How to Throw a Tomahawk (And Nail the Target)

https://content.artofmanliness.com/uploads/2026/07/Throw-a-Tomahawk-4.jpg

While we often imagine tomahawks being thrown in battle by the early residents of our country, American Indians and mountain men rarely threw their tomahawks, or ‘hawks, in combat. Even if a warrior successfully killed his target with his throw, it meant surrendering a weapon mid-fight. Instead, the tomahawk was primarily used in hand-to-hand combat.

When folks in the 19th century did throw their tomahawks, they largely did it for fun. Once a year, mountain men would gather at a rendezvous to trade the pelts they’d collected and resupply. These gatherings became massive camps where the men held contests of all kinds, including tomahawk throwing. Some native tribes (who originated the first tomahawks) held similar contests of skill for their men to take part in and would also come to the frontiersmen’s camps to engage in trading and throw some tomahawks with the buckskin-clad mountain men.

Throwing a tomahawk continues to be a fun activity in the 21st century. Few skills are quite as gratifying as being able to bury a tomahawk into a stump with a satisfying thunk. Whether you’re at a backyard range, a campsite, or an axe-throwing establishment, tomahawk throwing is easy to grasp (literally and figuratively) and quite fun to practice. As with most physical skills that require some finesse, it’s more about smooth mechanics than raw power.

A good throw — as outlined above — depends on a relaxed grip, a fluid motion, and letting the tomahawk complete its natural rotation. Master those fundamentals, and you’ll be sticking the blade with regularity, just like an old-time mountain man. 

Illustrated by Ted Slampyak

This article was originally published on The Art of Manliness.

The Art of Manliness

Pool Noodle Numchucks #3DPrinting #3DThursday

http://img.youtube.com/vi/hf8gYLe6R9Y/0.jpg

Every week we’ll 3D print designs from the community and showcase slicer settings, use cases and of course, Time-lapses! This Week:

Pool Noodle Numchucks
By CompliantDesigns
makerworld.com/en/models/1497093-pool-noodle-numchucks
Bambu X1C
PolyMaker PLA
3hr 58mins
X:202 Y:202 Z:130mm
.2mm layer / .4mm Nozzle
10% Infill / 1mm Retraction
200C / 60C
85g
230mm/s


649-1
Every Thursday is #3dthursday here at Adafruit! The DIY 3D printing community has passion and dedication for making solid objects from digital models. Recently, we have noticed electronics projects integrated with 3D printed enclosures, brackets, and sculptures, so each Thursday we celebrate and highlight these bold pioneers!

Have you considered building a 3D project around an Arduino or other microcontroller? How about printing a bracket to mount your Raspberry Pi to the back of your HD monitor? And don’t forget the countless LED projects that are possible when you are modeling your projects in 3D!

LIVE CHAT IS HERE! http://adafru.it/discord

Adafruit on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/adafruit

Shop for parts to build your own DIY projects http://adafru.it/3dprinting

3D Printing Projects Playlist:

3D Hangout Show Playlist:

Layer by Layer CAD Tutorials Playlist:

Timelapse Tuesday Playlist:

Connect with Noe and Pedro on Social Media:

Noe’s Twitter / Instagram: http://instagram.com/ecken

Pedro’s Twitter / Instagram: http://instagram.com/videopixil

3D printing – Adafruit Industries – Makers, hackers, artists, designers and engineers!

PostgreSQL Meta Commands that save time every day

https://www.percona.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/07/Screenshot-2026-07-15-at-11.39.10-AM-300×134.png

When most people start working with PostgreSQL, they quickly learn SQL:

SELECT * FROM employees;

But very soon, another world opens up inside psql — a set of commands that don’t look like SQL, don’t end with semicolons.

These are PostgreSQL Meta Commands, and they quietly power the daily workflow of almost every experienced DBA.

Meta commands are not about querying data — they are about navigating, inspecting, and controlling the PostgreSQL session/database efficiently.

What exactly are Meta Commands?

Meta commands are special instructions interpreted by psql, not PostgreSQL itself.

That means:

  • They are not SQL
  • They execute instantly on the client side
  • They are specific to the psql terminal tool
  • They do not end with semicolon like SQL statements
  • The main focus area for meta commands is database interaction and not the interaction with the data in the database.

Cheat Sheet (Quick Reference) 

The most commonly used meta commands are as follows. There are many more apart from these, however, below are the most frequently used ones:

Connect and Manage Sessions

These commands help discover databases, establish connections, and verify the current session.

\c Connect to another database 
\l List all the databases available in the cluster
\l+ List all the databases available in the cluster with more details, like DB Size, etc
\conninfo Displays information about the current database connection

Please find the example of the commands used to connect and manage sessions in the screenshot below:

Inspect Database Objects                

The \d  family of commands is one of the most powerful features of psql . These commands can be used to discover database objects, inspect their definitions, and view additional metadata.

\d Describe database objects or list objects visible in the current search path.
\d object_name Describe a specific table, view, sequence, or other database object.
\d+ object_name Display extended information about an object.
\dt List tables. Supports schema names and wildcard patterns.
\di List indexes. Supports wildcard patterns.
\dn List schemas in the current database.
\du List database roles.
\db List tablespaces
\dx List installed extensions
\df List functions and procedures
\sf function name Displays the source code of the specific function/procedure

Using object names and wildcards

Most object-inspection commands accept object names, schema-qualified names, and wildcard patterns.

For example:

\dt

Lists all tables in the current search path.

\dt public.*

Lists all tables in the public schema.

The same pattern matching is supported by several other meta-commands, including \di, \df, and the \d family.

Please find the example of the \d family commands in the screenshot below:

Format Query Results

Several meta-commands are available to improve the readability of query output, particularly when working with wide result sets.

\x [on|off|auto] Toggle expanded (vertical) display
\o filename Redirect query output to a file or pipe.
\o Restore query output to the terminal.

Monitor Query Executions

These commands assist in measuring query performance and repeatedly executing queries for monitoring purposes.

\timing [on|off] Toggle Query execution timing
\watch seconds Re-execute the current query at the specified interval

Execute and Automate tasks

These commands simplify repetitive tasks and enable integration between psql, SQL scripts, and the operating system

\i filename Execute the commands from the file
\gexec Execute each field returned by a query as an SQL statement.
\! command Execute a shell command without leaving a psql prompt

Get Help

Built-in help commands provide quick access to both psql meta-command documentation and PostgreSQL SQL syntax without leaving the terminal.

\? Display all available psql meta-commands.
\h List SQL commands for which syntax help is available.
\h command Display syntax help for a specific SQL command.

What is .psqlrc?

.psqlrc is a startup file in the home directory that psql reads when a session begins. It can hold meta-commands and SQL that run before the first prompt. The main benefit is consistent defaults — timing, formatting, and a custom prompt — without repeating setup each time, which speeds daily work and reduces connection mistakes across databases.

A minimal .psqlrc might look like this:

\timing on 
\x auto

These settings load automatically on every new psql session as highlighted below:

Conclusion

PostgreSQL is powerful because of SQL — but for DBAs, psql meta commands make daily management far easier and more efficient.

Most developers use only a handful like \dt or \d. But experienced DBAs rely on a much broader toolkit to:

  • Investigate production issues faster
  • Navigate systems efficiently
  • Reduce reliance on repetitive SQL
  • Repetitive tasks can be automated
  • Debug complex problems quickly

An easy way to understand the relationship between SQL and PostgreSQL meta commands is to compare them to driving a car.

SQL is like driving the car — it is the primary means of reaching a destination. It is used to retrieve, insert, update, and delete data, enabling applications and users to interact with the information stored in the database.

Meta commands, on the other hand, are like the car’s dashboard. While the dashboard does not move the vehicle, it provides essential information such as speed, fuel level, engine health, navigation status, and warning indicators. Driving without a dashboard is certainly possible, but it would mean operating with limited visibility into the vehicle’s condition and performance.

Similarly, SQL is responsible for manipulating and retrieving data, whereas PostgreSQL meta commands provide valuable insight into the database environment itself. They help administrators inspect database objects, navigate schemas, monitor sessions, examine roles and privileges, review object definitions, and perform numerous administrative tasks efficiently.

In essence, SQL enables interaction with the data, while meta commands enable interaction with the PostgreSQL environment. Together, they form a complementary toolkit that allows database professionals to work more effectively, troubleshoot issues faster, and administer PostgreSQL with greater confidence.

The post PostgreSQL Meta Commands that save time every day appeared first on Percona.

Blog – Percona

Doltgres Reaches 99% Compliance on SQL Logic Tests

https://static.dolthub.com/blogimages/doltgres-sqllogictest-99-percent-fi.png/4e4fe13337b20508531acdc8cd0f6a160bbafb59eb66921bbb31ab3709f1d263.webp

Two weeks ago, we announced that Doltgres 1.0 is coming August 6th. In that post, we laid out the four things we’re focused on to get there: correctness, storage format stability, performance, and compatibility. Correctness was measured by one very concrete number: 99% compliance on our SQL Logic Test suite. At the time we were sitting at a little over 96%. Today, we’ve hit our target: Doltgres passes 99% of the suite. That’s one more box checked on the road to 1.0. 🎉

SQL Logic Test#

SQL Logic Test is a test suite originally built for SQLite, containing millions of statements and queries that exercise SQL expressions, joins, aggregates, and type coercion rules. We forked it years ago and extended it with more tests to measure how correctly Dolt (and now Doltgres) execute SQL statements. The test suite in SQL Logic Test specifically stress tests the expression support in each engine. 99% represents millions of individual queries whose results have to match PostgreSQL exactly, down to the type and formatting of every returned value. This gives us a high confidence that Doltgres can correctly execute a wide range of statements and expressions.

Establishing a Baseline Against PostgreSQL#

Before we could chase down our own bugs, we needed to answer a more basic question: how many of these tests are even valid against PostgreSQL? The suite was originally written for SQLite, and over the years it’s been adapted and extended for MySQL as we’ve used it to test Dolt. Postgres has never been the primary target, so we couldn’t assume the entire test suite would execute cleanly against Postgres.

We pointed our test runner at a real PostgreSQL server and ran the full suite against stock PostgreSQL first, to establish a baseline of how compatible the tests actually were with Postgres. That baseline surfaced a number of places where the tests themselves (or in many cases, the runner’s expectations about results) were still encoding SQLite or MySQL behavior and not compatible with slightly different behavior in Postgres. Fixing those was a prerequisite before we could start figuring out what changes were needed in Doltgres.

A few examples of what we found and fixed:

  • Integer vs. float schema types. The test format encodes an expected type for each result column (I for integer, R for float/real), based on SQLite’s type affinity rules. Postgres is stricter about numeric types than SQLite, so expressions SQLite treats as integers may legitimately come back as floats from Postgres, and vice versa. We updated the runner’s schema comparison to treat I and R as compatible in both directions, and to normalize whole-number floats (like 3.000) to integer formatting (3) so the value comparison succeeds when the underlying values genuinely match. Limiting this to whole-number floats only means we still detect correctness errors if the values don’t logically match, but we’re more flexible on the returned result type so that we can use the same tests to match against Postgres.
  • Empty result sets. SQLite reports SQLITE_NULL as the type for every column when a query returns zero rows, which doesn’t correspond to anything meaningful in Postgres. We updated the runner to skip schema-type verification entirely when both the expected and actual result sets are empty, since there’s nothing to compare.
  • Postgres-specific type names in the harness. Our test harness inspects the driver’s reported column types to decide how to parse and compare each value. It was written with MySQL’s type names in mind (INT, BIGINT, DECIMAL, and so on), so it didn’t know what to do with Postgres-specific names like BOOL, INT2, or FLOAT4. We filled in the missing cases so those types get parsed and compared correctly instead of falling through and failing.
  • MySQL-only statements. Some tests exercise MySQL-specific syntax or behavior that has no Postgres equivalent at all. Rather than force those through, we added skip directives so they’re excluded when running against Doltgres, the same way we already skip SQLite-specific tests.

In addition to those improvements, we also invested in running the suite in parallel, spinning up a single shared Doltgres server and fanning test files out across concurrent workers, each against its own isolated database. At the scale of millions of test queries, that’s the difference between a test run that takes minutes and one that takes hours, which matters a lot when you’re iterating on fixes.

Bugs the Tests Found in Doltgres#

With those changes in place, we could now run the SQL Logic Tests against a real PostgreSQL server and get over 99% correctness. There are still some issues for the test suite to run 100% against PostgreSQL, and we’ll keep chipping away at those in future passes. After these improvements, the remaining test failures with Doltgres were much more likely to be real Doltgres bugs that we needed to dig into. The most interesting was in our COALESCE() implementation: when called with mixed numeric types (say, an int4 and an int8, or an int4 and a float8), it was using a generic type conversion instead of Postgres’ assignment cast rules to compute the common type. That’s an important distinction. Assignment casts are what Postgres itself uses to widen mixed-type arguments to a common type, and using the wrong conversion path meant we could return incorrectly typed or incorrectly rounded results for a fairly common pattern in real SQL.

On Track for August 6th#

Correctly executing 99% of the SQL Logic Test suite was our target for Doltgres’ 1.0 release. It gives us high confidence that a wide range of statements and SQL expressions are executing correctly in Doltgres. By baselining the test suite against PostgreSQL, we discovered that we were closer to this milestone than we initially expected. We thought we still had many remaining gaps to fill to reach that milestone, but it turned out that how the results were being processed by the test runner accounted for most of the gap.

Executing queries correctly, and returning identical results as PostgreSQL, is the foundation for our 1.0 launch. Without correct query execution, the other goals, like fast execution of queries and tool compatibility, just don’t matter. Overall, we’re making great progress on our 1.0 punch list and remain on track for August 6th.

If you’re running Doltgres and you hit a query that returns the wrong result, an error you don’t expect, or behavior that just doesn’t match Postgres, please send us a GitHub issue and let us know. We want to find and fix as many of these as possible before 1.0 ships, and customer-reported issues go straight to the top of our queue.

If you haven’t started using Doltgres yet, give it a shot! You can install Doltgres by running brew intall doltgres on a Mac with Homebrew, or you download a binary from our GitHub releases. Our dev team hangs out on the DoltHub Discord server every day, so feel free to come by and tell us how it’s going. We’re closing in on 1.0 and every bit of feedback helps us get there!

Planet for the MySQL Community

Romance In The Air As Wife Not Wearing Mouthguard

https://media.babylonbee.com/articles/6a5145f65880b6a5145f65880c.jpg

ABILENE, KS — Romance was in the air at the Farris household as wife Allison was seen getting ready for bed without her mouthguard in place.

Mr. Aaron Farris, who had just finished brushing his teeth, felt a jolt of excitement as he noticed his wife had gotten ready for bed without the thick piece of plastic that keeps her from grinding her teeth like a chainsaw.

"Oh man, it’s so on. Play it cool, Aaron," said Mr. Farris to himself. "Let me double-check. Yup, mouthguard is out. Like the married version of candlelight and Marin Gaye. Little extra mouthwash, and we’ll be good to go."

As he prepared to get in bed, Farris made an extra show of not putting on his CPAP machine. "Mm, think I’m going to stay up for a bit," announced Farris to his wife. "Yeah, sleep apnea can wait. Got, um, something else on my mind."

At publishing time, Farris was sure he’d read the signals correctly as he discovered his wife also wasn’t wearing her standard woolen socks.


Rumors swirl about the current condition of Senator Mitch McConnell, but his staff have come out to say that even if he were dead he will still be able to finish his term.

Babylon Bee

qwen2.5-7b-laravel-coder

https://ollama.com/public/og.png

qwen2.5-7b-laravel-coder

Bob — a Laravel & PHP coding assistant built on Qwen2.5-Coder 7B, customized with official Laravel documentation (v10–v13) and a senior-architect persona.

Overview

Model qwen2.5-7b-laravel-coder
Base qwen2.5-coder (7B)
Persona Bob — senior PHP/Laravel specialist
Laravel 10.x, 11.x, 12.x, 13.x (version-aware)
Focus PHP & Laravel ecosystem only

Bob detects your Laravel version from composer.json, bootstrap/app.php, and project patterns, then gives version-specific answers. He follows PSR-12, flags common pitfalls (N+1 queries, mass assignment, missing indexes), and declines topics outside PHP/Laravel.

Quick start

ollama pull bhavingajjar/qwen2.5-7b-laravel-coder
ollama run bhavingajjar/qwen2.5-7b-laravel-coder

Model page: https://ollama.com/bhavingajjar/qwen2.5-7b-laravel-coder

Example prompts

  • “How do I register middleware? Here’s my composer.json and bootstrap/app.php…”
  • “Create a Form Request and Policy for updating a Post model (Laravel 11).”
  • “Set up Sanctum SPA authentication — project uses Laravel 10.”
  • “Who are you?” — Bob introduces himself as your Laravel mentor.

Capabilities

  • Version detection from composer.json, bootstrap/app.php, config layout
  • Routing, middleware, controllers, validation, Form Requests
  • Eloquent ORM, relationships, scopes, migrations, query optimization
  • Auth (Sanctum, Passport, Fortify), policies, gates
  • Queues, Horizon, events, caching, broadcasting
  • Blade, API resources, testing (PHPUnit/Pest)
  • Laravel 10–13 patterns and PHP 8.x best practices

Parameters

Parameter Value
temperature 0.3
top_p 0.9
num_ctx 8192

License

Laravel News Links