Category: General Interest

  • Who’s On First?

    Here’s a video to celebrate the new year. This is an imitation of the classic Abbott and Costello routine. My brother and I have been doing it for over a decade now. Here’s a version from 4 years ago at the NCHE conference in North Carolina. Enjoy!

  • MultiRails grows one release older

    MultiRails is a plugin that makes it easy to test Rails applications against multiple versions of Rails. Built by the cool guys at this place (mainly Rob Sanheim), MultiRails version 0.0.3 has just been released. Check it out.

  • UI for acts_as_tree

    The current project I’m on requires us to give administrators the ability to modify a tree of models built using acts_as_tree (now a plugin as of Rails 2.0). The acts_as_tree plugin is simple and elegant, but I’ve struggled to find a pre-built UI framework for acts_as_tree that is equally compelling. Can anyone recommend a good, simple (AJAX optional) plugin for generating a UI for acts_as_tree? Please post a comment.

  • Be aware

  • The Bible on my Mac

    I attended the 2007 National Conference on Christian Apologetics in Charlotte, North Carolina this past weekend. One thing (among many) that I realized while participating was that I needed a copy of the Bible on my MacBook. I brought my MB for note taking since my handwriting is woefully slow, but it would have been great if I could have looked up scripture references without leaving the keyboard.

    I don’t just want a PDF. I want a nice OS X-style application with a built-in concordance and whatnot. Googling around this evening has revealed two possibilities: MacSword (free) and Logos (commercial). Logos isn’t due to be released for the Mac for some time yet, so I’ll be trying out MacSword for now. Anyone have suggestions on other apps that I might have missed? Or maybe there is a generic eBook reader for the Mac out there that I haven’t stumbled across yet?

  • RubyConf begins

    I haven’t gotten up at 5 AM in a long time, but today I did and, after a 2.5 hour drive from Raleigh to Charlotte, am now at RubyConf. Here are some pics from the opening session:

    071102_091619.jpg 071102_091636.jpg

  • The 5th of November

    This seems like a very good idea.

  • Where is the logic in this?

    There are few things I hate worse then trying to call a business, getting put on hold, and then having to listen to ads for that business while I’m on hold. A happy customer I am not.

  • $100 laptop debuts this November

    Watch the inimitable David Pogue for a nice demo. OLPC’s $100 laptop debuts in the U.S. during a two-week window in November. It’s a buy one, get one deal. $400 sends one laptop to a poor kid in a third world country, and one laptop to you.

    Am I getting in on this deal? You betcha. Consider the hackability factor here. Pogue already snuck in a reference to Python in his video. Imagine the cool things that can be done with this device once Ruby is running on it. Not to mention the fact that it’s pretty indestructible.

    An extra $200 to send one to a needy child? What a deal. Count me in. What about you?

  • Who is Ron Paul?

    As a Christian who is socially conservative, fiscally libertarian, and non-interventionist, I’m having a very difficult time imagining myself actually voting for any of the current Republican Presidential candidates. I’m just hearing the same old thing from all of them. All except one, who happens to be the only guy up there actually willing to tick off a few people while articulating his principals. That guy is Ron Paul.

    I agree with the premise of this article, namely, that Ron Paul is the only Republican candidate who has a chance of beating Hillary in 2008.

    What’s really cool is how Ron Paul is taking advantage of the Internet to promote his message. As of today, he has over 44,000 Meetup members. There are literally dozens of Ron Paul-related video clips on YouTube. And why shouldn’t there be? The mainstream media is only giving coverage to the perceived frontrunners of both parties, who spout the same drivel day after day.

    The Internet levels the playing field and de-monopolizes the television networks and newspapers. Even Google has hosted a one-hour Q&A session with Ron Paul. The Internet makes free speech free again. That’s why the efforts of many in our government to regulate the Internet should be aggresively opposed.

    Whether you’re liberal or conservative, you have to admit that Ron Paul speaks his mind and has a solid track record of constitutionlist voting. He’s a statesman in a political environment that harbors far too few.