The short-form week of 26 Oct–1 Nov 2009

02 Nov 2009; last modified 13 Mar 2011

The week in review, 140 characters at a time. This week, 60 messages in 60 conversations. (With 3 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 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 Monday at 03:36am

One of the (thankfully) rare days where I get the 5:45a train to NYC and the 5:40p train home. #longday—@ndw

@ndw how long's the trip?—@al3xbrown

@al3xbrown just for the day. The 17ish hour day door-to-door—@ndw

Monday at 04:39am

Please open the cafe car. Pretty please. #want^h^h^h^hneedcoffee—@ndw

Monday at 05:24am

I'm really enjoying the CameraBag app. Perhaps too much. http://tinyurl.com/yzzfsnt—@ndw

Monday at 05:33am

I think the inconsistent fwd/bck buttons in the Geocities #xkcd redesign is a touch of genius.—@ndw

Monday at 07:03am

SOA manifesto - if there's one thing worse than PR people attempting tech, its tech people attempting PR—@al3xbrown

Monday at 07:46am

Helping someone on IRC with some DTD syntax issues. internal subset, external subset, document content, entity declarations, % and &, oh my!—@ndw

In a conversation that started on Monday at 05:25pm

♺@docbook DocBook V5.0 has enough votes to become an OASIS Standard!—@ndw

@ndw Congratulations, well done!—@abcoates

In a conversation that started on Monday at 05:30pm

Being annoyed by noisy wankers on the train.—@ndw

@ndw settle a bet. To go docbook to pdf, FO or LaTex?—@bphogan

@bphogan Depends. The free/OS FO processors have never matured as much as one would like. If commercial is an option, FO, if not...—@ndw

@ndw thanks for your input :)—@bphogan

Monday at 05:31pm

RT @ndw: ♺@docbook DocBook V5.0 has enough votes to become an OASIS Standard! http://bit.ly/1iOLJi—@abcoates

In a conversation that started on Monday at 05:35pm

They made XML with pointy brackets so they'd stick in your throat as they went down—@edd

@edd One word: Lubricant!—@timbray

@edd Nonsense. We'd have put them the other way round if that was our plan. >swallow this<—@ndw

@ndw or }this{, @edd—@abdelazer

Monday at 05:46pm

Rebuilding DocBook: TDG for DocBook V5.0 with "compact" synopses for possible use in the print version.—@ndw

Monday at 06:17pm

RT @ndw: ♺@docbook DocBook V5.0 has enough votes to become an OASIS Standard! <- and that's before tomorrow's reminder notice! #oasisopen—@fiberartisan

In a conversation that started on Monday at 06:50pm

Is use heavy in certain industries? RT @fiberartisan @ndw @docbook DocBook V5.0 has enough votes to become an OASIS Standard!—@cherimullins

@cherimullins Technical documentation mostly, though not exclusively. Particular computer hardware and software documentation.—@ndw

Monday at 08:16pm

Left home in the dark. Almost home now in the dark. But almost home!—@ndw

In a conversation that started on Tuesday at 03:46am

past me has punished current me by booking a 5:25 AM flight—@walmsleyph

@walmsleyph Past me is such a callous jerk.—@ndw

@ndw @walmsleyph Sounds like you mustboth be mellowing & improving with age. (I make no such claims for myself)—@abcoates

@abcoates Oh, I make no such claims either. Future me is a complete freaking lunatic, I'm sure.—@ndw

@walmsleyph Can you remember now what you were punishing yourself for?—@abcoates

In a conversation that started on Tuesday at 01:28pm

Hang this up in your time machine: http://bit.ly/11BDFj (From http://bit.ly/138ZrRR)—@hunterhacker

@hunterhacker Nice!—@ndw

Tuesday at 02:58pm

@abcoates @ndw mellowing - probably. improving - questionable. becoming kinder to myself re travel - starting now.—@walmsleyph

In a conversation that started on Tuesday at 04:53pm

HTML5 enters Last Call: http://bit.ly/BJUOh—@diveintomark

@diveintomark Do we all get ponies?—@timbray

@timbray no, we get <pony>s. duh.—@diveintomark

@diveintomark I'd laugh, if it wasn't so sad. What a fucking crock.—@ndw

@ndw I always knew you were a man of good sense—@shelleypowers

@ndw We tried it your way. Didn't work out. Bygones.—@diveintomark

@diveintomark Did you? I must not have been paying attention. Well, good luck.—@ndw

Tuesday at 06:12pm

Yes, @mmealling was right. Evernote+scanning is pretty spiffy. And the Python API means I can back it up. Evernote FTW?—@ndw

In a conversation that started on Wednesday at 08:41am

Laptop sounds like a jet engine taking off. I really do need to get this looked at. But not before #TPAC09 I guess.—@ndw

@ndw If the fan is working that hard, put some holes in the bottom of the case & your laptop will float on a cushion of air.—@abcoates

@abcoates I don't know about floating on air, but my custom aluminum cooling pad is plenty warm. There's definitely something wrong though.—@ndw

@abcoates And the noise is starting to make my teeth ache—@ndw

@ndw Then you should definitely look into that before TPAC :)—@vojtechtoman

In a conversation that started on Wednesday at 10:43am

Only 10% of the people who take this test get all 12 answers right? #education #fail http://bit.ly/3tEAtJ—@ndw

@ndw I got all 12! I'm a genius!! Where's my MacArthur award?—@dcm

@ndw must be a 10%er like me; hard to believe that more people got fewer than half of the questions right!—@SheltieJim

@ndw Those questions were so basic I think you would know the answers before primary school! http://twitpic.com/n9ues—@ebruchez

Wednesday at 10:47am

WTH? only 10% got all 12 simple science q's right? #education #fail http://bit.ly/3tEAtJ (via @ndw)—@benosteen

In a conversation that started on Wednesday at 12:22pm

RT @ndw: Only 10% of the people who take this test get all 12 answers right? #education #fail http://bit.ly/3tEAtJ—@DALDEI

@DALDEI Not an impressive piece of science, since they've decided all respondents are American without actually asking. http://bit.ly/3tEAtJ—@michaelhkay

In a conversation that started on Wednesday at 01:20pm

If I want to reinstall Ubuntu w/o losing my software RAID config, I wonder what I need to save and how careful I need to be.—@ndw

@ndw Normally, Ubuntu is pretty careful about preserving any config files you've changed, but maybe back up /etc to be safe.—@david_megginson

Wednesday at 01:51pm

11 on 12 ..laser.. RT @ndw: Only 10% of the people who take this test get all 12 answers right? #education #fail http://bit.ly/3tEAtJ—@innovimax

Wednesday at 01:56pm

I'm in 10% ;-) RT @ndw: Only 10% of the people who take this test get all 12 answers right? #education #fail http://bit.ly/3tEAtJ—@jirkakosek

Wednesday at 02:37pm

♺@nickbilton : If Net Neutrality disappears, this is what the web will look like: http://j.mp/2UYL2H—@ndw

Wednesday at 02:54pm

Internet in five, ten years? RT @ndw: ♺@nickbilton : If Net Neutrality disappears, this is what the web will look like: http://j.mp/2UYL2H—@jirkakosek

Wednesday at 03:00pm

♺@feliciaday RT: @lilithsaintcrow Science Geeks - sliding scale model of coffee bean to carbon atom http://tinyurl.com/mac6zv—@ndw

Wednesday at 04:01pm

I live life fully saturated. Playing with Evernote backup and DB TDG last night means I didn't work on XML Calabash or...—@ndw

Wednesday at 04:05pm

...and tinkering with my NYMUG pres means I didn't tinker with my Digital Publ. Summit pres. Slow the rot. of the earth by 50%? kthxbai.—@ndw

Wednesday at 05:03pm

♺@nickbilton : If Net Neutrality disappears, this is what the web will look like: http://j.mp/2UYL2H (via @ndw)—@Peropaal

Thursday at 07:20am

Now playing: Been Caught Stealing by Jane's Addiction. Now running around barking madly: our dogs.—@ndw

Thursday at 12:19pm

Hmm. Installed CentOS 5 on VMWare Fusion with the quick, guided install. User account not in /etc/sudoers. The root password is, what again?—@ndw

In a conversation that started on Thursday at 12:35pm

I love XMLSpy - give a manager a copy and two years later they'll need a whole boat-load of consultancy :-)—@al3xbrown

@al3xbrown RT I love XMLSpy - give a manager a copy and two years later they'll need a whole boat-load of consultancy :-)—@fgeorges

@al3xbrown Ha!—@ndw

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

@ndw - let me know how the virtualization goes. I tried getting Sun VirtualBox and VMM. I got VB working but had net problems.—@harveybetty

@harveybetty I have VMware Fusion too, and happy with it. I struggled with Virtual Box one year ago, but wasn't able to run it; dunno now.—@fgeorges

@harveybetty I've been using VMWare Fusion for a while now. VBox worked fine too, but since I'd already bought a license for VMWare...—@ndw

Thursday at 01:21pm

Firefox 3.5.x has builtin support for the geolocation API. That sure confused me for a while.—@ndw

In a conversation that started on Thursday at 01:45pm

Interesting, I seem to have lost Twitter Lists.—@shelleypowers

@shelleypowers and now they're back...—@frumioj

@frumioj @shellypowers At least you *had* lists. Sniff. Sniff.—@ndw

@frumioj Not for me. Good thing Twitter is rolling this out in stages.—@shelleypowers

@shelleypowers oh, how weird - me too!—@frumioj

@frumioj @shelleypowers I appear to still have Twitter clients.—@abcoates

@abcoates Good thing you only have to worry about 140 chars. Imagine what would happen if you had, say, 280?—@shelleypowers

Thursday at 02:23pm

omg! I read that not changing out of pyjamas when working from home is a prime indicator of failure. So I now have to sleep in my clothes.—@grorg

Thursday at 03:05pm

Geocoded 600 places with <gx:lat>{$long}</gx:lat><gx:long>{$long}</gx:long>. Yay me. Not.—@ndw

In a conversation that started on Thursday at 03:10pm

Now 600 places geocoded with <gx:lat>{$long}</gx:lat><gx:long>{$lat}</gx:long>. Oh! F! Me!—@ndw

@ndw You have to decide whether it's easier to fix the lat/long data, or to rotate the earth by 90 degrees.—@abcoates

@abcoates @ndw Tilting the earth might be more effective :)—@david_megginson

@ndw should just turn the earth on its side. Then lats are long and longs are, umm, lat.—@SheltieJim

@ndw That's kind of funny, actually.—@iansmall

In a conversation that started on Thursday at 03:15pm

These people are crazy, aren't they? http://bit.ly/301YW8—@zaphgod

@zaphgod Beyond the fringe, over the edge, totally bat shit crazy.—@ndw

In a conversation that started on Friday at 09:44am

listening to Bela Lugosi's dead. It's part of my Halloween playlist—@Crispian_Jago

@Crispian_Jago So you got home safe after all and the hangover's not too bad? :-)—@ndw

In a conversation that started on Friday at 11:34am

EXPath Packaging support in Calabash (unofficial) now reuses the implem for Saxon when appropriate, and supports Java extension functions.—@fgeorges

@fgeorges We oughta figure out how to make that official. How about you tell me what to do and I do it? :-)—@ndw

@ndw I like that kind of proposition; that's what I wanted to do anyway ;-) On XProc-Dev, or do you prefer in private?—@fgeorges

@fgeorges Let's start on xproc-dev so the world can weigh in. I'm a little behind on that list, but I'll try to catch up next week.—@ndw

@ndw Ok. I've sent an email over there last week about the path I followed (which has evolved a bit though.) I'll send an up-to-date email.—@fgeorges

Friday at 11:36am

it's your computer, and it's none of [the web site owner's] business how you choose to experience their web pages. http://bit.ly/1cwDD2—@windley

In a conversation that started on Friday at 02:07pm

Apparently I have lists. Now, why do I care?—@ndw

@ndw It's a rather weak tagging mechanism for Twitter users.—@webmink

In a conversation that started on Friday at 06:54pm

RT @windley it's your browser, and it's none of [the web site owner's] business how you choose to use it. http://bit.ly/1cwDD2—@ndw

RT @ndw @windley it's your browser, and it's none of [the web site owner's] business how you choose to use it. http://bit.ly/1cwDD2—@danja

In a conversation that started on Friday at 07:47pm

bum, late already but not sleepy. trying a youtube episode of Black Books—@danja

@danja "Just...just...look at them! Fecking...customers! Always trying to come in and...buy things. Why don't they just go away" B. Black.—@ndw

In a conversation that started on Saturday at 06:05am

MS Vista just shut my machine down, discarding 30mins work without warning, to install a patch. Unbelievable. Why do I put up with this?—@michaelhkay

@michaelhkay Can't you just disable auto-installation of patches? I always disable it; did so in XP, have done so in Win7.—@abcoates

@michaelhkay you know there are alternatives, right? Annoying in there own ways, but not like that!—@ndw

@ndw Yes, I know there are alternatives. I just needed a kick in the arse to make the move. MS have just given me that kick.—@michaelhkay

@michaelhkay Having used two of the alternatives (Linux on a Thinkpad and a Mac) for years, I recommend them both highly.—@ndw

@michaelhkay I'd recommend Ubuntu (I had a year or two on a Mac which eased transition from MS then, but the latest distros don't need that)—@danja

@michaelhkay The Mac is probably slightly less difficult to get working in corporate environments these days, but neither is perfect.—@ndw

@michaelhkay what @ndw said - note #openoffice is a totally plausibe MS Office substitute (and works pretty well with MS formats)—@danja

@danja @michaelhkey @ndw You still need Windows, just to be able to see what your customers see, but you can use a virtual machine for that.—@abcoates

@abcoates @michaelhkey @ndw "You still need Windows..." fair point, but you get a better class of customers without it :)—@danja

@abcoates I suppose, but I manage w/o an awfully large amount of the time. But the VM's work perfectly when I do.—@ndw

@danja I hardly use MS Office. But I can't ditch MS entirely 'cos I ship a .NET product (OK, there's mono, but need to test on .NET!)—@michaelhkay

@michaelhkay fair enough. I do have 2 MS machines: 1 I never use, some visitors appreciate, 1 for music, had soundcard driver probs (both XP—@danja

@michaelhkay btw, still doing any writing? still doing much XML? (think I can guess the answer to the latter :)—@danja

@ndw I still need to start VMware for some corporate internal apps (the horror!), other than that no problems with a Mac at work.—@martin_probst

Saturday at 09:29am

DaisyDisk is a nice program. Worth the $20. But I'm already sick of seeing the tweets pimping it. It's turning me off of @MacHeist too.—@ndw

In a conversation that started on Saturday at 11:15am

The fact that the Bible invites us to "multiply" and have "dominion over earth" is not a rational argument for growth #battleofideas—@doctorow

@doctorow thing is, it's not "growth", it's reduction of reserves #battleofideas—@danja

@doctorow Growth for growths sake is the ideology of the cancer cell. #quote—@ndw

RT @ndw @doctorow Growth for growths sake is the ideology of the cancer cell. #quote [and it kills the host]—@danja

@ndw @doctorow @danja not that it kills the host, it is suicidal too; just absurd, simply denying the concept of life.—@gridinoc

Saturday at 06:05pm

@ndw In your mail box and XProc Dev ;-)—@fgeorges

Sunday at 05:41am

Followed @ndw's lead and bought a copy of Daisy Disk to show where all the disk space on my Mac has gone: http://www.... http://bit.ly/43K27U—@abcoates

Sunday at 12:58pm

✈ BDL-IAD-SFO. #tpac09 here I come.—@ndw

Sunday at 01:14pm

Upgrade? That'd be a "no" now please get in line with the rest of the cattle and bend over for the TSA...—@ndw

Sunday at 03:22pm

(setq-default indent-tabs-mode nil) where have you been all my life? !emacs—@ndw

Sunday at 03:50pm

I wonder how many other #tpac09 folks are on UA 915 IAD-SFO? More likely still if I was flying to SJC, I suppose.—@ndw

Sunday at 09:36pm

Is it not the TWENTY-FIRST CENTURY? RT @denyreligion: Evil demons and curses live in Halloween candy. #atheism http://bit.ly/4u9xDf—@ndw

Sunday at 09:48pm

Arrived SFO. Hello CA. #tpac09—@ndw