I put up a video on youtube explaining how to build and use a USB Y cable to inject power to the client devices. If you’d like, you can watch it here

On one machine, run:

nc -v -l 2222 > /dev/null


(Make sure you’re not blocking connections to 2222!)

On a second machine, run:

dd if=/dev/zero bs=1024K count=512 | nc -v $IP_OF_FIRST_MACHINE 2222


dd will give you your speed:

536870912 bytes (537 MB) copied, 4.87526 s, 117 MB/s


Yay, gigabit!

ymmv, test with /dev/zero at your own risk. Speak with your NOC before starting any network infrastructure changes.

#!/usr/bin/python
#
# svnrev2git.py - Convert an SVN revsion to a Git patch.
#
# Author: James Bowes <jbowes@repl.ca>
#
# Usage:
#   $> cd my-svn-repo
#   $> python svnrev2git.py [AUTHORS_FILE] [REV_RANGE | REVSION [REVISION..]]
#
#   AUTHORS_FILE - a CSV of  svn username, full name, email
#   REV_RANGE - an svn revision range, like 100-700
#   REVISION - a single svn revision
#
#   You may specify either a revision range, or a series of individual
#   svn revisions
#
# Output:
#   A series of git style patch files, one per svn revision, which can then be
#   applied with 'git am'
#
# Why use this instead of 'git svn'?
#   I had done a large repo conversion via git svn where we wanted no downtime
#   for the switchover. After removing the git svn specific info from our git
#   commits, I used this tool to bring in commits from svn, keeping svn and git
#   in sync, until we were ready to switch.

import sys
import commands

def svnlog_to_gitlog(authors, svnlog):

    lines = svnlog.split("\n")
    lines = lines[1:-1]

    metainfo = lines[0].split(" | ")
    subject = lines[2]
    description = lines[3:]

    author = metainfo[1]

    day = metainfo[2].split("(")[1][:-1]
    time = metainfo[2].split(" ")[1]
    offset = metainfo[2].split(" ")[2]

    gitlog = []
    gitlog += ["From: %s <%s>" % authors[author]]
    gitlog += ["Date: %s %s %s" % (day, time, offset)]
    gitlog += ["Subject: [PATCH] %s" % subject]
    gitlog += [""]
    gitlog += description
    gitlog += [""]

    return '\n'.join(gitlog)

def svndiff_to_gitdiff(svndiff):
    lines = svndiff.split("\n")

    gitdiff = []
    for line in lines:
        if line.startswith("--- "):
            gitdiff.append("--- a/" + line[4:])
        elif line.startswith("+++ "):
            gitdiff.append("+++ b/" + line[4:])
        else:
            gitdiff.append(line)

    return '\n'.join(gitdiff)

def make_patch(authors, rev):
    out = commands.getoutput("svn log -c %s ." % rev)

    if len(out.split("\n")) < 2:
        print "skipping r%s" % rev
        return

    patch = open(rev + ".patch", 'w')
    patch.write(svnlog_to_gitlog(authors, out))
    patch.write("---\n\n")

    out = commands.getoutput("svn diff -c %s ." % rev)
    patch.write(svndiff_to_gitdiff(out))

    patch.write("\n---\n")
    patch.write("svnrev2git.py\n")

    patch.close()
    print "wrote %s.patch" % rev

def main(args):
    author_file = open(args[0])
    authors = {}

    print "loading authors"
    for line in author_file.readlines():
        parts = line.strip().split(", ")
        authors[parts[0]] = (parts[1], parts[2])

    author_file.close()

    revs = args[1:]

    if len(revs) == 1 and '-' in revs[0]:
        start, end = revs[0].split('-')
        start = int(start)
        end = int(end)
        revs = [str(x) for x in range(start, end + 1)]

    for rev in revs:
        make_patch(authors, rev)

if __name__ == "__main__":
    main(sys.argv[1:])

I’d suggest sewing the velcro together vs stapling, especially if you have cats that are far too curious about staples.

I’ve been here for nine months or so, and have yet to be invited to any trendy VICE parties. Just so you know, VICE, I am very willing to grow out some stubble and wear vintage clothing or an ironic t-shirt for the event.

Toronto is great though, even without the free Red Stripe.

The X axis represents a day, with the current day being on the far right. The Y axis is no. of lines added + no. of lines deleted during that day.

EDIT (2009/02/03):

WordPress.com won’t let me attach a .pl file, so here’s the contents:

#!/usr/bin/perl
#
# git-graph.pl - Generate an ascii graph of git repository activity
#
# Copyright (C) 2008 James Bowes <jbowes@dangerouslyinc.com>
#
# Graphing routine Adapted from http://www.perlmonks.org/?node_id=336907

sub get_activity {
    my $day = shift;
    my $git_cmd = 'git diff --shortstat "@{' . ($day + 1) .' day ago}" "@{' .
                  ($day or "0") . ' day ago}"';
    $res = `$git_cmd 2> /dev/null`;

    $res =~ /, (.*?) insertions\(\+\), (.*?) deletions\(-\)/;
    $activity = $1 + $2;

    return $activity;
}

@deltas = ();
foreach $day (0..70) {
    push (@deltas, get_activity ($day));
}

print ("\n");
print graph(@deltas);
print ("\n");

sub graph {
  my( $i, $magic, $m, $p, $top, @g ) = ( 0, 20, 7, 70, 0, () );

  foreach $pad (0..($p - scalar(@_))) {
      push (@_, 0);
  }

  @_ = reverse @_; 

  for (0..($p)) {
      $top = ($top > $_[$_]) ? $top : $_[$_];
  }

  $top = $top - ($top % 100) + 100;

  my $s = $top > $magic ? ( $top / $magic ) : 1;  ### calculate scale

  for (0..$magic) {
    $g[$_] = sprintf("%" . ($m - 1) . "d |", $_ * $s) .
             ($_ % 5 == 0 ? '_' : ' ') x ($p);
    for $i (0..($p)) {
        substr($g[$_], ($i + $m), 1) = '#' if ($_[$i] / $s) > $_;
    }
  }
  join( "\n", reverse( @g ), ' Date:  ' . '^^^^^^|' x ( $p / 7 ));
}  # end sub graph

__END__

I found it hard to find good instructions for installing ruby gems as a non-root user without installing the gem package locally as well. Here’s what I figured out; hopefully this will save someone else some time in the future:

Make a directory for gem installation:

$> mkdir ~/.gems

Set up your .gemrc for gem install-time configuration:

$> cat << EOF > ~/.gemrc
gemhome: $HOME/gems
gempath:
- $HOME/gems
- /usr/lib/ruby/gems/1.8
EOF

Set up some environment variables for run-time:

$> cat << EOF >> ~/.bashrc
export GEM_HOME=$HOME/gems
export GEM_PATH=$HOME/gems:/usr/lib/ruby/gems/1.8/
export PATH=$PATH:$HOME/gems/bin
EOF

Source your bashrc and you’re all set.

UPDATE (Apr 18, 2009): gem seems to do this on its own now, so just adding

export PATH=$PATH:$HOME/.gem/ruby/1.8/bin

to your .bash_profile should be enough.

[jbowes@workstation ~]$  history | awk '{a[$2]++ } END{for(i in a){print a[i] " " i}}'|sort -rn|head -n 12
163 ls
156 cd
115 svn
76 vim
70 screen
55 fg
47 exit
35 sudo
30 git
21 yasql

Seen on Adrian’s and Mike’s blogs.