Millions of copies will be sold of a book written by someone who can’t write, intended for an audience that doesn’t read, about the thoughts of a person who doesn’t think. God is dead.

— http://www.ginandtacos.com/2009/11/17/going-rogue/ (via uptonic)

Get the current branch in a git repo

Ever need to get the current branch name in a ruby app?

b = `git branch`.split("\n").delete_if { |i| i.first != "*" }
b.first.gsub("* ","")

Or maybe you might want to put it into ~/.irbrc:

def branch
   b = `git branch`.split("\n").delete_if { |i| i.first != "*" }
   b.first.gsub("* ","")
end

info-graphic visualizations of choose your own adventures books →

Amazing visuals by Christian Swinehart, I remember reading these books as a kid, they have a special place in my heart, via Daring Fireball

ActionMailer woes with gmail

NOTE: that this only applies to Rails versions less than 2.3 (< 2.2.x), Rails

I’ve been having issues lately working with Gmail’s SMTP servers and older Rails apps. Fortunately I found the fix in the form of a plugin here : http://douglasfshearer.com/blog/gmail-smtp-with-ruby-on-rails-and-actionmailer

However, I was still getting errors in that looked like:

  ArgumentError (wrong number of arguments (3 for 2)):
      /vendor/plugins/action_mailer_optional_tls/lib/smtp_tls.rb:33:in `check_auth_args'
      /vendor/plugins/action_mailer_optional_tls/lib/smtp_tls.rb:33:in `do_tls_start'
      /vendor/plugins/action_mailer_optional_tls/lib/smtp_tls.rb:18:in `send'
      /vendor/plugins/action_mailer_optional_tls/lib/smtp_tls.rb:18:in `start'
      /vendor/plugins/action_mailer_optional_tls/lib/smtp_tls.rb:10:in `start'
      /vendor/plugins/action_mailer_optional_tls/lib/action_mailer_tls.rb:9:in `perform_delivery_smtp'

Browsing through the comments in that link mentioned above reveals that you must update a call to check_auth_args at about line 33, so here’s what you do:

  # go to line 33 and change:
  check_auth_args user, secret, authtype if user or secret
  # to this (remove authtype):
  check_auth_args user, secret if user or secret

It’s a quick hack I know…, but sometimes you just need to get something working so that you can get on with your day :/

My life as a graph, as you can see… productivity kind of goes down on the weekend

If they can’t handle it, go home. Or wet your pants. Do whatever you like. But it’s not a question that can be answered.

— Maurice Sendak answering what if parents think Wild Things is too scary via Commentary: ‘Wild Things’ is scary, but so is life - CNN.com

Compiling and installing git on centos 5

I recently had to compile the latest version of git on CentOS 5, here’s what worked for me.

  ## Compiling and installing git 1.6.x on Centos5

    # if you need to get dependencies
    sudo yum install curl-devel 
    sudo yum install expat-devel 
    sudo yum install gettext-devel 
    sudo yum install openssl-devel 
    sudo yum install zlib-devel
    sudo yum install wget

    # you are using /usr/local/ right?
    cd /usr/local/src/
    wget http://kernel.org/pub/software/scm/git/git-1.6.5.1.tar.gz
    tar zxvf git-1.6.5.1.tar.gz
    cd git-1.6.5.1
    make configure
    ./configure --prefix=/usr/local
    sudo ./configure --prefix=/usr/local
    sudo make all
    sudo make install

Grab the gist

Neat tip: you can schedule google calendar events by replying back to SMS reminders

And so, like the goat sacrificers and snake oil salesmen before them, a new breed of con man was born, the Search Engine Optimizer. These scammers claim that they can dance the magic dance that will please the Google Gods and make eyeballs rain down upon you.

Do. Not. Trust. Them.

— Derek, via Mat (via merlin)

Obama will donate the roughly $1.4 million award to charity, a White House spokesman said Friday.

— Even if the people view the win as undeserving or too early, it’s never too early to give $1.4 million to charity via Obama’s win unique among presidents - CNN.com