iCal on Lion really can’t handle password changes.

Steps to reproduce:
  1. enable 2-factor (SMS) authentication in Gmail, per Make Your Email Hacker Proof.
  2. create an Application-specific password for iCal on my new work laptop
  3. watch iCal totally fail to authenticate using the new password.
Steps to fix, without disabling 2-factor authentication:
  1. despite my reservations, follow this “delete all iCal settings” technique (making backups first!)
  2. start iCal
  3. iCal now thinks there are no calendars
  4. open Mail, Contacts, and Calendars preference pane
  5. specify the Application-specific password
  6. enable the forgotten calendars
  7. refresh in iCal
  8. watch calendar events appear
  9. joy!

Firefox 4.0 = wait 1 year, then start Chrome

From rc3.org, another example of the Firefox team working hard to turn Firefox 4.0 into a Chrome-alike.

I already run Chrome on my Ubuntu box and on my Mac. Really the only things that prevent me from using Chrome full-time are:

  • web app I’m developing at work must look right in Firefox
  • no extension support in Mac Chrome yet

The lack of extension support on Mac is a sticking point for me because I’m a Delicious Bookmarks user. There’s a Delicious Chrome extension that I’ve been using on Linux, works great.

Another point is that Mac Chrome doesn’t have a functional bookmark manager yet. I keep starring things, in the hope that some future version will let me see and manage everything I’ve bookmarked. =)

Settlers woes

Briefly:

  1. Amazon is selling Settlers and Cities and Knights each for $10 less than I just paid for them. (Ahem, there was a “whiskey situation” I was not involved in.) That $20 could have been several delicious burritos!
  2. Mayfair added a sea frame to the latest edition of SoC. While that’s great for setup and new players and all, now I have to buy this damned adapter kit to complete my 5-6 player Settlers universe.

…aaaannd scene.

This is your hard drive on MELT.

Not sure what the guilty party was, but my computer stopped driving my monitor, so after some pointless reboots and USB fiddling I re-seated the video card and tried to turn the computer back on.

Then I saw some cool lights, fans whirring, and OH FUCK my hard drive is on fire.

I smelled some life-deleting chemicals, then, fortunately, the fire put itself out.

Now I have a dead computer (I fear it) with a bunch of suspect parts.

Celebrity sighting: The Wire

Hi everybody!

I totally spotted Kima Greggs Sonja Sohn at a local Valley coffeeshop. I won’t say which one so as not to discourage more celebrity sightings.

Usually I’m oblivious to whatever incredible things are going on around me, but this time, I was the one who noticed, not Alex. Haha!

Fear of a Mac planet

Apple Reports Record Second Quarter Results: $1.05 Billion in Profit

I’m afraid of Apple’s positive inertia.

Roy always said “panic is the best motivation.”

Will Apple do something about:

  • bizarre crashes after I’ve installed a security upgrade, but before I’ve restarted?
  • the occasional failure to properly resize windows after I unplug a secondary display?
  • their refusal to recognize apt-get as the One True Software Delivery Mechanism? =)

Hmm, I guess I’m a Mac fan again. I just can’t resist the pretty pretty fonts.

Java: the phonograph of 64-bit computing

Begin pontification!

There are a few golden rules in high performance server development:

  • use the right algorithm / data structure for the job
  • precompute as much as you can
  • avoid system calls

Usually this boils down to an offline (or high latency) system that sends data to a fast serving tier via message replication or file push.

And basically the only way to read data from a file without syscalls is with mmap.

Too bad Java’s mmap implementation was so half-assed. In Java 1.5 (and possibly 1.6, I’m not sure), you…

The rationale for the non-resolution or won’t-fix status of these bugs is pretty sad/hilarious, or as I prefer, “sadlarious”.

It’s basically “we designed NIO in 1973″ and “obscure security issue means we’ll reclaim that memory when we feel like it”.