The short-form week of 13–19 Apr 2009

20 Apr 2009; last modified 13 Mar 2011

The week in review, 140 characters at a time. This week, 66 messages in 57 conversations.

This document was created automatically from my archive of my Twitter stream. Due to limitations in the Twitter API and occasional glitches in my archiving system, it may not be 100% complete.

In a conversation that started on Monday at 04:36am

55% of the UK believe in heaven http://tinyurl.com/cgqd3vv. However only 5% of the UK believe in surveys conducted by religious think tanks—@tug

@tug Is it just me, or is the fact that the "believe in heaven" story comes with a picture of a tarot reading just too funny.—@ndw

Monday at 11:27am

‚ô∫@peteaven Vintage Dharma Initiative ads. Very clever.—@ndw

Monday at 11:31am

@abcoates Unicode has been around for twenty something years. Get with the program, people.—@ndw

In a conversation that started on Tuesday at 07:38am

Fighting with spurious 's in the output from my MIME multipart parser—@ndw

@ndw Funny, I think #twhirl displayed 's incorrectly in it's pop-up, but correctly in the main stream window—@shanecurcuru

@shanecurcuru My IM client that received the reply back from identi.ca dropped it completely, but I haven't the time to investigate.—@ndw

@ndw Lesson to world: always sanitize inputs. You never know what someone else will think that punctuation means otherwise.—@shanecurcuru

@shanecurcuru Alternative lesson. Programmers are lazy and won't get anything out-of-the-ordinary right without proper resting.—@ndw

In a conversation that started on Tuesday at 08:56am

New blog entry on utility I wrote to wrap shortened URLs with <a> elements storing actual link destinations: http://is.gd/smln—@bobdc

@bobdc LOL. I swear I tweeted about storing the long versions before I read your blog. Seconds before, I admit, but before, I swear.—@ndw

Tuesday at 08:58am

Hmm. The commercials on Pandora Radio have started to become more frequent. Maybe it's time I gave them money to stop.—@ndw

Tuesday at 08:59am

Short URLs have value in SMS or twitter, but surely the web archives of those things could store the expanded URIs, no?—@ndw

In a conversation that started on Tuesday at 09:57am

Ooh, new TripIt app for the iPhone...—@xmlgrrl

@xmlgrrl I actually bought FlightTrack which integrates with TripIt and provides live flight updates and maps.—@ndw

Tuesday at 12:15pm

AT&T on-hold advertising tries to persuade me that I need an att.net email address. That'd be fail, folks.—@ndw

Tuesday at 01:38pm

Windows Vista Backup and Restore Center takes a drive letter, not a folder as a destination. Is it going to trash the disk?—@ndw

Tuesday at 01:45pm

Bah, apparently it's notion of file selection is crap anyway—@ndw

In a conversation that started on Tuesday at 02:41pm

Are 'implementation dependent' parts of technical specifications primarily political, philosophical, technical ?—@rajmohan

@rajmohan Some of each. Depends on the spec and the feature.—@ndw

Tuesday at 03:05pm

Settled on SyncToy instead of Windows Vista Backup and Restore.—@ndw

In a conversation that started on Tuesday at 03:27pm

Unbelievable thievery: Goldman Sachs decides to not count huge Dec 08 losses, and then gets free $ from gov and voila, now makes money!—@DaveO

@DaveO And here I thought Thievery Corporation was a band!—@ndw

In a conversation that started on Wednesday at 02:10am

@pandora_radio I'm not able to find Bear McCreary on your artist list to create a station. Can Pandora add his music?—@allen099

@allen099 If you follow me back, I can direct message you answers to your questions. Or, you can email me: Lucia@pandora.com. Thanks!—@pandora_radio

@pandora_radio I think it's odd that I can't delete a station from either my profile page or from that station's page.—@ndw

Wednesday at 07:02am

Grumble. Mac crashed. Boot disk needs repair. My office is guest room. Guest room is occupied. How long can I ignore disk errors?—@ndw

Wednesday at 07:02am

The missing point being: Leopard boot CD is in office.—@ndw

Wednesday at 07:56am

@marjoleink Yes, I have backups. But I really hope it doesn't come to that.—@ndw

In a conversation that started on Wednesday at 10:40am

oXygen 10.2 is available: http://www.oxygenxml.com—@georgebina

@georgebina Congrats George!—@ndw

In a conversation that started on Wednesday at 11:27am

"Estimated time" is such a worthless lie in Disk Utility that it's hard not to imagine it's an intentional, cruel joke—@ndw

@ndw "Cruel joke" seems to me the code name for the making of that entire family of OSes.—@efliski

@efliski Oh, I'm grown mostly content, so I wouldn't go that far. But 2 min, no 4 hours, no 1:26, no 4 min, no...is less honest than no clue—@ndw

Wednesday at 11:55am

RT @bsletten Death and taxes, where your (US) money goes: http://img297.imageshack.us/img297/5927/wallstatsdatlarge.jpg—@ndw

In a conversation that started on Wednesday at 12:29pm

TunkRank puts @dtunkelang in the 100th percentile of influential Twitterers! How influential are you? http://bit.ly/MbETn --w00t!—@dtunkelang

@dtunkelang Which end is up? Are the most influential in the 1st or 100th percentile?—@ndw

In a conversation that started on Wednesday at 12:49pm

this makes total sense right?: let $AC := (fn:string-to-codepoints($letter) - 64) let $NAC := (($AC[1] * 26) + $AC[2]) return $NAC—@peteaven

@peteaven Hard to say, what's it supposed to do, besides the obvious?—@ndw

@peteaven In that case, I think the code you posted only works for columns whose labels are exactly two letters long.—@ndw

Wednesday at 01:23pm

For the record, I'm happy to pay taxes because I expect services from my government. Plus, I got a refund this year :-P—@ndw

Wednesday at 01:26pm

about:plugins says 'Shockwave Flash 10.0 r22', Amazon says 'to listen, install Flash Player 8.0.0.0 or higher'. #FAIL—@ndw

Wednesday at 01:28pm

Aw, fek. It works in Safari. Firefox #FAIL?—@ndw

Wednesday at 02:21pm

Inserting a page break in a table (1) introduces a blank line above the table at the top of the page and (2) creates a new table? #FAIL—@ndw

In a conversation that started on Thursday at 03:18am

@cutlass: It's like default method arguments in some programming languages: no input binding provided -> fallback to default (if available)—@vojtechtoman

@vojtechtoman I understand the concept and like it, but I think its another hidden 'gotcha' for end users ... just noting for the FAQ—@cutlass

@cutlass What's the gotcha for the FAQ? Getting the FAQ updated is on my list. Not near the top today, alas, but on the list.—@ndw

In a conversation that started on Thursday at 04:45am

searching for http://nwalsh.com/xslt/ext/com.nwalsh.saxon.Tablee. Has someone seen it anywhere?—@HudRom

@HudRom In the DocBook projects SVN at sf.net, /xsl-saxon/...—@ndw

Thursday at 06:11am

Ack! Found messages in my outgoing mail queue that were *days* old. Must check that more often!—@ndw

In a conversation that started on Thursday at 06:26am

Adding Infected Mushroom into my regular @pandora_radio mix has made for a ... different listening experience.—@ndw

@ndw Infected Mushroom for the win! :-) Which tune is your favorite?—@asbjornu

@asbjornu Not sure. Got the band from a tweet weeks ago, perhaps one of yours. Good coding music. I let @pandora_radio play it for me.—@ndw

Thursday at 06:52am

Track work continues. My train is a bus from Hartford to New Haven. TANSTAAFL. The train will be faster when the work is finished. In May.—@ndw

Thursday at 07:04am

Trains: mostly comfortable. Planes: mostly cramped. Buses: %$&@ me! Can't I have enough space to get my kneecaps out of my mouth!? kthxbai—@ndw

In a conversation that started on Thursday at 08:49am

com.nwalsh.saxon.Table.convertLength(java.lang.String)}: Exception in extension function java.lang.ArrayIndexOutOfBoundsException: 0—@HudRom

@HudRom Well crud! If you've got a small test case, send it my way and I'll try to take a look. No promises though...—@ndw

Thursday at 08:53am

@HudRom I've got lots to do before the Mark Logic Users Conf. in May. To which you're all cordially invited, btw: http://tinyurl.com/ajc7ms—@ndw

In a conversation that started on Thursday at 02:38pm

Path train arr 33st at 3:30p, Amtrak dep NYP at 3:30p. Man, am I ever glad it was delayed a few minutes. Oh, and I can haz shape back plz?—@ndw

@ndw did a weekly commute between RI and NYC for about a year and I found that Amtrak trains are always delayed and could bet on it—@cutlass

@cutlass Yeah, the 3:30p often departs a few minutes late, but you know what happens if you rely on that fact...—@ndw

In a conversation that started on Thursday at 02:45pm

Anybody got recommendations for casual iPhone games? Had a lot of fun with Drop7, but now I'm dreaming in it, which doesn't seem healthy.—@edd

@edd FlightControl, Aurora Feint II, Chess With Friends (and Drop7) are my current favorites—@ndw

In a conversation that started on Thursday at 04:04pm

Stamford, CT. Next stop Nooo Yawk! :-) http://tr.im/iZJc—@davewiner

@davewiner I'm going the other way, I'll wave as you pass! :-)—@ndw

@davewiner In fact, I think you must have been on the last train that rattled by, Stamford is now behind me. Homeward bound.—@ndw

In a conversation that started on Thursday at 04:33pm

30 ways to lose a job on Twitter: http://tinyurl.com/cr4wew—@charltonb

@charltonb People really need to be told these things? Really? /me rolls eyes—@ndw

In a conversation that started on Thursday at 05:16pm

Pondering "Pride and Prejudice and Zombies: The Classic Regency Romance-Now with Ultraviolent Zombie Mayhem" as an iPhone kindle app test—@ndw

@ndw FWIW, my spouse is loving the (tree-pulp version of) Pride and Prejudice and Zombies #books—@david_megginson

@david_megginson Mostly I'm curious about the iPhone Kindle app. Got a few preview pages, seems like maybe it would be good.—@ndw

In a conversation that started on Thursday at 05:50pm

Momentarily excited about PhoneGap, but not willing to shell out 9 for an iPhone SDK. Rats.—@ndw

@ndw phonegap is really awesome for doing HTML(5 even), Javascript for cross platform mobile. it's worth $99 for the SDK as well.—@DaveO

@DaveO Maybe. Spending $99 for an SDK for a closed platform so I can use an open source framework feels like a step backwards though.—@ndw

Thursday at 05:51pm

$99 that is—@ndw

Thursday at 06:12pm

Oh spinning beachball, how I hate thee. / Your taste I do find / like a great glass of wee / the less I might mind.—@ndw

In a conversation that started on Thursday at 06:15pm

@ndw That's right up there with "Ode to a small green lump of putty that I found under my armpit" etc. etc.—@abcoates

@abcoates Vogon poetry. I haz it.—@ndw

In a conversation that started on Thursday at 06:29pm

@ndw It's more like a one-time $99 fee to be able to install your own apps on your own phone.—@robc2

@robc2 Yeah, that's so much better—@ndw

Thursday at 08:22pm

Modern Toss is ... different—@ndw

In a conversation that started on Thursday at 08:25pm

@ndw still want to play with PhoneGap? I might be able to arrange something ...—@perigrin

@perigrin Yes, definitely interested, thanks!—@ndw

In a conversation that started on Friday at 03:58am

@ndw The SDK always used to be free; are you sure they started charging?—@ceri

@ceri I'm sure the web page gave me that impression...—@ndw

Friday at 10:54am

‚ô∫@ronkjeffries [via Chris Locke] exceptional Wolf and Pig stop motion video http://tinyurl.com/cpsmmc—@ndw

In a conversation that started on Friday at 03:19pm

Is there a ready-made DocBook project template that builds with ant, produces a PDF and just works I can download? Tried a few but no luck.—@robc2

@robc2 You know, that would be a good thing to build.—@ndw

Friday at 04:08pm

@larsga I must learn to delete more aggressively. Have gobs of, well, crap on file.—@ndw

Friday at 04:09pm

@abcoates I'm quite happy when I think my good/bad ratio is up to around 1/300—@ndw

Friday at 04:11pm

@richardhamilton I don't use DITA, I use DocBook. Oops. Did I say that out loud?—@ndw

In a conversation that started on Saturday at 07:36am

@david_megginson That's also why I use VMware, so I can just copy over the virtual disk files and not have to migrate apps and settings.—@abcoates

@abcoates Tempted by VMware, to avoid having to reboot when I need to use MS Word (rather than OOffice).—@david_megginson

@david_megginson With enough memory, VMWare is remarkably good. Without, not so much. 4G is enough, 1G isn't. Don't know about in between—@ndw

In a conversation that started on Saturday at 03:44pm

Having lunch at the Twin Peaks diner where they still serve cherry pie and "damn fine coffee". Seriously.—@geoffarnold

@geoffarnold Very cool. Watch out for Bob.—@ndw

Saturday at 03:45pm

TomTom GPS was very disappointing, trying Garmin today—@ndw

Sunday at 08:14am

@umityalcinalp What is this "too much XML" of which you speak?—@ndw