The short-form week of 19–25 Oct 2009

26 Oct 2009; last modified 13 Mar 2011

The week in review, 140 characters at a time. This week, 64 messages in 57 conversations. (With 2 favorites.)

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 Wednesday at 07:22pm

@robinberjon @shelleypowers that can't roundtrip between XHTML 5 and HTML 5. Maybe not a design goal but can't help but think it should be.—@kurt_cagle

@kurt_cagle It was never possible to roundtrip between all DOMs and XML — nothing changes, people just notice now.—@robinberjon

@kurt_cagle @robinberjon That's already come up, with the RDF/XML included in SVG that then gets copied and pasted into HTML—@shelleypowers

@shelleypowers XML was never composable, and yet we lived. I doubt being a bit less composable will make a huge difference.—@robinberjon

@robinberjon Actually it will. If a person copies/pastes SVG into page, and page throws hundreds of bogus warnings and errs, SVG is out—@shelleypowers

@shelleypowers In the real world that's already the case. You have to remove DOCTYPE, copy internal subset entities, etc. XHTML doesn't help—@robinberjon

@robinberjon That's trivial. You're removing one line that may, or may not, be part of the SVG file. Everything else can copied over as is—@shelleypowers

@shelleypowers And speaking of things that always confuse users, DOCTYPE is a very good candidate.—@robinberjon

@robinberjon But that's not an issue when you're copying SVG and pasting it into HTML—@shelleypowers

@shelleypowers Wrong. You need to move over the internal subset, which tools like Illustrator will almost always create.—@robinberjon

@robinberjon In other words, you have to copy and paste the SVG. But it's not a complex task. Select all, copy, paste.—@shelleypowers

@shelleypowers Not sure what you mean. Typical Illustrator example, how do you cut'n'paste without changes? http://bit.ly/2Wja0—@robinberjon

@robinberjon I don't use Illustrator, and can't read what it does. I use Inkscape, it incorporates namespaced elems that copy/paste—@shelleypowers

@shelleypowers Illustrator outputs SVG, you can read it (see the link). And it's used *a lot* by designers, *far* more than Inkscape.—@robinberjon

@robinberjon But what will end up, realistically, on the web for use in copy and paste? Much Inkscape, very little Illustrator.—@shelleypowers

@shelleypowers Massive amounts of web content are made with Illustrator in the production pipeline. Inkscape is tiny in comparison.—@robinberjon

@robinberjon But none of that ends up on the web. I'm not going to worry about what doesn't end up on the web—@shelleypowers

@robinberjon Puzzling though: I've seen SVG on the web that has Illustrator markup. It's all valid XML, copy and paste no problem—@shelleypowers

@shelleypowers WF XML, yes; copy and paste, not so trivial with an internal subset. It's a well-known XML issue.—@robinberjon

@robinberjon SVG is a part of HTML5. SVG contains, legally, metadata which can have RDF/XML. Legally. HTML has to deal with this.—@shelleypowers

@robinberjon If we look hard enough, we can find things that break. What we need to look at is typical and usual for the web—@shelleypowers

@shelleypowers Precisely. Illustrator is typical. HTML is typical. Inkscape and RDF aren't (no matter whether I'd like them to be or not)—@robinberjon

@robinberjon But Inkscape and RDF are more typical _on the web_ than Illustrator generated SVG files—@shelleypowers

@shelleypowers You have numbers? All SVG projects I've worked on over the past 10y were with Illustrator or hand-made SVG. No Inkscape.—@robinberjon

@robinberjon But were they meant to be uploaded and used, as is, on the web? As SVG?—@shelleypowers

@shelleypowers Yeah, interactive maps, user interfaces, that sort of thing. Real web content and web apps :)—@robinberjon

@robinberjon I don't look at the universe of potential uses. I look at one specific use: the web. Changes everything.—@shelleypowers

@robinberjon Your typical is my exceptional, and vice-versa. The web's a *big* place.—@ndw

@ndw @karlpro I sort of get that the Web is big, but I still think that when a decision has to be made, it should break the smaller part.—@robinberjon

@robinberjon In practice, maybe. In principle, I'm not sure. Your perception of what is smaller and mine may differ. We may both be wrong.—@ndw

@ndw In principle, of course! In this case, I'm reasonably certain that Illustrator has greater reach than Inkscape — despite how cool it is—@robinberjon

@robinberjon Most of the open source and free SVG files about are annotated with CC licenses, which need to be maint with the SVG—@shelleypowers

@robinberjon I think of it this way: we're going to copy paste what already exists as a viable SVG file on the web.—@shelleypowers

In a conversation that started on Monday at 08:05am

Prefer list.isEmpty() to list.size() == 0. It's more readable and much faster for some list implementations, especially lazy lists.—@elharo

@elharo Yep. See also http://twitter.com/michaelhkay/status/4912304289—@ndw

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

Pupils dilating. Close vision failing. #eyedoctor—@ndw

@ndw Oh, the drops? They do make life weird, don't they?—@abcoates

@ndw I am always useless for the rest of the day when they apply those dilating drops. Makes you appreciate cloudy weather, too.—@vojtechtoman

In a conversation that started on Monday at 09:46am

Local big arena's email wants me to see Disney On Ice, the Royal Lipazzaner Stallions, and Metallica. If only they could combine the three.—@bobdc

@bobdc Metallica on Lipazzaner's on ice! Awesome!—@ndw

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

Pupils only as big as saucers now. Can read again, but not comfortably. Headache seems likely to persist. http://flic.kr/p/78PBFW—@ndw

@ndw Reminds me of the seventies...—@timbray

@ndw That's a situation that calls for a midday nap.—@ronhitchens

Monday at 02:40pm

Vote early, vote often! The ballot to make DocBook V5.0 an OASIS Standard is now open: http://norman.walsh.name/2009/10/19/docbook50—@ndw

Monday at 02:43pm

RT @ndw: The ballot to make DocBook V5.0 an OASIS Standard is now open: http://norman.walsh.name/2009/10/19/docbook50 #oasisopen—@fiberartisan

Monday at 02:55pm

@ndw congrads with DocBook v5.0 ! If I was a member I'd vote more often—@DALDEI

Monday at 03:37pm

Now that I'm following @nasa, I know when the shuttle launches are and I want more than ever to see one before they're gone.—@ndw

Monday at 04:08pm

The evidence of a little web searching suggests Lightscribe may not be viable under Ubuntu 9.10 on AMD/64 for a bit. Feh.—@ndw

In a conversation that started on Tuesday at 12:58am

New favorite iPhone app: Simplenote. Syncs to the web. You can bi-direct sync from web a laptop. So my notes are now auto-everywhere!—@hunterhacker

@hunterhacker Perfect. I've been looking for one of those. Thanks!—@ndw

In a conversation that started on Tuesday at 06:39am

Hmph. GNU stat doesn't have a way of reporting the "birth time" of an inode.—@ndw

@ndw I think "birth time" is a FreeBSD-ism (and specifically UFS2 at that).—@ceri

@ceri Interesting. Have I really never noticed in 15 years that file creation time isn't a std Unix FS feature? I suppose that's possible.—@ndw

Tuesday at 09:32am

F*** knowing peace... know science!—@wmperry

In a conversation that started on Tuesday at 03:13pm

Setup SVN repository w/o traditional trunk/tags/branches hierarchy. Now I want to create a tag. F*ck me!—@ndw

@ndw You can also convert your SVN directory into a trunk, with a bit of moving around and renaming.—@abcoates

@ndw You can still move things around if you quiesce the repo.—@bsletten

@ndw /me smacks forehead. Of course I can fix my subversion troubles. Duh!—@ndw

@ndw You can do it, you don't need 'tags', it's just a convention. You can put your tags anywhere.—@abcoates

Tuesday at 03:48pm

@ndw that's precisely why I've given up on using #SVN—@duck1123

In a conversation that started on Tuesday at 05:38pm

XML Calabash now builds with Saxon 9.2 and passes 553 of 573 tests!—@ndw

@ndw The current dev version of #Calumet passes 563, most failures are because of incomplete serialization functionality.—@vojtechtoman

@ndw Cool!—@abcoates

In a conversation that started on Wednesday at 01:55am

Saw signs tonight for the remake of "The Prisoner" w/ Gandalf and Jesus; not high hopes.—@bsletten

@bsletten Yeah. My hopes were higher before I saw the trailers. Darn.—@ndw

In a conversation that started on Wednesday at 04:13pm

Thank you, Firefox, for losing all my tabs on restart. It's not like any of that context was important to me or anything.—@ndw

@ndw, repeat after me: Session Manager...Session Manager :)—@SheltieJim

@SheltieJim Thanks, Jim. I'll give it a try. FF's builtin support *usually* works. Except when it doesn't.—@ndw

Wednesday at 04:14pm

Installed iDVD 08 on top of a clean Snow Leopard install. Absolute and total #FAIL. Even after the delete and reinstall dances suggested.—@ndw

Wednesday at 05:20pm

Bollocks. Upgrade iLife for 9 or just buy Final Cut Express for 99. I want to do neither.—@ndw

Wednesday at 05:22pm

Man forgets to escape $, turns $79 into 9 and $199 into 99. Film at 11.—@ndw

In a conversation that started on Thursday at 06:22am

Am I just grumpy, or is it really the case that every time they change SourceForge, they make it worse? Struggling with file upload.—@michaelhkay

@michaelhkay I don't think you're just grumpy. It's almost unusable now.—@ndw

@michaelhkay No, I completely agree, SourceForge GUI just seems to get worse and worse on a nearly monthly basis—@adamretter

In a conversation that started on Thursday at 07:07am

Arrgh. Spending ages tracking down a bug only for it to be MarkLogic ignoring function calls where an argument is an unexpectedly empty seq.—@JeniT

@JeniT That's why 'declare option xdmp:mapping "false";' is part of my standard module prologue. I think false should be the default, but...—@ndw

@JeniT some people really like that feature. I personally find it very odd.—@migueldemelo

@migueldemelo I can't believe it's conformant.—@JeniT

@JeniT probably isn't, but then again that's why ML provide 1.0-ml and 1.0—@migueldemelo

In a conversation that started on Thursday at 07:27am

A small code change in #Calumet revealed that 20 tests in the #xproc test suite are wrong. Checking in fixes...—@vojtechtoman

@vojtechtoman Really. Which tests? I guess I'll check the SVN logs :-)—@ndw

@ndw They were all error tests, but they had steps with unconnected primary output ports, so there were actually two errors there.—@vojtechtoman

@vojtechtoman Yes, thanks. I took a peek at the SVN log. I'll have to poke about locally and see why I didn't catch those errors.—@ndw

In a conversation that started on Thursday at 07:28am

@simplenoteapp I'm getting "Data error." instead of my notes on the web interface. iPhone interface and API seem to be working.—@ndw

@ndw There were some App Engine hiccups recently. Could you please try again and let us know?—@simplenoteapp

@simplenoteapp No change as of 9:10a EDT. Still "Data error."—@ndw

@ndw Strange, could you please send an email to support@simplenoteapp.com with your account address?—@simplenoteapp

@simplenoteapp Done.—@ndw

In a conversation that started on Thursday at 07:52am

VMware Fusion is $80, but VMware Workstation for Linux is $190. Feh. VirtualBox will support 64 bit hosts eventually, right?—@ndw

@ndw You can use VMware Server, that's free.—@abcoates

@abcoates Uh. Ok. And what do I get for $190 in Workstation that I don't get in Server?—@ndw

@ndw Ability to snapshots. May be better for running video/audio. Nothing I ever needed, have used Server for years now.—@abcoates

@ndw I run VirtualBox on a 64-bit Linux laptop with no problem, but guest OS is 32-bit XP.—@david_megginson

@david_megginson Odd. That's exactly the config I was trying to install. Maybe it's a Ubuntu 9.10 beta issue. Shoulda oughta installed 9.04?—@ndw

@ndw I'm using 9.04 still. deb http://download.virtualbox.org/virtualbox/debian jaunty non-free—@david_megginson

@david_megginson Remind me how to get the public key for that repository?—@ndw

@ndw @david_megginson Nevermind.—@ndw

@ndw VirtualBox already supports 64bit hosts?!?—@adamretter

Thursday at 12:06pm

Oh, for crying out loud! I have to install Adobe Reader to view dental plan summary information because it contains some dumb *ss form? Ugh.—@ndw

Thursday at 12:08pm

No, Adobe Reader, you aren't allowed to install any fscking plugins. Go away.—@ndw

Thursday at 12:24pm

Twitter censorship. Lovely. ♲ @denyreligion #No God #atheism http://bit.ly/27TnGl—@ndw

Thursday at 12:36pm

RT @ndw: Twitter censorship. Lovely. #denyreligion #No God #atheism http://bit.ly/27TnGl—@DALDEI

In a conversation that started on Thursday at 01:04pm

#kvm may work, but it isn't what you'd call high performance, is it? Hours later, Win XP is still installing.—@ndw

@ndw Is that on VirtualBox? XP in VirtualBox was a fast install on my underpowered notebook, FWIW.—@david_megginson

@david_megginson The performance comment? No, that was about KVM. Looks like Guest Additions may be the culprit in VBox. Will reinstall l8r—@ndw

@ndw And it XP starts faster in VirtualBox than it does natively :)—@david_megginson

In a conversation that started on Thursday at 02:46pm

"Spiritual but not religious", nah, that's a lie—@danja

@danja it's an online dating service, I thought lying was mandatory—@ndw

Thursday at 03:16pm

Knocking off early to mow the lawn. Yeah, you heard me. I can accomplish *one* thing today, I'm sure. Just one.—@ndw

Thursday at 08:28pm

Dear #amtrak I declined the past 10 credit card offers, you think I'm going to say yes this time because...why? #pleasestopspammingme—@ndw

Thursday at 08:44pm

You're f*cking kidding, right Apple!? RT @tommorris: Ads inside the OS? That sounds like a grand plan, Apple. http://is.gd/4wF52—@ndw

In a conversation that started on Thursday at 09:17pm

@dajobe, do you think there's any joy with xquery/xslt2, or whatever the fuck @ndw does ...?—@danja

@danja Oy!! Whatever the f... yeah ok, nevermind. Joy in what regard?—@ndw

In a conversation that started on Friday at 06:23am

Adding people to photos hasn't turned up in the Flickr API yet, is that right?—@ndw

@ndw did you see yourself in the bath recently? bet you're the same, tanned arms & legs & a stretch of white blubber in the middle (no offen—@danja

@danja Uh. This is apropos of what? & No comment. :-)—@ndw

@ndw apropos of a night without sleep & a coupla litres rosso—@danja

Friday at 06:28am

sorry @ndw, I should say "tight abs like white blubber"—@danja

In a conversation that started on Friday at 06:39am

http://twitpic.com/mkyp0 - To leave—@ttso

@ttso Nice!—@ndw

@ndw Thanks, glad you liked it!—@ttso

Friday at 01:05pm

In /etc/fstab mounting /dev/md0 on /mnt/raid takes time so following "bind" mounts never happen. How do I fix that?—@ndw

Friday at 01:09pm

There are now 2 music servers in the house, iTunes on Win sees them both, iTunes on Mac sees neither. iTunes, you are, as always, the suck.—@ndw

In a conversation that started on Friday at 04:16pm

"By default, Bash will exit upon reading a single EOF". Why?—@ebruchez

@ebruchez Bash exists upon reading a single EOF from where?—@avernet

@avernet Didn't understand your question: ctrl-d in term does it. Can disable this.—@ebruchez

@ebruchez Isn't it normal for the shell to terminate when it gets a ctrl-d? You are saying you can disable that?—@avernet

@avernet Normal but very annoying. "set -o ignoreeof" disables it.—@ebruchez

@ebruchez Annoying? I use it all the time to close transient shell windows.—@ndw

@ndw Question is one of user interface design: should *default* be to loose information, or rather prompt? Arguing for latter.—@ebruchez

@ebruchez This sounds like an argument from someone who lost some information recently! ;)—@avernet

@ebruchez Yes, maybe the default should be to ask. I wasn't weighing in on that. I use it all the time, that was all I was saying.—@ndw

@avernet On that default CentOS install for sure! And the doc says so.—@ebruchez

Friday at 04:45pm

Exploring the EverNote API; if I might put data in it, I must be able to get it out.—@ndw

In a conversation that started on Friday at 04:49pm

Not, apparently, a RESTful web API. How disappointing. But maybe I'm looking in the wrong place.—@ndw

@ndw have you seen Tomboy's REST API?: http://bit.ly/tomboy-rest-api - I haven't tried it, but looks interesting...—@frumioj

In a conversation that started on Friday at 04:59pm

@xmlgrrl @dret @ndw No one wanted to simplify xpointer for fragment identifier use? FXpointer is slick? http://www.codedread.com/fxpointer/—@joecarmel

@joecarmel Re XPointer prospects: who knows?... (Funny seeing the FXpointer name! Check out our old FIXptr proposal: http://is.gd/4yhZf )—@xmlgrrl

Saturday at 10:39am

Star Cars #oneletteroffmovies—@ndw

In a conversation that started on Saturday at 11:14am

Horizontal, but back on line. 9lb lighter. Just time now I guess. Tks for the good wishes.—@dpawson

@dpawson has missed earlier message about surgery. I hope all went well and you're back to prime quickly.—@shelleypowers

@dpawson Welcome back, Dave! Get well soon!—@ndw

@dpawson best wishes for speedy recovery Dave - perhaps some standards work will be therapeutic ;-)—@al3xbrown

@dpawson glad to hear you're back—@laurendw

@dpawson Welcome back, and get well soon!—@vojtechtoman

In a conversation that started on Saturday at 01:02pm

@GeorgeBina can I tell oXygen not to indent lines and to insert a newline between end and start tags in element-only content?—@ndw

@ndw I just sent you an email trying to show some possibilities also depending whether you want that for pretty-print or during editing.—@georgebina

@georgebina thanks. I'll take a look momentarily.—@ndw

@ndw Have you solved the formatting issue? If not please send over a sample that can be used to reproduce that.—@georgebina

@georgebina No, sorry, George. It's drifted a little further down the stack. I'll get back to it eventually.—@ndw

In a conversation that started on Saturday at 01:14pm

Free WiFi at Borders. That doesn't work. Sucking bits through a 3G straw.—@ndw

@ndw good opportunity to turn on Turbo in the Opera browser. hopefully it is installed already :)—@Rits

Saturday at 01:24pm

♺@denyreligion Happy Atheist Bus Campaign is one year old. http://tinyurl.com/yztx8hf—@ndw

Saturday at 01:47pm

♺@xproc New editor's draft published: versioning redrafted, with-option/with-param relaxed, primary parameter input port rules relaxed.—@ndw

Saturday at 02:23pm

♺@xmlcalabash Wow. It was *remarkably* easy to implement use-when in XML Calabash—@ndw

In a conversation that started on Saturday at 04:58pm

Searching the web for an appropriately small messenger bag in leather or muted colors preferably with a couple of pockets.—@ndw

@ndw http://bit.ly/LPjJX just about fits my macbook; two small zip pockets—@libbymiller

Saturday at 05:04pm

Discovering Múm on #eMusic (via Hampshire Life in local paper)—@ndw

Saturday at 06:02pm

The Inspector Lewis mysteries are every bit as fun as Morse.—@ndw

Saturday at 09:45pm

OS X: Annoying hipster. Windows: rather stupid mid-level executive. GNOME: special-needs teacher. Command line: trusted friend.—@tommorris

In a conversation that started on Sunday at 10:54am

Heaven is Pandora Radio running in the background on my iPhone. :)—@nazgul

@nazgul in the background? I'll bite: how?—@ndw

@ndw Jailbroke w blackra1n (took few tries but worked fine).installed Cydia installer. Installed Backgrounder & Music Controls (and MyFi).—@nazgul