Greetings:
I can abuse remind, X-Windows, and cron to send timed messages to my XTerm.
I have a dated directory tree set up like this:
$HOME/notebook/YYYY/MMDD/<files>
Example:
$HOME
+--notebook
| +--2026
| | +--0220 <== today's sandbox.
| | | +--1325.rem
| | | ...
| | | +--Maildir
| | | | +--cur
| | | | | +--msg1
| | | | | +--msg2 ...
| | | | +--new
| | | | +--tmp
|
| | +--0221 <== tomorrow's sandbox.
...
me% cat ~/notebook/2026/0220/1325.rem
REM MSG Wake up!
A cronjob runs every minute looking for a file named
$HOME/notebook/YYYY/MMDD/HHMM.rem
So today at 1:25pm, this script will barf "Wake up!" all over my current
window, and it won't go away until I hit ENTER:
#!/bin/bash
file=$(date "+$HOME/notebook/%Y/%m%d/%H%M.rem")
test -f "$file" || exit 0
str=$(remind -h "$file" | sed -e '/^$/d' -e '/^Reminders/d')
# I want a message about half the size of the current screen.
H=600
W=800
set X $(xwininfo -root | sort |
awk '
/Height:/ { print int($2/2) }
/Width:/ { print int($2/2) }
')
case "$#" in
3) H=$2; W=$3 ;;
*) echo "xwininfo botch"; exit 1 ;;
esac
# Store the message with some Pango formatting to make it bigger.
# I was using a "here" document, and there are differences between
# KSH and Bash on how those are handled.
msg="<span foreground=\"blue\" font=\"24\">
$(date)
${str}
</span>
"
# Yup, all this crap is for just one line.
zenity --warning --no-wrap --width=$W --height=$H --text="$msg" &
exit 0
One of many odd but useful things made possible by remind.
--
Karl Vogel I don't speak for anyone but myself
I know we can't put the cat back in the bag, but can we at least put the
cat in a toilet and sit on the lid while we flush it several times?
--Reddit comment about AI slop, 7 Feb 2026
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