The short-form week of 4–10 Jan 2010

11 Jan 2010; last modified 13 Mar 2011

The week in review, 140 characters at a time. This week, 51 messages in 48 conversations. (With 5 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 Tuesday at 01:31pm

Is the real threat from terrorism just governments and their puppeteers keeping everyone else in fear to increase control?—@PragueBob
@PragueBob Uhm. "Yes."?—@ndw

In a conversation that started on Tuesday at 01:59pm

Shame there's no physical keyboard on the #nexus1—@ndw
@ndw I haven't missed a physical keyboard since I got the iPhone a year ago. It just adds clunk and not much value nor usability imho.—@asbjornu
@asbjornu The iPhone keyboard is more usable than I expected, but a year in, I still retype some part of every third word.—@ndw
@ndw It's not perfect, but the clunkiness of full physical qwerty and the awkwardness of T9 is imho worse.—@asbjornu
@asbjornu Perhaps. I want a pho^H^H^H mobile internet device that's useful, not sexy, so clunky doesn't matter much to me.—@ndw

Tuesday at 02:07pm

♺ @ndw: Shame there's no physical keyboard on the #nexus1—@dckc

In a conversation that started on Tuesday at 02:21pm

I've noticed that 125% is better than 100% in the Word font size drop down these days. #oldfart #presbyopia—@ndw
@ndw You need a 21" screen with 640x480 resolution. ;-) (like me)—@abcoates

In a conversation that started on Tuesday at 02:53pm

Now that Nexus One is out, no one's ever going to buy my new-in-box N900. I might as well donate it to the Tor guys...—@kendall
@kendall The N900 is actually on my list of likely next phones...—@ndw
@ndw You want to buy mine cheap? I didn't like it.—@kendall

In a conversation that started on Tuesday at 03:12pm

Why does every Mac app think it can use ^Space for some global hotkey function? Doesn't everyone know Emacs already uses that key?—@ndw
@ndw You need an Emacs-based Finder replacement.—@abcoates
@abcoates I almost never use the Finder as such. It's emacs buffers and shell windows all the way down.—@ndw

In a conversation that started on Tuesday at 03:29pm

Dear Internet: If you were writing a new library to handle web & email addresses, would you call it a) "uri" or b) "url"—@blaine
@blaine I'd call it URI—@ndw

In a conversation that started on Tuesday at 03:52pm

have been srsly going back n forth btwn whether to get iphone or nexus, and i gotta tell ya, reviews have me leanin toward the iphone—@peteaven
@peteaven It's a sweet device if you don't mind someone else telling you what you may and may not run on it. I've decided I mind. A lot.—@ndw
@ndw @peteaven That was certainly a major influence in my going for a Maemo phone. I don't need 100k apps, to be honest, just a good few.—@abcoates
@ndw well I'm definitely interested in mobile dev. alternative recommendations?—@peteaven
@peteaven Dunno. I've got 1yr to go on my contract so I'm not paying too much attention. Android, maybe. The N900, maybe.—@ndw
@ndw contracts: blech! yeah, i'm leaning toward get the iphone, make millions off my app the 1st year, & buy whatever phone i want later :)—@peteaven
@peteaven If anyone can do it, you can, bro'—@ndw

Tuesday at 04:57pm

♺@xproc New XProc WD published at http://www.w3.org/TR/xproc—@ndw

Tuesday at 06:34pm

In the annals of disgusting things I've seen, @donttrythis, ear wax candle may rank pretty high.—@ndw

Wednesday at 03:54am

RT @ndw: Shame there's no physical keyboard on the #nexus1 || Hear hear! We want physical keyboards, none of that silly screen stuff!—@robinberjon

In a conversation that started on Wednesday at 05:14am

"Emacs outshines other editors the same way noonday sun does stars. It isn't just bigger/brighter; it simply makes everything else vanish."—@vojtechtoman
@vojtechtoman This shows that whether Emacs outshines everything else, or another editor does, depends on where you stand in the universe!—@avernet
@avernet There is plenty of room for everybody (and every editor) :)—@vojtechtoman
@vojtechtoman "Emacs and Windows are just alike, both are fine operating systems lacking a decent editor."—@martin_probst

Wednesday at 07:10am

#uksnow proves that climate change deniers conflate 'climate' and 'weather', just like they believe the plural of anecdote is data.—@tommorris

Wednesday at 08:37am

♺@michaelhkay Water droplets at 2,000 fps. Very cool.—@ndw

Wednesday at 08:40am

♺@vojtechtoman "Emacs outshines others like the noonday sun does stars. It isn't just bigger/brighter; it makes everything else vanish."—@ndw

Wednesday at 08:45am

♺@peteaven OMG, what on earth is this seal thinking? ROFLMAO. http://bit.ly/7lyF2v (tx @juliandibbell) [ via @zephoria ]—@ndw

Wednesday at 08:50am

New quandry: that's cool, I'll save it: http://pinboard.in/u:ndw or Evernote? Bulletin board or scrap book?—@ndw

Wednesday at 09:08am

OMG, what on earth is this seal thinking? ROFLMAO. http://bit.ly/7lyF2v /via @zephoria @juliandibbell @peteaven @ndw—@ruidlopes

Wednesday at 09:46am

Weird. boot.efi can't be rm'd (even with sudo) but can be deleted by the Finder via Option+Empty Trash. Not like.—@ndw

Wednesday at 01:34pm

♺@jendraknet: HTML does not belong in email. Ever. (via @pfhawkins) Damn straight!—@ndw

Wednesday at 02:15pm

He who builds a complex system but fails to document it deserves the pain and suffering he gets. Currently suffering painfully.—@ndw

In a conversation that started on Wednesday at 02:22pm

Any web site which freezes loading "waiting for ad.yieldmanager.com" is Doing It Wrong.—@timbray
@timbray When I bitched about a similar problem a few days ago, @elharo pointed me to https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=487638—@ndw

Wednesday at 03:27pm

Oh blast! I didn't even document the config settings that can't be gleaned from the source. I am a useless waste of space.—@ndw

In a conversation that started on Wednesday at 05:59pm

Fiji or the Cook Islands?—@ndw
@ndw for? Fiji more edgy, Raratonga rather tame—@kitwallace
@ndw Be more adventurous, say Pitcairn or Henderson Islands!—@robinberjon

In a conversation that started on Wednesday at 07:12pm

Yay! My XML Prague paper was accepted. Oh, wait, that means I have to write it. #mixedblessings—@ndw
@ndw congrats!—@peteaven

Wednesday at 07:55pm

He he, I thought the same ;-) RT @ndw: Yay! My XML Prague paper was accepted. Oh, wait, that means I have to write it. #mixedblessings—@fgeorges

Thursday at 07:03am

Trying to decide if I'm curious enough about foursquare to do anything about it, or just wait and see if it's a flash in the pan.—@ndw

Thursday at 08:17am

RT @ndw: Yay! My XML Prague paper was accepted. Oh, wait, that means I have to write it. #mixedblessings #xmlprague—@innovimax

Thursday at 08:17am

RT @fgeorges: He he, I thought the same ;-) RT @ndw: Yay! My XML Prague paper was accepted. That means I have to write it. #xmlprague—@innovimax

Thursday at 09:39am

"Huh huh huh. Twitter is stupid." So sayeth a blog comment. Pot, meet kettle; do discuss blackness.—@tommorris

Thursday at 10:00am

The Sonos reads .flac files. Sweet. Near instant access to all our music on some nice high-end audio gear. The library's finished, I think.—@ndw

In a conversation that started on Thursday at 12:38pm

Googling around trying to find a philosophy book. Not much luck, but I did find "Teen Anal Pounding". Truly delightful.—@tommorris
@tommorris And you were searching for what...no, nevermind, I prolly don't wanna know :-)—@ndw
@ndw As I said a philosophy book. Worse actually: a philosophy of mathematics book.—@tommorris
@tommorris Yeah. I was wondering what terms you were using.—@ndw

In a conversation that started on Thursday at 01:17pm

grep -v .cvs and grep -v .csv produce very different results. I'm just sayin'—@ndw
@ndw This is why some of us have switched to ack for most of our searching: http://betterthangrep.com/—@emacsen
@emacsen ack is da bomb. But this was a list of 87,000 URIs in a single file. I wanted the non-csv ones. Grep was the right tool!—@ndw
@ndw grep -vi .cvs was what you wanted.—@abdelazer
@abdelazer No, I was grepping through a long list of URIs looking for the ones that weren't comma-separated-value files.—@ndw
@ndw I was certain you were trying to remove pharmacies ;-)—@abdelazer

Thursday at 01:37pm

@ndw Same with .xls and .xsl. Gave me hours of sheer joy and jubilation.—@0xcafebabe

Thursday at 03:22pm

@Sonos, with what encoding does Sonos expect the flac/mp3 metadata to be stored? It appears not to be utf-8—@ndw

In a conversation that started on Friday at 12:33pm

Most useful thing I've learned today: press ⌘+L when a pkg installer is running and it'll show you a nice, verbose log. #osx—@ndw
@ndw "+L" ? I guess you mean either ctrl, alt or cmd + L, don't you?—@fgeorges
@fgeorges Transcription problem, I guess. I meant Cmd+L (⌘+L)—@ndw
@ndw Thanks, nice to know (going to look for a pkg to install... :-p)—@fgeorges

Friday at 02:36pm

RT @ndw: Most useful thing I've learned today: press ⌘+L when a pkg installer is running and it'll show you a nice, verbose log. #osx—@robinberjon

Saturday at 05:14pm

Ripping "The Prisoner" to my iPhone for my travels next week.—@ndw

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

@ndw: Original one or remake? We want... information—@emacsen
@emacsen the original (a Christmas gift). I thought the remake was dreadful.—@ndw

In a conversation that started on Saturday at 07:56pm

Make that a 2624-line .pl file. Don't hold with this newfangled "modularity" crap.—@timbray
@timbray I'll have to check how long mine is tomorrow. But I'm not up to claiming what surrounds it these days is exactly sane or sensible—@ndw

In a conversation that started on Sunday at 09:00am

Renewed commitment to organization. Considering Things, Toodledo, OmniFocus ($80???), 2Do, RTM. I don't have A.D.D...Oh! Look! A chicken!—@ndw
@ndw Things seems to work well for me.—@roessler
@ndw I tired many apps at some point changing almost every week. For 1.5y now I've used OmniFocus Mac&iPhone, f/work&personal. Recommended.—@avernet
@ndw I use (almost obsessively) OmniFocus. And love it. Hear good things about Things, though.—@ruidlopes

Sunday at 11:31am

"Digital information lasts forever, or five years—whichever comes first'' —Jeff Rothenberg—@briansuda

Sunday at 04:03pm

The guy chanting from his religious text in the airport is probably harmless, but he sure is annoying.—@ndw

Sunday at 04:22pm

Famous football guy at my gate. Mike Ditka, I think. How I remembered that name I'll never know. #BDL—@ndw

Sunday at 07:26pm

Arrived early at ORD. Waiting in the penalty box for a gate.—@ndw

In a conversation that started on Sunday at 08:05pm

Me: I'd like to check on the status of my upgrade. Agent: That's never going to happen. /me watches bubble of optimism pop around self.—@ndw
@ndw Too used to angelic intervention. Have you prayed? I gather heaven accepts DMs...—@webmink
@webmink No intervention expected or accepted on run-of-the mill trips. Only amused by the way The Fates deliver the disappointing message.—@ndw
@webmink Besides which, if the forces of lightness and good have anything to do with modern air travel, they have a wicked sense of humor—@ndw

Sunday at 08:44pm

"We didn't have 1s and 0s - just the letter O. And we had to parse uphill BOTH ways! In the snow! And we LIKED it!"—@xmlgrrl

In a conversation that started on Sunday at 09:27pm

n e w l i n e s o n t w i t t e r r o c k . a n d 2 a m i s t h e p e r f e c t t i m e t o d o i t . . .—@tommorris
@tommorris go to sleep, Tom—@ndw
@ndw Not yet. Got to finish setting up iPhone synchronisation and fixing Outlook-related ineptitude. And wash a shirt.—@tommorris