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Web Worker Initialization Race

2012 Feb 24, 1:44

Elaborating on a previous brief post on the topic of Web Worker initialization race conditions, there's two important points to avoid a race condition when setting up a Worker:

  1. The parent starts the communication posting to the worker.
  2. The worker sets up its message handler in its first synchronous block of execution.

For example the following has no race becaues the spec guarentees that messages posted to a worker during its first synchronous block of execution will be queued and handled after that block. So the worker gets a chance to setup its onmessage handler. No race:

'parent.js':
var worker = new Worker();
worker.postMessage("initialize");

'worker.js':
onmessage = function(e) {
// ...
}

The following has a race because there's no guarentee that the parent's onmessage handler is setup before the worker executes postMessage. Race (violates 1):

'parent.js':
var worker = new Worker();
worker.onmessage = function(e) {
// ...
};

'worker.js':
postMessage("initialize");

The following has a race because the worker has no onmessage handler set in its first synchronous execution block and so the parent's postMessage may be sent before the worker sets its onmessage handler. Race (violates 2):

'parent.js':
var worker = new Worker();
worker.postMessage("initialize");

'worker.js':
setTimeout(
function() {
onmessage = function(e) {
// ...
}
},
0);
PermalinkCommentstechnical programming worker web-worker html script

Blackmail DRM - Stolen Thoughts

2012 Feb 13, 4:00

Most existing DRM attempts to only allow the user to access the DRM'ed content with particular applications or with particular credentials so that if the file is shared it won't be useful to others. A better solution is to encode any of the user's horrible secrets into unique versions of the DRM'ed content so that the user won't want to share it. Entangle the users and the content provider's secrets together in one document and accordingly their interests. I call this Blackmail DRM. For an implementation it is important to point out that the user's horrible secret doesn't need to be verified as accurate, but merely verified as believable.

Apparently I need to get these blog posts written faster because only recently I read about Social DRM which is a light weight version of my idea but with a misleading name. Instead of horrible secrets, they say they'll use personal information like the user's name in the DRM'ed content. More of my thoughts stolen and before I even had a chance to think of it first!

PermalinkCommentsdrm blackmail blackmail-drm technical humor social-drm

URI Percent Encoding Ignorance Level 0 - Existence

2012 Feb 10, 4:00

As a professional URI aficionado I deal with various levels of ignorance on URI percent-encoding (aka URI encoding, or URL escaping). The basest ignorance is with respect to the mere existence of percent-encoding. Percents in URIs are special: they always represent the start of a percent-encoded octet. That is to say, a percent is always followed by two hex digits that represents a value between 0 and 255 and doesn't show up in a URI otherwise.

The IPv6 textual syntax for scoped addresses uses the '%' to delimit the zone ID from the rest of the address. When it came time to define how to represent scoped IPv6 addresses in URIs there were two camps: Folks who wanted to use the IPv6 format as is in the URI, and those who wanted to encode or replace the '%' with a different character. The resulting thread was more lively than what shows up on the IETF URI discussion mailing list. Ultimately we went with a percent-encoded '%' which means the percent maintains its special status and singular purpose.

PermalinkCommentsencoding uri technical ietf percent-encoding ipv6

DRM is to publishing as science was to Stalinism

2012 Jan 30, 9:11

I hadn’t heard of “Social DRM” (described in this article). Sounds like my blackmail DRM idea.

PermalinkCommentsdrm publishing

Chris Harrison | A New Angle on Cheap LCDs

2011 Oct 25, 5:33
Its not a bug -- its a feature! Very cool unread mail demo.
PermalinkCommentstechnical

"The Canonical Link Relation" - Maile Ohye, Joachim Kupke

2011 Oct 17, 6:03PermalinkCommentstechnical

Three arguments against the singularity - Charlie's Diary

2011 Jul 1, 10:09"I periodically get email from folks who, having read "Accelerando", assume I am some kind of fire-breathing extropian zealot who believes in the imminence of the singularity, the uploading of the libertarians, and the rapture of the nerds. I find this mildly distressing, and so I think it's time to set the record straight and say what I really think. Short version: Santa Claus doesn't exist."PermalinkCommentsscifi singularity charles-stross future fiction

LulzSec manifesto: "We screw each other over for a jolt of satisfaction"

2011 Jun 20, 2:09"Why did the hackers at Lulz Security ("LulzSec") invade Sony Pictures websites, take down cia.gov, and release 60,000+ e-mail addresses and passwords? For the lulz, of course—but what might look lulzy to one person could certainly enrage another. In honor of its 1,000th tweet, the witty wankers of LulzSec released a manifesto of sorts, defending their actions to the angry Internets."PermalinkCommentsinternet security privacy hack technical

RFC 6068 - The 'mailto' URI Scheme

2010 Oct 5, 2:54The mailto URI scheme finally gets its own RFC.PermalinkCommentsmailto uri url mail email technical rfc reference encoding

RFC 5987 - Character Set and Language Encoding for Hypertext Transfer Protocol (HTTP) Header Field Parameters

2010 Aug 13, 11:47Other characters sets for HTTP headers: "By default, message header field parameters in Hypertext Transfer Protocol (HTTP) messages cannot carry characters outside the ISO-8859-1 character set. RFC 2231 defines an encoding mechanism for use in Multipurpose Internet Mail Extensions (MIME) headers. This document specifies an encoding suitable for use in HTTP header fields that is compatible with a profile of the encoding defined in RFC 2231."PermalinkCommentsrfc language localization charset http technical reference http-header

EpicWin app turns real-life to-do lists into a game

2010 Jul 9, 4:59"EpicWin, the app aims to merge your to-do list with an RPG, letting you gain experience points and find rare loot as you do the laundry and catch up on e-mail."PermalinkCommentshumor getting-things-done game iphone phone todo-list rpg video-game video

Google and Outlook Calendar Sync'ing

2010 Jul 8, 9:00
I previously described my desire to hook my Outlook calendar up to my Google calendar. I just found out that I can do this and the reverse as both support publishing calendars to the Internet. The following are how I set this up under Outlook 2010 and Google Calendar:

In Outlook, I go to the calendar view, right click on my calendar and select "Share Publish to Office.com". At this point I can change the permissions to allow anonymous Internet access, and under Detail change between 'Full details' (full calendar), 'Limited details' (subject lines & availability only), 'Availability only'. Availability only is almost just what I want -- I'd also like to include location but availability only is good enough. After hitting OK here I get a 'Do you want to send an invitation...' dialog box. I hit 'Yes' and I can copy the webcals:// URL out of the email window that opens up. Next, to add it to my Google calendar, I open http://www.google.com/calendar/, and under 'Other calendars', I select 'Add Add by URL', paste in that webcals:// URL but change the 'webcals' at the start to 'https'.

In Google Calendar, I can click on my calendar name under 'My calendars', select 'Calendar settings', and on the new page, look under 'Calendar Address', click the ICAL icon, and copy the URL in the new dialog. Now back in Outlook I go to the Calendar view, right click on 'My Calendars', and select 'Add Calendar From Internet...'. In the new dialog that pops up I paste in the URL from Google Calendar.

In this fashion I can share public calendar data between my personal and work calendars.
PermalinkComments

CMAP #9: Ebooks

2010 May 10, 8:43Charles Stross on the intersection of ebooks and the publishing industry. Includes the answer to the misinformed question "why are you charging so much for access to the file your authors emailed you?" Also includes this quote on Cory Doctorow "... Cory is a Special Snowflake with EFF superpowers and New York Times Bestseller mojo which make him immune to the normal laws of man and nature."PermalinkCommentscharles-stross cory-doctorow ebook drm amazon publishing kindle apple book

NOVA | The Pluto Files | Hate Mail from Third Graders (non-Flash) | PBS

2010 Apr 15, 2:52Scans of some of a few instances of hate mail Neil deGrasse Tyson received from elementary school students after demoting Pluto to non-planet status.
PermalinkCommentshate-mail mail humor cute children neil-degrasse-tyson science pluto space planet astronomy

Ajaxian » Drag and drop file uploads in Gmail using just the specs

2010 Apr 15, 1:52Gmail now allows you to drag and drop files to make them attachments. This is HTML5 drag and drop plus file API. AwesomePermalinkCommentshtml html5 gmail google file drag-and-drop technical

webfinger enabled for all gmail accounts with public profiles - WebFinger | Google Groups

2010 Mar 13, 5:27WebFinger is finger but for the Web...PermalinkCommentswebfinger web google finger http metadata url technical

Easy: Connect your RSS or Atom feed to Google Buzz

2010 Mar 12, 1:28

It was relatively easy, although still more difficult than I would have guessed, to hook my bespoke website's Atom feed up to Google Buzz. I already have a Google email account and associated profile so Buzz just showed up in my Gmail interface. Setting it up it offered to connect to my YouTube account or my Google Chat account but I didn't see an option to connect to an arbitrary RSS or Atom feed like I expected.

But of course hooking up an arbitrary Atom or RSS feed is documented. You hook it up in the same manner you claim a website as your own via the Google Profile (for some reason they want to ensure you own the feed connected to your Buzz account). You do this via Google's social graph API which uses XFN or FOAF. I used XFN by simply adding a link to my feed to my Google profile (And be sure to check the 'This is a profile page about me' which ensures that a rel="me" tag is added to the HTML on your profile. This is how XFN works.) And by adding a corresponding link in my feed back to my Google profile page with the following:

atom:link rel="me" href="http://www.google.com/profiles/david.risney"
I used this Google tool to check my XFN connections and when I checked back the next day my feed showed up in Google Buzz's configuration dialog.

So more difficult than I would have expected (more difficult than just an 'Add your feed' button and textbox) but not super difficult. And yet after reading this Buzz from DeWitt Clinton I feel better about opting-in to Google's Social API.

PermalinkCommentstechnical atom google buzz rss social

(Video) Panic Attack! And The Power Of The Web - PSFK

2009 Dec 21, 3:40"“I uploaded (Panic Attack!) on a Thursday and on Monday my inbox was totally full of e-mails from Hollywood studios,” he told the BBC’s Latin American service BBC Mundo. “It was amazing, we were all shocked.”" And I can see why -- its a good video.PermalinkCommentsvideo scifi robot youtube hollywood

24 ways: Rock Solid HTML Emails

2009 Dec 14, 2:25Recommendations on writing HTML for email clients... Ugh.PermalinkCommentsvia:mattb html email css web reference technical

The Kickstarter Blog - The Mysterious Letters Aftermath

2009 Dec 8, 8:45"And then there’s Mysterious Letters, a Kickstarter project from two artists — Michael and Lenka — to mail everyone in the world a personal letter. It began in April with a small village named Cushendall in Northern Ireland, where the letters caused quite a stir"PermalinkCommentshumor art letter mail
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