I enjoyed this political parody of the Apple Switch ads. Have a look

I’ve been learning a lot about the typesetting engine, TeX, lately. It’s really an amazing piece of software from the 1980s—not just because it still works 25 years later, but because of what it allows people to do. Perhaps with its powerful scripting capabilities it will be a long time yet before it [...]

Aman Gupta recently wrote the Sequel mailing list with a nice, compact solution to a question posed: is it possible to write an ActiveRecord-like “serialize” class method for Sequel::Model classes? Aman answers, yes.

Good News! Ron Paul will be in Salt Lake City tomorrow for two private fund-raising events and a public rally. If you can possibly make it, come show support for the constitution and Ron Paul’s determination to uphold its principles. Ron Paul Intermountain West Regional Rally This Saturday, Sept. 15th, 1pm Grand Hall at the Union [...]

I’ve been playing with an idea lately that makes scaffolding a Merb app more pragmatic than the traditional generator method. I call it “Magic Scaffold for Merb”. One of the problems I’ve always had with code generators is that they create several files with code all over the place that I’m not familiar with. [...]

This was a song that my mother in law, Ginger, heard when she was younger. She later named her last child and my wife, Kelty, after the reference in it: oh the days of the kelty dancers oh the ring of the piper’s tune all for one of those hours of gladness gone, alas, like my youth too [...]

I updated the routing system to Merb again yesterday. I’ve added plenty of specs and examples now to illustrate its flexibility and usefulness. What I used to call “late-bound routes” is now “deferred routes” which makes more sense. Take a look at the new specs for a run-through.

TextMate’s Ruby on Rails bundle has changed directories, and along with it, the Footnotes plugin. People are reporting that “script/plugin install” results in “Plugin not found: http://macromates.com/svn/Bundles/trunk/Bundles/Rails.tmbundle/Support/plugins/footnotes”. Indeed, it can now be found at: http://macromates.com/svn/Bundles/trunk/Bundles /Ruby%20on%20Rails.tmbundle/Support/plugins/footnotes (no spaces or newlines) To switch from the old address to the new, just use “svn switch [new-url]” at the command [...]

I use the ‘irb’ command at the terminal every day. In case you program in Ruby and haven’t used it yet, you’re missing out. But as it turns out, so was I. The irb program can be configured to do almost anything, and specifically, people have already done stuff like this: Autocompletion… wow. [...]

Merb is in its incubation phase—small, changing quickly, and growing fast. As I’ve mentioned in previous posts, it’s a light-weight framework similar to Rails. Here is a list of resources on the web I’ve found useful as I’ve been introduced to this mini-framework: Exploring Merb (Ruby Hoedown Presentation) Custom Mongrel Handlers High Performance Ruby MVC: Merb Taking [...]

Note: The API has significantly changed since this posting. Best to check out this post for details. With Ezra’s approval, I committed some significant changes to the Merb routing system last night. If you’ve ever been limited by Rails’ routing system, you might want to check out some of the features now in Merb. [...]

I’ve been busy working on FamilyLearn projects and haven’t had time until now to pay attention to the many changes that Ezra and Jon have been making to Merb. Here’s a summary of some noteworthy changes over the past week: There is no longer a “dist” folder. The Merb directory structure is now even [...]

The MemoryPress project I’ve been working on for about a year and a half now is finally ready for prime time! It’s purpose is to let you create a quality hard-bound book by collaborating with as many people as you would like. It’s ideal for a personal history, a wedding gift, or a [...]

I often have random ideas and usually let them pass by, either because “someone else must have thought of it already,” or I’m too rushed, or perhaps I feel a little embarrassed by being different and having weird ideas. And then there’s that thought at the back of the mind that lurks in every [...]

Everyone should cheer for California Secretary of State Debra Bowen and the geek squad that worked with her to find out just what security vulnerabilities existed in the 5 brands of electronic voting machines used in California. Bowen announced that Diebold and Sequoia voting machines would not be used with the exception of people with disabilities, [...]

How did we get a Federal Reserve, and what does it do for us? Why does the Mises Institute say that it needs to go? I found this 1996 video production from the Mises Institute quite informative: Money, Banking and the Federal Reserve It’s 40 minutes long. Ron Paul is quoted a few times in there, [...]

My friend Ezra has been building a new MVC framework for Ruby that I’ve suddenly become quite fond of: it’s called merb, and it’s fast. I like fast—especially now that I’ve built several Rails apps and felt the pressure mount when the app tops at 20 requests per second. Here’s what Ezra wrote to me [...]

CurrencyTrading.net has a thoughtful article on what a Ron Paul presidency would do to the U.S. dollar. The author, Jessica Hupp, weighs the risks and benefits and concludes that a move to a commodity or gold standard would be the right move in the long run. I agree that our dollar is “on shaky ground” [...]

Learning the fundamentals of economics has become a kind of a hobby, rewarded by a few glimpses here and there into the netherworld of the current hedge fund crisis and related incidents. It can be a little confusing, for sure. But after reading a fascinating article by Scott Thill, “The Crash of 1929: [...]

Thanks to Pawel Kondzior, there’s a little bug fix for the condition builder. Previously, making multiple “OR” blocks would make “AND” blocks instead: Condition.block do |t| t.or do |u| u.and "b", 1 u.and "c", 2 end t.or do |v| v.and "d", 3 end end # => ["(b = ? AND c = ?) AND (d = ?)", 1, 2, 3] Now, as expected, it produces: # [...]