This post is as much for my reference as it is frustrated folks trying to find non-1.9 versions for old Rails apps.
Ruby 1.8.6 p399: ftp://ftp.ruby-lang.org/pub/ruby/1.8/ruby-1.8.6-p399.tar.gz (and in zip and bz2)
Ruby 1.8.7 p249: ftp://ftp.ruby-lang.org/pub/ruby/1.8/ruby-1.8.7-p249.tar.gz (and in zip and bz2)
And of course, browse the entire FTP archive for everything going back to 1.8.0.
There was a day, once upon a time, when 4 megabytes or RAM was enough to get by, and 8 megabytes made Wolfenstein 3d just scream.
Now I max out 4 gigabytes and dream of 8. Same story, different order of magnitude.
He’s just too ridiculous at times.
One year ago I was alone, saddled with bags, inside Nairobi’s Jomo Kenyetta airport, watching the last of the travelers filter out as the airport closed for the night. I had just missed my connection to Mombasa, where I was supposed to meet my friend Mary. She wasn’t answering her cell phone. As the luggage carousel sputtered to a halt, the touts and taxi drivers sprung on me like jackals on a carcass. No, I didn’t need a safari. No, I don’t want to ride an elephant. Just get me to a hotel, please, somewhere I can sleep. I was wrecked after ~20 hours of travel, and I (stupidly) hadn’t planned for the occasion in which I missed my connection. The last flight out.
I zeroed in on my guy, one of the better dressed of the lot. He explained that he ran a tour company, and that he could show me some rooms. Wouldn’t I look at some pamphlets in his office? Dubious, and only marginally reassured by the fact that his office was in the terminal itself, I followed. I have a place, my friend told me to go there, I said, can you just help me get there? No, he said, that is too far and they have no room. Please, look at these nice places. Very nice, and not too much. This one, I said, looks fine. How much? Two hundred dollars, that’s a good price (no, it’s not). Somehow I got him to go for half of that and pick me up in the morning. The room was dirtier than a dorm room, and about the same size. Whatever, there was a bed with a net on it. And a prayer rug, just in case.
That’s how I started a five week trip to Tanzania as part of IBM’s Corporate Service Corps program, a trip that a year later I still think of often, if not daily. It was an incredible experience, and I’m incredibly grateful that I had a chance to participate. I long to go back to Tanzania, who knows what the future holds.
Photos:
Melissa this past week started an awesome blog and an Etsy shop. You should totally check them out, subscribe to her updates, buy nifty knit stuff, and generally support her quest to out-nerd me.
So, this happened today:
Every once in a while, despite your grime, your gang graffiti on every wall, your drunks pissing in alleys, and your abject antipathy to shoveling snow or even putting your trash in actual trash bins, you manage to be quite nice. Thanks for the sunset this evening.
Since the announcement a few hours ago:
Rufus has been helping out around the home office: providing moral support, slobbering on pant legs, and conducting some thought-leadership workshops (read: napping for hours on end). He’s a real team player.
I’m amazed at what people find in my work, and I don’t like to limit what you see with a title. For me titles are very difficult, and I don’t usually even think in terms of a theme when I’m creating a sculpture. Once it’s finished I’ll come up with a title, but one person might see flowers, another something from the sea or something from a dream. Bellagio was inspired by the hotel on Lake Como, and I wanted to use the lake in the title – it’s so romantic. I used the word fiori (flowers), but everybody sees something different.