first.rb

#!/usr/bin/env ruby

require 'open-uri'
require 'timeout'

class Future < BasicObject
  def initialize(callable)
    @thread ||= ::Thread.new { callable.call }
  end

  def value
    @thread.value
  end

  def ready?
    @thread.status === false
  end

  def dead?
    !@thread.alive?
  end

  def method_missing(method, *args)
    value.send(method, *args)
  end

  def respond_to_missing?(method, include_private = false)
    value.respond_to?(method, include_private)
  end
end

module Kernel
  def future(&block)
    Future.new(block)
  end
end

a = future { open("http://www.google.com") }
b = future { open("http://www.bing.com") }
c = future { throw :rubbish }

futures = [a, b, c].cycle

puts "start"

result = begin
  Timeout.timeout(5) { futures.detect(&:ready?) }
rescue Timeout::Error
  future.detect(&:dead?)
end
p result.readlines.grep(/title/).first.match(/\<title\>(?<title>[^\>]+)\<\/title\>/)[:title]