Don’t do this:
if starts_at < starts_at.at_beginning_of_day + 6.hours # do something end
do this:
if starts_at.hour < 6 # do something easier to understand end
The daily WTF
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Author Archives: joost
Twelve minutes of your time
Please spend twelve minutes of your time and watch this video. It is a very important video to watch, certainly one of the most significant videos of this decade, maybe further back than that. It explains a new proposed law in the US called SOPA and it explains very, very well why technology people and companies are opposed to this law.
Using a bit field and scopes like a boss
I’m a big fan of FlagShihTzu. It allows me to combine a number of boolean attributes into one database column, saving a number of columns, indexes and a whole load of complexity. Today I even solved how to utilize the flags from a related model inside a scope. Yes, that feels pretty good.
Z@ppelin iPad app’s massive success
I’ve been lucky enough to to be involved in the Z@ppelin iPad app as the back-end programmer. The app has seen tremendous success and is one of the most popular (if not the most popular) apps from the Dutch public broadcasters.
Unlocking education, for growth without limits
Recently a new movement has sprang up in the Netherlands pushing education towards Open Source. In education, proprietary software is the norm. I think that’s bad since this locks children into using a particular vendor’s software basically for ever. Unlocking Education aims to change this and I fully support their work.
Relaunched: GO Magazine
I must be getting old and nostalgic. The past weeks I have been relaunching projects from my past, and GO Magazine is the first one to come online. Truth be told I am quite pleased with it.
GO Magazine
Featured
I ran this magazine about electronic music from 2002 to 2009 and had tons of fun writing for it, together with dozens of others. It had been neglected for a while, but the stuff we wrote is just too precious. I relaunched the site in Rails 3.1 making full use of the new asset pipeline.
DigiNotar’s criminal negligence
You might have heard about DigiNotar, a Dutch company (owned by Vasco Data Security) that sold security (SSL) certificates used on the internet. They were hacked in a big way. They were so hacked, that all their certificates are now declared un-safe everywhere in the world.
Panda Maas
Featured
Developed the back end of this Flash site aimed at children. Panda Maas is the children’s mascot of Maasstad Ziekenhuis in Rotterdam. He lives in this website, where you can meet the doctors, ask questions, hear jokes, download drawings and wander through the hospital. The entire website is Rails 3 on SQLite with a great deal of cache optimizations. Continue reading
Radio 6
Featured
In 2009 I developed several plugins for Radio 6, the national music station for Soul and Jazz. The plugins showed the Electronic Programme Guide and let visitors browse past broadcasts and listen to the streams. In 2010 the entire website was restyled and rebuilt from scratch by me in WPMU (WordPress Multi-User) I continue maintenance of the website and add new features every month, it’s recently been upgraded to WordPress 3.2. Continue reading