whenever.rb is a nice DSL for configuring cron tasks in ruby ( https://github.com/javan/whenever )

however, it has a major flaw: all the tasks it runs under cron use the same unix priority, and by 'priority' we mean the one that takes yer boxen down

fortunately, this is easy to fix

step one, replace // configure the job templates in your ./config/schedule.rb file to look something like this

# Learn more: http://github.com/javan/whenever

job_type :rake, "cd :path && RAILS_ENV=:environment :environment_variable=:environment nice -n 19 bundle exec rake :task --silent :output"

job_type :runner, "cd :path && nice -n 19 ./bin/rails runner -e :environment ':task' :output"

step two: profit

for those of you that don't know what unix 'nice' is you might want to read http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nice_(Unix). TL;DR: it makes your background processes not eat all teh CPUz.

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