set the timeout for this specific socket

        :param timeout:
            the number of seconds the socket's blocking operations should block
            before raising a ``socket.timeout``
        :type timeout: float or None

def settimeout(self, timeout):
        """set the timeout for this specific socket

        :param timeout:
            the number of seconds the socket's blocking operations should block
            before raising a ``socket.timeout``
        :type timeout: float or None
        """
        if timeout is not None:
            timeout = float(timeout)
        self._timeout = timeout