Termdown is a program that provides a countdown timer and stopwatch in the terminal. It uses FIGlet for its display. Its most attractive feature, I think, is the ability to support arbitrary script execution.

I use it most often as a countdown timer. One of my frequent applications is as a meditation timer. For this I want a 11 minute timer, with an alert at 10.5 minutes, 60 seconds, and 1 second. This gives me a 10 minute session with 30 seconds preparation and 30 seconds to return. Termdown makes this easy.

$ termdown --exec-cmd "case {0} in 630|30) mpv ~/library/audio/sounds/bell.mp3;; 1) mpv ~/library/audio/sounds/ring.mp3;; esac" 11m

dictd is a dictionary database server and client. It can be used to lookup word definitions over a network. I don’t use it for that. I use the program to provide an offline dictionary. Depending on a network connection, web browser and third-party websites just to define a word strikes me as dumb.

To make this go, dictionary files must be installed. I use the GNU Collaborative International Dictionary of English (GCIDE), WordNet, and the Moby Thesaurus. The GCIDE is derived from Noah Webster’s famous American dictionary. WordNet is a more modern (one might say “dry”) resource. The Moby Thesaurus is a public domain thesaurus originally built by Grady Ward. Between these three sources I can have a pretty good grasp on the English language. No network connectivity required.

I use a shell alias to always pipe the definitions through less.

def () {
    dict $1 | less
}