Amusing.
Found this today. Gotta say, I’m loving Source Code Pro from Adobe. Slant seems to target exactly the kinds of questions StackOverflow hates - the opinion-based, “what is the best…” type of amorphous questions that have a few right answers and many wrong ones. Interesting.
Some nice nix commands. mdfind is my new fav, though.
This command:
iconv -f utf8 -t utf8 -c file.txt will clean up you UFT8 file, skipping all the invalid characters. -f is the source format -t the target format -c skips any invalid sequence
This is the greatest thing ever. Seriously.
I was writing something to copy some files to S3 for local work. Normally, you’d want to use Tempfiles for this so the file gets erased when the request is finished without you having to do your own garbage collecting.
Encodings proved to be a major hitch. Here’s the fix:
file_name = File.basename(file.key)
temp_file = Tempfile.new(file_name.split(/(.\w+)$/))
temp_file.binmode
temp_file.write file.read
Props to Yuri for having this post up
Extra cool? Tempfile#binmode is not in the docs for Ruby 2.0 / Tempfile. And if you happen to be using Paperclip, make sure you’re using ::Tempfile and not Paperclip::Tempfile, since Paperclip overrides this non-documented function for their own purposes
Rabbit hole was deep on this one.
Herbalizer is a tool for converting HAML to ERB. While HAML is more concise than ERB, it’s also a lot stuffier, and simple things like embedded a < span > inside a paragraph require ugly transformations. And tabs will ruin your life. This isn’t Python.
So, how to run herbalizer on a directory of views? Well, I had to write a script for that. Here it is:
Also embedded in the script is a list of things herbalizer doesn’t convert well. If any of your files fail to convert (and it’s likely they will), check within 2-3 lines of the stated error for any violations of those rules, and change the syntax to something more herbalizer-friendly. It’s also likely you’ll have to go through and clean up afterwards: fixing nested syntaxes and suchlike.
Herbalizer is a long way from perfect, but for what’s most likely a one-time excruciatingly painful process, it can cut out about 80% of the work, which is super helpful.
While Lavabit initially had quite a bit of media coverage over this issue, the hype seems to be a casualty of our frenzied newscycle. But after looking closely at the facts here, I now see that this is a monumentally important issue, one that the media needs to once again address. The message here is that US courts can force a business to subvert their own security measures and lie to their customers, deliberately giving them a false sense of security. They can say what they want about security on their web sites, it means nothing. If they did it to Lavabit, how many hundreds or thousands of other US companies already participate in this deception?
If the courts can force a business to lie, we can never again trust the security claims of any US company. The reason so many businesses specifically rely on US services is the sense of stability and trust. How sad that an overreaching and panicked pursuit of a whistleblower has thrown that all away.
This issue is so much more than a simple civil liberties dispute, it is the integrity of a nation at stake. We walked with the devil in a time of need–that is a legacy we must live with–but at what point do we sever that relationship and return to the integrity required to lead the world through respect and not by fear?
The rest of the article is pretty technical, but this is the important bit. If people and companies can’t trust US companies with their secure information, that’s going to hurt the internet sector a lot, and we’ll see the disruption at the macro level.
Are there ANY politicians talking about this? Will any politician even promise to restore the right to be free from unreasonable search & seizure?
redis-store’s redis-rails gem is awesome, but it can be a pain in the buttox to get configured on Heroku.
True story.
It’s been a busy week. We finished loading out of Hotel Kabuki on Monday, got half-dead sick on Tuesday, moved Thursday, and made my first deploy on a new venture on Friday. I’d say today I rest, but I’m really just starting to be active again.
GaymerX
The big one. It’s been more than a year in the making. I’ve put a lot of work into the tech stack over at GaymerConnect. GaymerConnect is the online social network behind the con; GaymerX (formerly GaymerCon) is the convention itself. What does GaymerConnect do? Manages the convention schedule, registration and badge sales, allows users to vote for what panels they want to see, provides a forum for discussions around queer gaming, and allows gaymers to connect with each other before, during, and after the convention. It’s GaymerX for the rest of the year.
I am very proud and distinctly honored to have been a part of GaymerX from day zero. I haven’t been in the news, or on the interviews; I’ve always been better at leading from the background. I haven’t even had much of that to do. Matt, Toni, Kayce, Riza, Adam, Scott and the rest have done such an incredible job pushing forward with events, guests of honor, artists, vendors, and sponsors that I’ve been largely free to do engineering and manage the tech team. Kudos to Noah, Andrew, Christian, Gabriel, and everyone else who has helped on the technical side of things.
The event was everything I could have hoped for. We had a huge turnout, with over two thousand badges sold. We never had to call the police or hotel security. We had a VIP party with free booze, and a dance / rock / music concert without anyone going off their rocker. We had zero complaints of racism / sexism / ignorance. Westboro Baptist Church did not show up. Wait times for registration never went above 45min.
Our Bosses of Honor and panelists were universally awesome, and it was a pleasure getting to talk to Zach Weinersmith, Ellen McClain, John Patrick Lowrie, Pandora Boxx, Christine Love, Porpentine, and everyone else. There were many I didn’t get to meet up with, like Matthew Michael Brown and our representatives from EA and Bioware - I wish I’d had time. Only good news and kind words from everyone.
Additional thanks to our amazing artists - Zeke Mystique, Aethernaut, F3ral / You’re Mine, and of course, some of my favorite peeps EVER, the mighty, invincible Crashfaster. And a further huge thank you to our game room partners, The Big Anime Game Room - we love you very much.
By every possible measure, the con was a huge success. I’ve had a lot of highs and lows this week - happiness in the con’s success, sadness that it was over so quickly, pride in my friends and fellow queer geeks, excitement about next year, and nostalgia for the emotional highs and good times. I’m still working through it all. But one thing I’m sure of: this is a real high point in my life. Running a con is something I’ve always wanted to do, and even though my work at the con was limited, I feel like I’ve made a big contribution and I’m happy I got to do so.
I have more work to do. Like most of the rest of the staff, I have a full time job to go to, but I’ll continue working on GaymerConnect throughout the year. By next con it will be bigger, better, more polished, and with clearer functionality. I’m looking forward to it, and I hope you are, too.
My most heartfelt thanks to everyone.