September 2008

I've created Rails lighthouse ticket #1110 for another bug in the new 2.1.x association preloading code that was causing some has_manys to get loaded with two copies of each record in the collection (and less seriously, double SQL loads of all types of collections). The problem turned out to be triggered by associations that have :includes defined on them themselves when the :includes are also supplied in the find call. My patch is on the ticket. +1s welcome :).

While researching the numbers on the current recession in America I ran into this disturbing Pew Centre report from earlier in the year putting the number of people incarcerated in the United States at the start of the year to more than 2.3 million – over 1% of the total US adult population.

I've created Rails lighthouse ticket #1101 for a blatant 2.1.x bug breaking :including of associations that have :conditions hashes. My patch is on the ticket. Remember to +1 it so it gets merged.

Check out these amazing pictures from Socotra, a small archipelago in the Indian Ocean off Africa. Apparently more than a third of the surveyed plants found there are found nowhere else.

Turns out that Anne Troake's Pretty Big Dig – essentially dancing excavators (the bit where they touch hands and spin is pretty impressive) is just the tip of the iceberg.

Sarah sends this somewhat cute but oddly unsettling cat video:

It's good to be home. Shop-front guy with microphone on Willis St:
“come in and get some great sunglasses and pay bugger all…”

I had a couple of days spare after hanging out in Berlin before I was due to fly home, and I decided to go down to Munich. It's quite different culturally to Berlin which is quite progressive and modern; Munich is much more traditional. But it's home to an excellent museum of technology.

Mog and I were pretty tired after the conference , too many early starts, so we didn't get up to much in the days afterwards; we went to the zoo and the museum with the trains and stuff and hung out.

I do not heart the non-ICE train stuck in front of us for (ETA) 1 hour. Not looking good for making my check-in! :|

I heart Deutsche Bahn's ICE trains. Travel at up to 280km/h, clean and quiet, and not only has power at the tables (they're down at the middle seat posts) – also has T-Mobile Wifi coverage. Working online at >200km/h- trains beat planes :). I do not however feel the need to train-surf them:

They've gone mousse-mad in Berlin at the mo, or at least in Friedrichstrasse – every dessert at the conference venue (mm dessert at lunch, so fat) was a mousse or sponge or fuffy thing, and when we went out for dinner the salad had a parmesan mousse on it. After all the fancy food though, I just wanted cheap ole currywürst.

After Venice I flew straight to Berlin, getting in just in time for the pre-RailsConf meet-up event ‘Bratwurst on Rails’ where I met some of the other conference-goers, and even found a beer I like. The conference itself went well with some good material this year (though it could use more sizzle).

While the most interesting/impressive stuff (churches, palaces, canals) is on Venice Island, the crowding there makes it almost more enjoyable to escape to the other islands and the lagoon itself. I popped by Murano, Burano, and went on a sciencey lagoon tour that filled me in on the processes at work in the lagoon and around the islands.

A surprisingly nice and prompt train took me from Bologna to the main Venice Island in the lagoon, where there's St Mark's basilica, the Doge's palace, and innumerable canals and old paintings.