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Terrorist threat level text
This line provides the same result by reading the output of a less arbitrary value. This is a personal choice on the matter, and the result on different machines may vary.

Find usb device
I often use it to find recently added ou removed device, or using find in /dev, or anything similar. Just run the command, plug the device, and wait to see him and only him

Find files with lines that do not match a pattern
This one would be much faster, as it's only one executed command.

Which processes are listening on a specific port (e.g. port 80)
swap out "80" for your port of interest. Can use port number or named ports e.g. "http"

wc in perl

Copy a file and force owner/group/mode
This is useful when you want to copy a file and also force a user, a group and a mode for that file. Note: if you want to move that file instead of copying it, you can use $install -o user -g group -m 755 /path/to/file /path/to/dir/ && rm -f /path/to/file which will remove the file only if the install command went fine.

Show all programs on UDP and TCP ports with timer information
-p PID and name of the program -u on a UDP port. -t also TCP ports -o networking timer -n numeric IP addresses (don't resolve them) -a all sockets

Terminal Escape Code Zen - Strace and Tput
Depending on the TERM, the terminfo version, ncurses version, etc.. you may be using a varied assortment of terminal escape codes. With this command you can easily find out exactly what is going on.. This is terminal escape zen! $ ( 2>&2 strace -f -F -e write -s 1000 sh -c 'echo -e "initc\nis2\ncnorm\nrmso\nsgr0" | tput -S' 2>&1 ) | grep -o '"\\[^"]*"' --color=always "\33]4;%p1%d;rgb:%p2%{255}%*%{1000}%/%2.2X/%p3%{255}%*%{1000}%/%2.2X/%p4%{255}%*%{1000}%/%2.2X\33\\\33[!p\33[?3;4l\33[4l\33>\33[?12l\33[?25h\33[27m\33(B\33[m" Lets say you want to find out what you need to echo in order to get the text to blink.. $ echo -e "`tput blink`This will blink`tput sgr0` This wont" Now you can use this function instead of calling tput (tput is much smarter for portable code because it works differently depending on the current TERM, and tput -T anyterm works too.) to turn that echo into a much faster executing code. tput queries files, opens files, etc.. but echo is very strait and narrow. So now you can do this: $ echo -e "\33[5mThis will blink\33(B\33[m This wont" More at http://www.askapache.com/linux-unix/bash_profile-functions-advanced-shell.html

Show most common words in filenames
I'm sure there's a more elegant sed version for the tr + grep section.

Listen to a song from youtube with youtube-dl and mpv
Explanation Firstly the function checks if user gave it any input, and notifies the user if they failed to do so. If user has inputed a search string, the function will call upon youtube-dl to find url of the audio of the first matching youtube video and play that with mpv. Call function by wrapping search string in quotes: listen-to-yt "sultans of swing" You have to paste the line in your .zshrc and source .zshrc for it to work. Limitations The dependancies are youtube-dl and mpv. this oneliner is stolen from http://www.bashoneliners.com/oneliners/302/


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