Here's a nice pattern to abort a fetch request in React when the component unmounts.To see the basics of how to deal with the the API, see this article on fetch API's abort controller.The thing we're trying to do here is show a good pattern for the React case. I'll show it from the standpoint of a h...

In the age of AI, we're all losing our grip.Ok, ok, let's scope this a little bit. This isn't out there, on the existential level of things -- of humanity, civilization and politics. I'm just talking about lil old product teams. Just a SaaS company making a thing for the Internet. It's there we're l...

Here's how to config git to have a specific username and email at the repo level.LevelsGit can take config at 3 levels, start with the most general to the most specific:System (multiple users) - in /etc/gitconfig, flagged with --systemUser (user home dir) - in ~/.gitconfig, flagged with --globalRepo...

Here's how to rebuild a static site on Netlify on a schedule.ScenarioI love static sites. The runtime is so simple. Once it's out there, it almost can't break. It has so few moving parts. It can scale to the moon.It has a downside, which is also its upside: it's static. So, if you want to display dy...

Here's how to run a fast OCR process on your own computer.ConceptOCR stands for opitcal character recognition. It's the ability for a computer to read something that's not in text but contains text, like an image or a pdf, and turn it into text, like an ascii text file.There are hosted services that...

Use voxtype to set up an on-device-only voice-to-text.voxtypevoxtype is a local-only voice to text program that works on Linux, under Wayland or X11.It downloads models, like OpenAI's whisper model, to your box and processes audio there. No voice recordings are sent to any server.InstallI'm on Pop!_...

Wouldn't it be cool to have your wallpaper and all app and desktop colors match in a unified color scheme!Concepteylles/pywal16 is a tool that extracts dominant and accent colors from an image and creates a 16-color scheme from it.Once this program has extracted a color scheme, it outputs that color...

Here's how to make Nvidia GPU available to a Docker container.ScenarioI was trying to run OpenRAG. It starts docker containers. These containers want access to the GPU so that it can be used to turn documents into matrices that describe meaning as well as content. In the docker-compose.yml file, Ope...

How to write the git author.I use a single set of dotfiles over multiple machines and multiple git authors. The problem is that sometimes I forget to change the author based on the machine or repo I'm in.In the first place, it's best to keep your git config set how you like:git config user.name "jak...

Here's how to print in the terminal on Linux.CUPSCUPS is a printing system that has come standard on Linux for a long time. It should detect printers on the same network and allow you to address themAvailable printersTo see available printers, run:lpstat -p | awk '{print $2}'This will return a list ...

We must expose reality and recognize the power of perception.PerceptionAs a young programmer, I had a seasoned coworker tell me that perception equals reality. True enough.He had seen things. He had been through perception working against him. He knew its power. His warning was now passed on to this...

How to put a local app server on https.WhyWhy would you want https on a local app server? Well, it's cool, put it on your resume. It looks cool, impress your friends. There are also browser capabilities that require https, such as hardware access for camera.Local IP MappingTo set this up, the first ...

Keeping the initiative helps me to see the usefulness of AI and not be repulsed by it.Sometimes DisturbedI will look back on these entries during these years of transition in AI usage, and I will see myself attempting to navigate things. I hope I will think well of myself and my decisions.Anyway, I ...

Here's how to set the battery charge threshold on a Linux system.WhyBy default, your battery will charge to 100%. But there is something about battery chemistry that makes that hard on batteries. To increase long-term battery health, limit battery charge to a maximum of 80%.Check batteryTo check bat...

Here's a way to check if a command is executable before running it.I have a command that I want to ensure exists on my computer before running it. The command is dwmblocks. I use the same config file on some hosts that have it as some hosts which don't have it.To check if the command exists, then ru...

This is an experience report on a week of AI maxxing.Earlier, I had tried to do the autonomous swarm orchestration at the end of last week. I'm not ready for that. So I maxed on what I could handle: One or two agents at a time with my feeding and intervention at key moments.The gistI have spent 4 da...

Here's a way to ssh into a machine on your local network.A Tale of Two MachinesSSH is a protocol that allows us to connect from one machine to another. We can connect via ssh in the shell, and it'll be as if we're in the shell of another machine.Our players: You have two machines. They are on the sa...

Here's how to find the dimensions of r avideo in the terminal.Pretty straightforward. Use ffprobe. This comes with ffmpeg:ffprobe -v error -select_streams v:0 -show_entries stream=width,height -of default=noprint_wrappers=1 myvideo.webm width=1920 height=1080-v error shows just error output; no info...

A cool thing about AI is that it can show you something you hadn't seen before.This is like what a friend would often do. You'd be asked to review a PR. Or you're perusing a code repo. You'd see things you didn't know how to do or which hadn't occured to you. It would be intriguing and potentially u...

It's too deceptively easy to give an AI your personal info.Competing PrioritiesWe want personal privacy. It's our business, not someone else's. I am the arbiter of my own self and information about myself.Simultaneously, others want our data. It's worth a lot of money. It's the potential for influen...

What are some of the dangers of information centralization? Here are a few.Centralization, FinallyCentralization, at its apotheosis, contracts to a single point. AI currently trends toward data centralization. Many reconfigure habits to look to companies who create LLMs for answers to questions or r...

Here's the current best way to enable Figma MCP on Opencode.ConfigAs shown in the opencode config docs, add Figma MCP to your ~/.config/opencode/opencode.json config like this:{ "$schema": "https://opencode.ai/config.json", "mcp": { "figma": { "type": "remote", "url": "https://mcp.figma.com/mcp", "e...

Here's how to run an AI model locally.It's easy to get started with ollama. It's free. It's local.Get ollamaDownload ollama:curl -fsSL https://ollama.com/install.sh | shNow you have an ollama command. This command will be used to install models, chat with it, or launch other clients.Choose a modelFi...

This sounds like a good idea, doesn't it? Hehe.The situationI run npm audit in CI. This helps discover security issues, published as CVEs, in the 3rd-party dependencies on the project.Recently, a CVE came up for ajv, a validation library that was found to be subject to a regex DOS attack. It was fix...

What is the difference between the X startup scripts?X is a display server. Depending on how you start your X session, different X-related startup scripts may be important to you.AllThese are usually places to export your environment variables, including PATH. You can set different X-related attribu...

Here's how to apply a software patch.What is a patchA patch is a file that describes changes to one or more files. The changes are line-oriented. This means that the patch file will specify that certain lines in your source file are to be added or deleted.Surrounding lines are also shown in order to...

This is a helpful (to me) listing of some layers of components in the Linux Desktop stack.We'll go approximately from the foundation up through the things that build on it.KernelThe Linux kernel is the core code that enables it and other software to run on the hardware. It is the low-level interface...

Here's a way to map hotkeys in X11.Of course there are a bajillion ways. It's Linux. But this way relies on an stable, battle-worn library that has a simple config.ScenarioLet's say that you want to map a keyboard shortcut for your screenshot utility. You'll need to map a key combo to launch it.Inst...

Here's an implementation for polling using an async function.GoalWe want to call checkTheThingAgain until we get TheThing back. We're poll, meaning check this thing repeatedly, on a regular schedule until it succeeds or we run out of patience and time it out.The implementationcheckTheThing returns a...

I watched an inspiring and hopeful talk from Brandon Sanderson about our art in the time of AI.Brandon Sanderson is a fantasy fiction writer. He is doesn't like AI art.Read his essay, The Hidden Cost of AI Art. Or watch it:{{}}He acknowledges that there are many concerns about AI. But if you were to...