it didn’t fix the problem.

Seth Godin on what to obsess over:

What are you tracking? If you track concepts, your concepts are going to get better. If you track open rates or clickthrough, then your subject lines are going to get better. Up to you.

It’s long something I’ve believed: if you measure it, you will attempt to maximize it, even if the metric is something you’d rather minimize, like CO2 emissions.