assert(♥)

Somehow I got onto WebKit nightlies instead of stable Safari 3, and even after uninstalling SIMBL and losing magic Greasemonkey powers, it’s crashy. Just so you know.

I want a TAP parser in Python, so I tried yeanpypa:

from yeanpypa import *

non_zero_number = AnyOf('123456789') + ZeroOrMore(digit)
rest_of_line    = OneOrMore(NoneOf('\n'))

plan = Literal('1..') + non_zero_number

todo_directive = Optional(' ') + rest_of_line
skip_reason    = ZeroOrMore(NoneOf(' ')) + Literal(' ')
               + rest_of_line
skip_directive = Optional(' ') + Literal('# ')
               + Literal('skip') + Optional(skip_reason)
directive      = Optional(' ') + Literal('# ')
               + (skip_directive | todo_directive)

description = Optional(' ') + Optional('- ')
            + ZeroOrMore(NoneOf('#\n'))
ok_not_ok   = Literal('ok') | Literal('not ok')
test_num    = Optional(' ') + non_zero_number

test = ok_not_ok + Optional(test_num)
     + Optional(description) + Optional(directive)

plan_skipped   = Literal('1..0') + skip_directive
plan_first_tap = plan + ZeroOrMore(Literal('\n') + test)
plan_last_tap  = test + ZeroOrMore(Literal('\n') + test)
               + Optional(Literal('\n') + plan)

tap = plan_skipped | plan_first_tap | plan_last_tap

I guess it works, but it feels like writing a regular expression longhand. I would probably also make it more lax if I wrote it as an re, as it would be easier to write \s*-\s* in the description rule, say.

1. The Awesomebar.
2. Firebug.
3. Greasemonkey (and my Noloudtwitter script).

A thing I don’t miss

1. Crashing.

Install Python 2.5 on the new server from source, because dev Django prefers it and the distribution’s package is 2.3. Install dev Django from their subversion. Install PIL and flup, from source, because the docs for the app you’re setting up says it’ll need them. Grab and build pysvn because the app you’re setting up will, in fact, need it. Grab development subversion source, so pysvn will compile against it. Install subversion from source, because the source you built pysvn against is newer than the distribution’s package. Grab and try to build MySQLdb (the Python library), because although this is a private deployment, it is a deployment, so you might as well not use sqlite, plus you found the Django ORM isn’t 100% with sqlite anyway (apparently you can’t re-use a ForeignKey field as a primary key, with sqlite). Find the MySQLdb configurer can’t find mysql_config, so it can’t configure the build. Poke around on your other server, where the app already runs on Django’s runserver (not for deployment), and rediscover you get mysql_config from the distribution’s “testing” MySQL 5 package, not the package provided by your company. So reinstall MySQL from the testing repo package. Install mod_python, because although it’s a private deployment, it’s a deployment, and you guess you shouldn’t use Django’s runserver. Configure the app to run under mod_python. Find mod_python can’t find the django package. Find, oh, yeah, the packaged mod_python will use the packaged Python 2.3, not the manually built 2.5, so it’s looking for packages under /usr/lib/python2.3, not /usr/local/lib/python2.5 where django is actually installed. Try to have mod_python include 2.5’s package paths. Find there are, in fact, weird errors that are doubtless more work to fix than just rebuilding mod_python against Python 2.5.

Have some sleep, and most of a Saturday.

Grab and try to build mod_python from source. Google around to figure out what relocation R_X86_64_32 against 'a local symbol' can not be used when making a shared object; recompile with -fPIC means. Find there’s a mod_wsgi, and decide to use it, since Django apps don’t necessarily use any special mod_python facilities anyway. Find building mod_wsgi has precisely the same error. Find the error means that, indeed, you didn’t build Python 2.5 with shared library support, which both modules need to embed Python in Apache. Rebuild Python 2.5 with the right configure option (--enable-shared). Install mod_wsgi from source. Configure Apache for the Django app with mod_wsgi. Configure the app’s media uploads directory so it’ll quit its whining and run.

See that it runs!

But remember you want to use LDAP auth for this private deployment.

Look for how to set up the Django app’s LDAP backend. Find it’s only documented in the mailing list post by the author of the original patch. Install the python-ldap package, as it was noted as required (of course) in the mailing list post. Set up LDAP in the app semi-right but find you can’t tell, because the app eats all exceptions, the only error it actually shows being “Invalid username or password.” Fiddle with the configuration settings, restarting Apache and trying to sign in again. Fix the app to expose the real error, which is that you thinkoed in the app’s settings_local.py configuration file: you tried to define AUTHENTICATION_BACKENDS as a single-item tuple, but you left out the comma that’s required to turn a string in parentheses into a tuple. Realize also that, huh, the ldap package is missing. Realize that’s because (of course) you installed python-ldap from a package, meaning it’s installed for the packaged Python 2.3, not your manually built Python 2.5. Grab and try to build python-ldap from source. Find it doesn’t build against the openldap-devel package that came already installed on the server; the package is for OpenLDAP 2.2, but the python-ldap builder is hardcoded to look for for OpenLDAP 2.3. Try to update OpenLDAP from your distribution’s testing repo (it has 2.3), but find it “conflicts” with the existing openldap 2.2 packages, and you’d have to reinstall every damn thing if you removed and reinstalled openldap. Look for a download for an older version of python-ldap (the package was 2.0.1 but you were trying to build the new one, 2.3.4). Don’t find one on the official download site. But it is a package, so yum search then Google for a source package. Install the python-ldap 2.0.1 source package you do find. Untar and build and install python-ldap 2.0.1 from source. Confirm in the python shell that the ldap module loads. Try using LDAP to sign into the app again. Find now it outright crashes with glibc malloc protection faults (double free or corruption (out) or free(): invalid pointer). Wonder if all this is really worth it.

Find that, OTOH, these Friday and Saturday nights are somehow still more satisfying than the preceding week.

I was previewing sprites' Modern Gameplay and thought, “Huh, this sounds like Barcelona... oh, wait. This is Barcelona.”

I already have one too many Barcelona albums, but if you don‘t, you might like sprites.

I hacked my LJ style to present short posts (no images, paragraphs, or line breaks) tweetily:



Meanwhile, my activity stream has a feed, so I added the Activity Stream Syndication here on LiveJournal as markpasc_ass. If anyone else would like to play with an activity stream, I could set one up on neologasm.org for you.

An idea didn’t crystallize for me until I read this article on Habbo Hotel that states a lot of Habbo Hotel users spend their time simulating real life activities; that the pre-mature citizens of Habbo Hotel are spending real money creating simulacra of the grown up experiences they expect to have. I saw (and participated in) this same behavior in social MUDs, so it seems natural to me, though I’m surprised the lengths to which Habbos have apparently taken it.

There must be the same impulse in SL, which ends up a source of tension: there are the people who see SL as an interesting software environment, and the people who are playticipating, each enabling the other by providing tools and a market respectively. To the extent these groups are separate and don’t have the other’s interests in mind, their relations are tense.

I’m sure this is not news, but I hadn’t thought of it in quite those terms.

For the potential one remaining person who cares: as foxish pointed out, Snapz Pro X was unlocked... but it seems it was by MacHeist changing the rules to push the $100,000-for-charity goal back onto Pixelmator. So even Pixelmator is sure to be unlocked, at this point.

I did buy. Unfortunately the CoverSutra 2.0 code does not work in 1.2. I may ask if we're upgrading these machines at work to Leopard, hmm.

Not to assume you all care about MacHeist, but two more things.

• The bundle is $50, but in spite of saying I should be working, actually I just spent more than twice that to artificially correct a couple years of dental neglect.
• While doing that, I realized I should probably go ahead and try the apps that have demos, even if taking mental possession means I’m more likely to buy. Unfortunately doing just that is when I tripped headlong over the fact that CoverSutra 2.0 is for Leopard only, which I’m not yet using. Not that I intend never to go to Leopard, but that’s kind of a problem for now, and CoverSutra is one of the apps I actually care about. OTOH I can still take mental possession of 1.2.

The answer to how many people need to buy the MacHeist bundle to “unlock” Snapz Pro X: twice as many. Another 5,000 or so people will have to shell out $50—about $12 of which goes to charity—for a discounted slew of Mac software in the next 12 days for it to be worthwhile for me (and presumably a lot of other people).

Roughly. I’m not sure exactly, because these numbers don’t add up. I expect it’s the discount you get when you buy multiple bundles.

25% of 5,320 bundles at $49 per bundle is $65,170, not the quoted $57,395. The quoted “Raised for Charity” amount is more like 22% of that naïve gross total. The $7,775 disparity would be a combination of the 20% and 33% discounts, and I expect one could come up with convincing proportions of discounts to get that number. I, however, should be working.

I was talking with authenticgeek about it yesterday, but in case you don’t follow such things: there’s another of those dubious sounding Mac software bundles on sale at MacHeist. For $50 you’ll currently get:

• 1password, a Keychain-based password generator and manager with browser integration
• AppZapper, a drag-and-drop program deleter that cleans up your profiles and extra application data (I use AppTrap, which watches for all apps you trash instead of requiring you delete them special)
• Cha-Ching, a personal finance app that unfortunately lacks the web banking integration features of Wesabe or Mint
• CoverSutra, an iTunes interface and cover art viewer that’s a little cooler than Clutter
• TaskPaper, a to-do list app that doesn’t require you to fit your brain into GTD (but is simple enough to have been cloned into a vim configuration and a Textmate bundle)

and some alarm clock and stop motion animation (!) program.

The weird way it works is if 1,500 more people buy the pack, then all 5,000 purchasers will also get CSSEdit. I don’t care much about Pixelmator, as Acorn is more my speed, but the set would be totally worth it once it includes Snapz Pro X. (Jing is good and the screencast.com integration is nice, but it’s requiring me to upgrade to the version with ugly-ass advertising after screencasts in order to use the integration.) Unfortunately we won’t find out how many more people will have to buy the pack to “unlock” Snapz Pro X until after CSSEdit is “unlocked.”

It definitely sounds shady, but while I wouldn’t (and haven’t) bought these programs a la carte, I would probably pick up the set for $50.

Rocks

• The bookmark folder command Open All In Tabs inserts the tabs into the tab set instead of replacing the tabs you have open.
• The “Would you like to remember this password?” prompt is no longer modal; it's one of those drop-down bars, so you can conveniently confirm or dismiss the option while the next page loads.
• One other thing I forgot. But it's totally awesome.
• Oh yeah: The heart unicode character renders correctly, so the title of this journal will stop looking like it says assert ass.

Sucks

• Selecting Copy commands like Copy Link Location doesn't fade the menu out like in Firefox 2, so it feels like the menu disappeared instead of taking your action.
• Firefox uses a lazy copying technique instead of copying content to the clipboard immediately, so if you select and “copy” something from a tab, then close that tab, when you go to paste it you find there is nothing in the paste buffer. This completely breaks my ent shortcut. (They could still use the lazy copying technique if they hooked into object destruction so it does a real copy when the content would become unavailable.)
• Earlier I saw some weirdness where I couldn't ⌘-L into the location bar until I closed a secondary window I had bookmarkleted open.
• The Recently Closed Tabs menu and shortcut weren't working for me earlier, but seem to work now.
• The ironclad rule that you should not blink a cursor at me unless you have the focus continues to be broken as it was in Firefox 2.
• As with all major version betas, you'd have to hack your add-ons to get them to work.

Meh

Hmm: The new about:config interstitial:

57

(Make sure to remove the dating link if you take and post this quiz.)

Forget your stupid theme park! I'm gonna make my own!

With blackjack!

And hookers!

In fact... forget the theme park!

My thoughts about waveshark are heavily influenced by Animal Crossing, and it brings a thought about what the game part could be, as well. AC is a series of collection games, where you try to complete different sets of items through various means (earning bells, interacting with the characters, fishing and bug-hunting, etc). That doesn't really work for waveshark, since that would mean I'd need a creative staff to world-build, and part of what's cool about the system is you can build your own stuff.

So it makes sense (to me) that it would be a creation game. You make things, and are “scored” on measures of how awesome your things are, such as market penetration, money spent, or time spent (yay camping chairs). Or some other measure. It doesn't seem like there's a single good metric for that, which could be a problem. I guess being a creation game would make it kind of like Game Neverending, though its “creation” was more assembling existing parts than actually making something new (from what little I played it).

However, I'm not convinced there has to be a game part. Since partly the intent is to be a social mud from this century, it doesn't need to have a game attached. But maybe it would be a more effective community if there were a game (“something to do and some achievements,” at least).

I understand there's a lot of wankery on precisely this topic that I could read on the internet.

More waveshark notes for your not-perusal.

( MOAR )

Seems like a decent vw system, but still no grasp of what would make it a game.

Like I said, I've been thinking about waveshark. Against protocat's counsel I keep thinking about implementation instead of design, mostly 'cause I think I understand what I want enough that I'll know it when I see it. I spent the whole train ride last night making notes about it. I offer them here with no further comment.

( train-worsened handwriting )