Patch Notes: TheFuck + the World's Largest Owl
I'm on vacation this week, so we'll keep it snappy!
Tool of the Week: The Fuck
The Fuck, or fuck if you're using it, is a clever little tool that you use when you fuck up. If you make one of those classic terminal mistakes where you make a single typo in the middle of a complex line, never fear -- fuck is here:
➜ apt-get install vim
E: Could not open lock file /var/lib/dpkg/lock - open (13: Permission denied)
E: Unable to lock the administration directory (/var/lib/dpkg/), are you root?
➜ fuck
sudo apt-get install vim [enter/↑/↓/ctrl+c]
[sudo] password for nvbn:
Reading package lists... Done
...
If you'd prefer less profanity in your command line, you can specify a different command in your .zshrc / .bashrc: eval $(thefuck --alias fudgesticks)
Something Interesting: The World's Largest Owl
The world's largest owl is Blakiston's fish owl, with a wingspan of up to six feet (sometimes even more). It lives in old-growth forest in the Russian far east and northeast China, as well as the islands of Hokkaido and Sakhalin. It hunts and catches fish sometimes double or even triple its own weight, including trout, pike, and catfish; conservation biologist Jonathan Slaght reported seeing one haul a large fish from the water by using its free talon to grip tree roots along the riverbank for leverage.
Unlike many fishing raptors like the osprey, the fish owl likes to stand on the riverbank or in shallow water, perfectly motionless, staring into the water for hours on end. Sometimes it even tramples little matted trails in the vegetation on riverbanks where it hunts every day. When owl sees a fish, it hops or quickly glides to the attack, dragging its prey up onto the bank to finish it off before flying away with the remains. During winter the owl still fishes in the icy water, but extends its diet to include mammals and even other birds, if it can get its talons on them.
The Ainu people of Hokkaido revere the fish owl as a kamuy ("divine being"), naming it "Kotan koru Kamuy", "the god that protects the village." It is endangered, with fewer than a thousand mated pairs estimated to be left in the wild. For further reading, I highly recommend Dr. Slaght's article in The Guardian about the owl's precarious place in the modern world, and the efforts underway to protect it.
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