Hacks.

Marginal

atomu

atomu (Unix C source) atomically writes the entire contents of its standard input to the file named as its first (and only) argument, except when said input is of zero length, in which case the named file is left unchanged:

program-that-can-fail | atomu dump.out

This is a lot like the `>' redirection operator common in shell programming languages, with the atomicity and zero-length exception added. Also, the way atomu is currently written, current working directory and output file have to be on the same file system. Compiles with cc -o atomu atomu.c.

Bookmarklets

These are not even actually bookmarklets, just bookmarks that can be useful when associated with shortcuts in browsers such as Firefox. Do not click these links; instead, bookmark them and then use the "Bookmarks" menu to attach a shortcut to them. I do not know of a way to make this process much simpler.

After this is done, you can simply type, e.g., wp limerence in the address bar to jump to the Wikipedia article on limerence. Or aka partie de campagne to see the IMDb page of Jean Renoir's Partie de Campagne with international titles listed.

I do not know of a way to import bookmarks and their associated shortcuts en masse, so you will have to use this table:

Name	Link	Suggested keyword
Wikipedia-en	http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/%s	wp
Wikipedia-fr	http://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/%s	wf
IMDb	http://akas.imdb.com/find?select=All;q=%s	aka
Scarab-en	http://www.kurokatta.org/hacks/scarab?q=%s	sc
Scarab-fr	http://www.kurokatta.org/hacks/scarab-fr?q=%s	sf
CNRTL	http://www.cnrtl.fr/definition/%s	mot

Actual bookmarklet

(Stolen from a Hacker News comment.)

Name	Description
[ fix ]	Gets rid of the fixed headers typical of news sites.

More of those at jwz's.

xbgcd

The X background color daemon (Unix C source): gives the root window a constantly changing solid color. Not an actual daemon. Also, most of the source code is boilerplate; I have no idea what it does. Should compile with cc -o xbgcd -lX11 xbgcd.c.

Xmodmap for French

I don't think I believe in the "canadien français" keyboard mapping so, on X11, I usually use my own idiosyncratic mapping: Xmodmap-us-latin.

It is based on a US layout, with the most useful French letters accessible by using AltCar combined with one of the keys around the base letter. For example, the key for "e" is just above "s" and "d", and hitting AltCar+esd will type "éèê".

AltCar +	result
a	à
z	«
x	»
e	é
s	è
d	ê
i	î
o	ô
u	ù
j	û
c	ç

AltCar +	result
A	À
Z	â

E	É
S	È
D	Ê
I	Î
O	Ô
U	Ù
J	Û
C	Ç

Ugly patches

Newspipe

Newspipe got it mostly right; this patch alters the rendering from HTML a little. Applies to $Revision: 1.66 $.

Wyrd

Wyrd is fine, except that the format used for new entries doesn't completely fit my tastes, and this does not seem to be fixable through config files. Therefore, wyrd.fmt.patch (applies to Wyrd version 1.4.1).

Others

Sigpue

Sigpue is a signature generator.

Source code: sigpue.pl.

Statmail

Statmail prints a summary from a Procmail log file. It is currently homed at SourceForge, filed under categories "e-mail" and "log analysis", and has its own homepage there.

www.kurokatta.org

Quick links:

Photos: Montréal; Oregon; Paris; Camp info 2007; Camp Faécum 2007; --more--
Doc: Jussieu; Japanese adjectives; Muttrc; Bcc; Montréal; Couleurs LTP; French English words; Petites arnaques; --more--
Hacks: Statmail; DSC-W17 patch; Scarab: dictionnaire de Scrabble; Sigpue
Recipes: Omelette soufflée au sirop d'érable; Camembert fondu au sirop d'érable; La Mona de Tata Zineb; Cake aux bananes, au beurre de cacahuètes et aux pépites de chocolat