The Robb Report

Who knew?  This morning I was listening to my favorite local radio talent, the Rick Emerson Show, and I learned about St. Genesius, who is the Patron saint of actors, clowns, and lawyers.

I attempted to find out how “lawyers” figures in there, and only found one small mention of the ironic (or not) inclusion, and no conclusive information.

St. Genesius info:

Wikipedia

Saints Preserved

I haven’t written many programming-related posts, but lately I’ve been spending a lot of time working on Green Fabric — a new website built with Ruby on Rails. I’ve been learning Rails as I go, and now I’m starting to feel like I really know what I’m doing. So, with that caveat, here’s my first Rails post:

I really like using proper typographical double quotes.  I use them in several places on Green Fabric, such as this page, which explains OpenID.  Look at the word, register.  Here’s how I do that elegantly.

1. My view template has this code:

Most people don't need to <%= quote_this 'register' %> here

2. My application_helper.rb file has this code:

  def ldquo
    '<span class="serif">&ldquo;</span>'
  end

  def rdquo
    '<span class="serif">&rdquo;</span>'
  end

  def quote_this(html_snippet)
    return ldquo() + html_snippet + rdquo()
  end

(In my css file, I’ve defined a “serif” class to set the font-face.) And that’s it!

With apologies to Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, Edgar Allen Poe, and the OMSI.

Who rides so late through night and wind?
It is the student, tired and thinned.
She brings a key tucked in her arm,
For she was told it works a charm—

To breach a door that’s down below,
Where only mold and spiders grow.
The door! Is it true, is it really there,
A portal to a secret lair?

Deep under Wood Hall’s classroom maze,
Icy darkness met her gaze.
She forged on forward ‘though in doubt,
Would Providence help her get out?

At last—plain view—she swiftly saw, The open door, a gaping maw. What can that mean, who’s gone before? The resident, a thing of yore? She darted through—can’t turn back now, She would unmask the sacred cow: Rumors would soon be deflated, She’d learn how grades are calculated. Down a hall and ‘round a bend, She had not time to apprehend, The spectacle of which she saw, A random towering thing of awe.

‘Twas tall and strange the apparatus,
Curious spheres inside a lattice.
Clink and clank, they tumbled well,
And formed a curve in the shape of a bell.

The grading machine did distract
Her from the creature’s sneak attack—
Oh the basement shook, the rodents fled,
Their fight provoked a mighty dread,

She fathomed then, ‘neath the queer glow,
This was a mistake, ab initio.
And as she fell, the last she saw,
Three A-pluses in Con Law!

Copyright 2008, Robb Shecter, All rights reserved.