Autotools

If you want to get started using autotools for you build environment may I suggest this excellent article?

Indexing Non-Standard Include Paths In Eclipse

If you are using software packages such as ROOT which tend to be installed in non-standard paths but still want your Eclipse IDE to index them (for handy code completion features and the like) here is how to do it.  Unfortunately I have not found a way to include these globally (please comment if you have such a solution) but for each project separately.  Right click on your project, hit Properties and select Paths and Symbols under C/C++ General (for C/C++ code).  In the Includes tab add the extra path for the appropriate language.

Git: New Repository From A Subdirectory

Suppose I have this repository layout to start with

XYZ/
    .git/
    XY1/
    ABC/
    XY2/

And I want a new repository for ABS only, here is the excellent answer from over at stack overflow.

You want to clone your repository and then use git filter-branch to mark everything but the subdirectory you want in your new repo to be garbage-collected. To clone your local repository:

 $ git clone --no-hardlinks /XYZ /ABC

The --no-hardlinks switch makes git use real file copies instead of hardlinking when cloning a local repository. The garbage collection and pruning actions will only work on blobs (file contents), not links.

Then just filter-branch and reset to exclude the other files, so they can be pruned:

 $ git filter-branch --subdirectory-filter ABC HEAD -- --all

Then delete the backup reflogs so the space can be truly reclaimed (although now the operation is destructive). The -- --all keeps the project branches and tags included in the the new repo.

 $ git reset --hard
 $ rm -rf .git/refs/original/
 $ git reflog expire --expire=now --all
 $ git gc --aggressive --prune=now

and now you have a local git repository of the ABC sub-directory with all its history preserved.

Diving the GB Church and Arbutus Island

In September during the club days at UVic i joined the SCUBA and the Starcraft club.  While I have done precisely fuck all about playing Starcraft the over the last month I have been rather active with the SCUBA club.  As a dive master and having recently acquired a truck I am now doing a lot of the driving gear about for the club.  I have also been helping with the classes (Open Water etc taught by the SCUBA instructors there) and teaching some drysuit orientations.  It's been great fun and I have met many great folks out there.

Last week I was rewarded for my efforts in shuffling about gear with a charter out of Sidney.  First off let me thank the great folks from the Ogden Point dive centre for taking us out.  I went for two dives with my friend Alisa (who taught me almost all I know about diving!).  We explore the wreck of the GB Church, doing a little swim through of the bridge and finding the Octo hanging out under the bow.  After that we headed to Arbutus island where we proceeded to find ten (yes TEN!) Octos.  What an awesome day of diving.  And to proove that I am not just making all of this up, Alisa took some video while we were down there, check it out:



GB Church Artifical Reef and Arbutus Island from Alisa Preston on Vimeo.

As you may have guessed, we do like Octopus.

Holy Shatner

I fondly remember being introduced to Has Been that rather popular album made by William Shatner Scott my supervisor at UBC back in 2004.  We had a few discussions about music before (he is quite the completionist when it comes to Blue Oyster Cult) and was quite intrigued to learn that Metallica had covered them on Garage Inc.  Anyway, I am reminded of this because I just saw some new Shatner music, and it delivers in the most excellent way:

The end of the song video made me want to play rockband.  After that I had to finish off in proper Star Treck fashion by watching music video involving Leonard Nimoy, that excellent excellent man.

I just wish there was a Jeff Bridges cameo in that music video.

Awesome Linux Screensaver

I found a really cool screensaver for those of us cruising in linux. I first found it after my first dabbeling in kernel hacking ... but didn't think of posting about it till now. Makes me feel leet for having some swanky code scroll past my screen, especially if i recognize a passage.

The practical upshot of all this is that when I am nodding off at work and the screensaver kicks in it looks like I am coding. Upon further inspection the more astute observer my note, of course, that I am not actually typing :)

Gabe's watching you too

It's addictive, also let it be noted that steam is great.