Once again, I found myself beating my way through a website todo, and again I painfully managed to complete the task. Perhaps I can spare you some of that pain with this discussion of SSL.

A nice convenience with the price of two late nights spent forcing my way through the seemingly most ridiculous bugs. What objective snatched away those precious hours of sleep?

Forcing SSL. That’s it. I implemented an administrator interface to my blog so I can easily post, comment, etc. (or else I’d never get time to write) however I was bugged every time I saw the basic http auth dialog with its warning: Your password will be sent unencrypted.

Naturally, I’m a conspiracy theorist and anticipate some foreign nation overtaking my blog and using it to bring about the end of the world (ok not really). However, having to type in https:// every time I want to securely do my magic jumbo gets really irritating, and too many times have I authenticated without SSL. Way too many times.

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Time for essay recap no. 2! I wrote this essay in February for an english assignment examining that peculiar (pesky more like!) characteristic of human nature: insatiable desire (that means you never are satisfied). Being a secular school, all the non-believers had their work cut out for them — as for myself, I had a head start on the topic!

Insatiable Desire: Romantic Depiction, Cultural Demands, or Realistic Nature?

Parents are well acquainted with the phenomenon — the week after Christmas their young toddlers and pre-teen kids, who had already enjoyed a spoilsome season, are forthwith drawn into the never-ending cycle of “if I get that toy, I’ll be happy forever.” Adults as well are befuddled by their ravenous desire for alternative (typically “better” to their understanding) circumstances and possesions. Yi-Fu Tuan verbalizes this peculiar trait of human nature: “Human beings have been and continue to be profoundly restless. For one reason or another, they are not content with being where they are. They move, or if they stay in one place, they seek to rearrange that place.”

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After developing a number of Rails 3 apps, I’ve come to build up a list of “prerequisite” gems that I must install before I decide to include anything else.

Without further ado, here are my top 10 must have gems for RESTful, DRY development.

simple_form

Let’s face it: as awesome as Rails is, form building is not exactly its forte. That’s why I recommend simple_form, a gem that makes form partials a breeze to customize, generate, and understand. With support for native I18n, inline validations, nested models, extensive options, and unbeatable customization, simple_form is a serious deal for forms.

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I wrote this essay last year as an ENGL 1102 assignment, and as it seems a waste not to put my old essays to some use, I will be starting a series that pulls from my more interesting assignments. Not too much red ink please, or I may relapse into essay revision stress disorder!

Reading Practices and Their Relationship to Comprehensive Depth

Inevitably, the method or procedure through which reading comprehension is accomplished directly affects its retention and inward understanding. Additionally, depending on the context, the audience may strive for particular excellence in certain aspects while ignoring others. Obviously the purpose of reading will consequently determine the manner in which the composition is approached and noted. Multiple generic instances of this variability present themselves as prime candidates for observation.

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