When git cloning locally...

If you clone a local git repository while you are on a given branch, also the new clone will be on that branch.
This is solvable by some easy git fetch but the HEAD will point to the first branch, and will give you headaches when you have to rebase.

the solution is *not* set-upstream, which will track changes from another remote by default, but *set-head* which will point to another local branch.

So, to restore sanity

git remote set-head origin master

Fast authors for Mercurial

In case you need to find out who commited the first version of a file to a Mercurial repository, there is this little command that does so quickly.

hg log -r 'first(file("path/to/file"))' --template '{author}\n' -f

This is using hg log together with hg templating. You can customize your output with stuff like {date|isodate} or {desc). -f follows through renames and removals.