ruby 1.8 open-uri timeout example

gistfile1.rb

begin
  timeout(2) do
    # do whatever
    parsed = JSON.parse(open("http://derp.com/derpservice").read)
  end  
end
rescue Timeout::Error
  logger.debug "Timed out."
end

Beware of the problems you can run into with timeout: http://www.mikeperham.com/2015/05/08/timeout-rubys-most-dangerous-api/