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The short-form week of 18–24 Jan 2010

25 Jan 2010; last modified 13 Mar 2011

The week in review, 140 characters at a time. This week, 59 messages in 79 conversations. (With 6 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 Sunday at 09:11pm

looking at decision by @ndw to get xproc versioning right first time. http://bit.ly/6Uryddd. Is it already too late for IS29500?—@aristippus303
@aristippus303 I don't see the connection between XProc versioning and ISO 29500...—@ndw

Monday at 12:09am

"I'll stick with gin. Champagne is just ginger ale that knows somebody."—@stevej

Monday at 12:47am

I forgot how much faster my Mac gets when I turn off spotlight indexing: "sudo mdutil -a -i off" FTW!—@dsifry

In a conversation that started on Monday at 04:07am

Any recommendations for a good wireless headset for teleconferences? One that covers both ears preferably.—@robinberjon
@robinberjon Years ago I had a good one from VTech, but they discontinued it. Haven't found a good stereo one since. If you do, ...—@ndw

Monday at 09:06am

Hey! Today is garbage and paper recycling day. I was reminded by the garbage truck that just drove past the house. #FAIL—@ndw

In a conversation that started on Monday at 09:19am

@ndwhttp://norman.walsh.name/ appears unresponsive.—@ed_davies
@ed_davies Seems to be responding for me.—@ndw

In a conversation that started on Monday at 09:52am

@ndw traceroute gets as far as a couple of dreamhost machines then two with asterisks.—@ed_davies
@ed_davies Can't explain that. Anyone else out there seeing problems with norman.walsh.name?—@ndw

Monday at 10:00am

"What we would gain from P = NP will make the whole Internet look like a footnote in history."—@psd

In a conversation that started on Monday at 10:45am

For the purposes of tourism, the area around the Van Gough museam is a good central location in Amsterdam, yes?—@ndw
@ndw If you feel comfortable in endless streams of tourists, then yes. Visit Rotterdam, the Dutch XML capital, instead ;)—@vojtechtoman
@vojtechtoman :-) Not for me, alas, but Rotterdam is on my list!—@ndw
@ndw I think so. I went there (http://bit.ly/5P2sbKK) and the neighborhood was nice. Tip: do rent bicycles for the duration of your trip.—@fgeorges
@ndw That's a reasonable area, but not the most central. Something around Dam Square is more central. But you'll be OK there, too.—@SheltieJim
@ndw personally I'd stay in Utrecht. Nice small town, half an hour on the train from Amsterdam, direct train from the airport—@laurendw

In a conversation that started on Monday at 01:31pm

Is it me, or does every dental "checkup" involve surprise drilling? I'd prefer to prepare for my face being numb for the rest of the day.—@jpcs
@jpcs I never take dental anesthetic, not even root canal. Simpler that way. (Also reject for minor surgeries.) Color me weird :)—@SheltieJim
@SheltieJim My dentist talked me into that once, for a minor filling. Once.—@ndw
@ndw @jpcs But it's *fun*. Seriously. If I can't control my own brain's interpretations of nerve impulse messages, what *can* I control?—@SheltieJim
@SheltieJim Over a beer some time, we'll see if we can't come to some mutual understanding of the definition of "fun". I'm not optimistic.—@ndw
@ndw ...and the villagers all wake up...—@SheltieJim
@SheltieJim Tried no anesthetic - turns out I'm more afraid of the pain than the injections. Go figure :-)—@jpcs
@jpcs You have anaesthetic at the dentist? *Long* time since I have.—@abcoates

Monday at 07:08pm

LOVE @dweinberger's comment to FCC: "When it comes to the Internet, the opposite of 'open' is 'theirs.'" http://bit.ly/6Ks6bz—@timoreilly

In a conversation that started on Monday at 09:47pm

Astonished at Democrats voting against their party because of health care. Where did all the selfish pricks come from?—@shelleypowers
@shelleypowers maybe they don't like the weak health care bill; no single payer, no public option? but I guess they wouldn't vote GOP then—@shepazu
@shepazu Something is better than nothing. Do you have health ins Doug? I don't, and it's a ticking time bomb—@shelleypowers
@shelleypowers no, I don't have health insurance. it's a scam and I won't until it's run more responsibly. yes, this bill > nothing—@shepazu
@shepazu Yes, bill is better than nothing. Doesn't the W3C provide health care for workers? It should.—@shelleypowers
@shelleypowers W3C is managed by 3 hosts (MIT, ERCIM, Keio Univ). Each of them with different policies.—@karlpro
@karlpro Bet that becomes a challenge at times.—@shelleypowers
@shelleypowers I don't agree that health care should be yoked to a job, it's a human right, not a perk. (I'm a W3C contractor, FWIW)—@shepazu
@shepazu Can emphatically agree. Tying health care to a job means people have to stay in sucky jobs—@shelleypowers
@shelleypowers hah! none of the sucky jobs I had in the 90s had any health care at all. problem is not bad jobs, it's elusive health care—@shepazu
@shelleypowers Beats the "f" out of me. I despair sometimes, I really do.—@ndw

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

I might never use the location aware contexts in the OmniFocus iPhone app, but it sure makes it a tempting app—@ndw
@ndw OmniFocus works nicely. Both @xmlgrrl and I use it on desktop and iPhone.—@eliasisrael
@eliasisrael Yes, I've been tinkering with Things, Toodledo, and OmniFocus over the last few days. I think OF is going to win. $$$ :-(—@ndw

In a conversation that started on Tuesday at 01:55pm

3 of the 4 phone headsets in the house have stopped working. 3 batteries exhausted at the same time, or something else?—@ndw
@ndw Communications have been cut off, that can only mean one thing. Invasion! #starwarslogic—@gcarothers

Tuesday at 02:49pm

♺@richardhamilton Just delivered DocBook: The Definitive Guide, 2nd Edition to O'Reilly.—@ndw

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

humanity: 106 billion forks. http://is.gd/6Cd4J—@codinghorror
@codinghorror Some of those projects have been abandoned.—@ndw

In a conversation that started on Tuesday at 03:51pm

Discovering that TextMate has even more absurd keyboard shortcuts than Emacs. How could I possibly resist?—@roessler
@roessler Absurd? Emacs!? Heresy! I'd burn him, but I can't remember the key binding.—@ndw

Tuesday at 06:50pm

♺@marklogic Mark Logic is in the Cloud and Denise Miura talks about it on camera http://bit.ly/8L5r6n ... and at upcoming user groups—@ndw

In a conversation that started on Tuesday at 09:34pm

Denise is a cool smarty & dare I say-sweet RT @ndw: @marklogic is in the #Cloud & Denise Miura talks about it on camera http://bit.ly/8L5r6n—@JanetJoz
@JanetJoz scary smart. I just try to stay on her good side.—@ndw

In a conversation that started on Tuesday at 09:59pm

Thinking I'm going to have to add an "upside down and backwards Unicode chars" option to my tweet script. Just because.—@ndw
@ndw had the same idea for my ruby twitter client, never implemented it though http://bit.ly/7CStBv—@dscape

Wednesday at 08:55am

I'm w you @ndw re: 'Oh, F me, MA. Really?' feeling so frustrated - pretty misanthropic this AM—@amyvdh

Wednesday at 10:03am

Got Markup? (of course you do!) Balisage 2010 Call for Participation is open: http://balisage.net/Call4Participation.html—@ndw

Wednesday at 10:17am

RT @ndw: Got Markup? (of course you do!) Balisage 2010 Call for Participation is open: http://balisage.net/Call4Participation.html—@hcayless

In a conversation that started on Wednesday at 12:57pm

I am an idiot sometimes.—@JeniT
@JeniT Don't worry, you're not alone :-)—@fgeorges
@JeniT Only sometimes? Then you're ahead of the game in my book. :-)—@ndw

In a conversation that started on Wednesday at 06:12pm

@ndw is XML Rock Star Video http://tinyurl.com/yesfddaa. I love it!—@DaveO
@DaveO Different style, last year's vid: http://bit.ly/5YfqvD—@fgeorges

In a conversation that started on Wednesday at 06:20pm

@ndw You got the girl, I see. http://bit.ly/8uErVM—@JeniT
@JeniT @ndw Very very silly folks.—@grechaw

Wednesday at 06:20pm

Rarely laugh that much, brilliant! (& the <geek> T-shirt :-D) RT @DaveO: @ndw is XML Rock Star Video http://tinyurl.com/yesfddaa. I love it!—@fgeorges

Wednesday at 06:37pm

Go Norm! RT @DaveO: @ndw is XML Rock Star Video http://tinyurl.com/yesfddaa. I love it!—@abcoates

In a conversation that started on Wednesday at 08:11pm

He's so dreamy!! RT @DaveO @ndw is XML Rock Star Video http://tinyurl.com/yesfddaa. I love it!—@xmlgrrl
@xmlgrrl @ndw Nice shirt. <weg/> You did such a good job that Archie didn't recognize you!—@JeanKaplansky

Wednesday at 08:31pm

RT @xmlgrrl: He's so dreamy!! RT @DaveO @ndw is XML Rock Star Video http://tinyurl.com/yesfddaa. I love it!<- He sure can rock a keyboard!—@fiberartisan

Wednesday at 08:50pm

Too bad our Rock SStar @ndw 's video is getting so popular it wont play without stuttering .. . time to Youtube it ? http://trunc.it/4y1hf—@DALDEI

Thursday at 02:22am

He will be at XML Prague in march !!! RT @DaveO: @ndw is XML Rock Star Video http://tinyurl.com/yesfddaa. I love it! #xml #xproc #xmlprague—@innovimax

Thursday at 03:33am

Spooky :) RT @DaveO: @ndw is XML Rock Star Video http://tinyurl.com/yesfddaa. I love it!—@vojtechtoman

Thursday at 05:22am

RT @fgeorges: @ndw is XML Rock Star Video http://tinyurl.com/yesfdda || This is awesomely hilarious :)—@robinberjon

Thursday at 05:59am

http://kwz.me/g (1:47 video clip) proves the #AWSUMness of @ndw—@koalie

Thursday at 06:01am

RT @koalie: http://kwz.me/g (1:47 video clip) proves the #AWSUMness of @ndw—@roessler

In a conversation that started on Thursday at 06:07am

Seeing @ndw as a rock star reminded me I wanted to give Mark Logic a shot. Bah, no OSX build :(—@robinberjon
@robinberjon It runs really well in an VM under OSX. And several of us are hoping to get some sort of OSX build out someday.—@ndw
@ndw Yeah, but I have an Air and VMs tend to be extra slow here, and then overheat the CPU grinding everything to a halt. Rock on though!—@robinberjon
@robinberjon One trick: build a VM without Gnome or KDE or any bells and whistles. I've run two or three of those at the same time w/o prob—@ndw

In a conversation that started on Thursday at 07:49am

UPS guy left a box of ink cartridges on the porch last night. I wonder what the consequence of sub-zero temperatures is on ink.—@ndw
@ndw black ice?—@christo4ferris
@christo4ferris photo cyan ice, anyway :-(—@ndw

In a conversation that started on Thursday at 08:02am

Updated home offiuce, for the morbidly curious / underoccupied: http://bit.ly/8DGT5H Compare to 2 yrs ago: http://bit.ly/5wnpLU Better.—@mastermark
@mastermark Blast from the past: I remember owning that Star Trek poster.—@ndw
@ndw yeah, my copy of that poster is about 25, 30 yrs old? Not sure of exact age. It's a classic. ;)—@mastermark
@mastermark If you've got a scanner, save it while you can.—@ndw
@ndw no need, the Intertubes already have it. Eg. http://bit.ly/8810Zq—@mastermark

Thursday at 09:04am

+1 to @koalie "http://kwz.me/g (1:47 video clip) proves the #AWSUMness of @ndw" OMG! AC/DC! Norm, you rule! This made my week :)—@amyvdh

In a conversation that started on Thursday at 09:12am

Amazon adds apps to the Kindle. http://bit.ly/7ai1Yn Competing with tablets, not eReaders. AMZN's app marketplace could be hot.—@windley
@ndw Yes, too true--but if they understand where their competition is (and this move indicates they do) then they'll fix that fast.—@windley

Thursday at 09:30am

RT @innovimax: He will be at XML Prague in march !! RT @DaveO: @ndw is XML Rock Star Video http://tinyurl.com/yesfddaa. I love it! xmlprague—@xmlprague

Thursday at 09:58am

RT @DaveO : @ndw is XML Rock Star Video http://tinyurl.com/yesfdda . I love it!—@peteaven

Thursday at 09:59am

@ndw, how did they talk you into this? http://kwz.me/g what a HOOT!—@dckc

In a conversation that started on Thursday at 10:00am

@dckc @paxtonhare was *very* persistent.—@ndw
@ndw OMG that's priceless!!—@jtauber
@ndw Wow...that was...wow. Very well done, and funny! But...but...only woman a groupie?—@shelleypowers
@shelleypowers Mmmm, seems to me everyone's a groupie in that video!—@robinberjon
@robinberjon Good point.—@shelleypowers
@ndw Nah, never mind -- it was funny, and extremely well done.—@shelleypowers

Thursday at 10:20am

Our own @ndw, XML Rock Star! http://kwz.me/g via @dckc -—@shelleypowers

Thursday at 10:53am

@ndw re office music, seen lala.com?—@dckc

Thursday at 11:01am

Egad! There are a whole lot of new XProc tests since I last ran against the test sweet.—@ndw

Thursday at 11:17am

tell me about it ... RT @ndw: Egad! There are a whole lot of new XProc tests since I last ran against the test sweet.—@xquery

Thursday at 11:18am

I've found my new calling; @ndw groupie http://kwz.me/g—@distobj

In a conversation that started on Thursday at 11:24am

Sorry... :) RT @xquery: tell me about it... RT @ndw: Egad! There are a whole lot of new XProc tests since I last ran against the test sweet.—@vojtechtoman
@vojtechtoman Nothing to be sorry about! I'm delighted! And a little bit afraid.—@ndw

In a conversation that started on Thursday at 12:11pm

@ndw "There's real work to do, without music I guess." about 10 days ago—@dckc
@dckc Ah, right. I was wrestling with tunneling DAAP over ssh. Did get that working eventually, with a commercial app.—@ndw

Thursday at 03:43pm

Posthumous Hosting and digital culture. Yeah, this is important. http://tinyurl.com/y9zn5zk—@ndw

In a conversation that started on Thursday at 04:52pm

Feel like venting random grumpiness, pick on iTunes or SF.net's layout. Both routinely piss me off.—@ndw
@ndw Sourceforge is amazing in how they've managed to take something terrible, boldly redesign it and have it still look terrible.—@tommorris
@ndw check out spotify... It follows Itunes design lead...—@andrewwelch
@ndw "iTunes: Do things our way or don't do them at all". Blech.—@SheltieJim

Thursday at 05:13pm

Next New York #MarkLogic User Group #NYMUG meeting is 27 Jan. Come hear Denise Miura talk about the cloud! http://tinyurl.com/ykhpmpg—@ndw

Thursday at 05:56pm

RT @ndw: Posthumous Hosting and digital culture. Yeah, this is important. http://tinyurl.com/y9zn5zk—@innovimax

Thursday at 06:18pm

follow the #xml rockstar himself ;) shout out to Norm at @ndw (#video @MarkLogic '10 kickoff) http://tinyurl.com/yesfdda #smile—@JanetJoz

In a conversation that started on Thursday at 06:34pm

Looking at Firefox 3.6 "Personas" — it's hard to find one that doesn't look lame under Mac OS X. http://www.getpersonas.com/—@edd
@edd I'm pretty sure you could have ended that sentence at "lame".—@ndw

Thursday at 08:25pm

RT @ndw Next New York #MarkLogic User Group #NYMUG mtg. is 27 Jan. Come hear Denise Miura talk about the cloud! http://tinyurl.com/ykhpmpg—@peteaven

Thursday at 08:28pm

XML rockstar featuring @ndw is just gorgeous. http://tinyurl.com/yesfdda (only for XML Geeks ;) )—@karlpro

In a conversation that started on Thursday at 09:28pm

Mmh, "MozyPromoCode" tells me Mozy is great... :-)—@fgeorges
@fgeorges mozy is ok, I use it for home stuff ... but the receipt they generate for payment is woeful and useless from accounting pov—@xquery
@xquery Tks for feedback. Accounting is important to me ;-) Aren't you afraid to give sensitive data over there...?—@fgeorges
@fgeorges I've used Amazon S3. You can 'roll your own' bbackup or use a 3rd party. Data can be encrypted—@DALDEI
@DALDEI Mmh yes, that's for the storage thing, but I need a soft that automatically backup stuff (kind of time machine). What do you use?—@fgeorges
@fgeorges I have heard good tthings about http://jungledisk.com/ but never used it. I wrote my own scripts—@DALDEI
@DALDEI @fgeorges I'm using JungleDisk to backup my wife's laptop. Seems to work fine.—@ndw
@fgeorges Also Acronis has a n online backup, I LOVE their dedicated backup, maybe the online is good too—@DALDEI

In a conversation that started on Friday at 01:36am

What to do? .. heart-wrenching NPR program about how bail bond industry conspires to keep people in jail. http://bit.ly/7WXDv1 @timoreilly—@annbass
@annbass My soul has been so crushed by the Supreme Court I'm pretty much beyond feeling.—@ndw

Friday at 12:30pm

@jtauber I'm Aachen for more #typewarpuns—@ndw

Friday at 12:31pm

@jtauber "Font of the Baskerville", lost A. C. Doyle manuscript #typewarpuns—@ndw

Friday at 02:13pm

This a sad week for democracy. First with Massachusetts http://bit.ly/8a2zQm and then with the Supreme Court http://bit.ly/QQ4xGG.—@avernet

Friday at 03:14pm

Avacado for lunch = 801st attempt to grow an Avacado plant from seed.—@ndw

In a conversation that started on Friday at 03:57pm

This is one of the neatest uses of HTML5 audio I've seen. http://bit.ly/13cLYR—@bphogan
@bphogan It's very cool, but please for the love of all things, let's hope every third page on the interweb doesn't suddenly have music—@ndw
@ndw autoplay=false should be the default. :(—@bphogan

Friday at 06:34pm

RT @ndw: @jtauber I'm Aachen for more #typewarpuns—@jtauber

Friday at 06:34pm

RT @ndw: @jtauber "Font of the Baskerville", lost A. C. Doyle manuscript #typewarpuns—@jtauber

In a conversation that started on Friday at 10:35pm

Heh, when I registered for the Cincom Smalltalk event yesterday, my use of "<title>" as my "title" totally screwed their reg system.—@merlyn
@merlyn A distant cousin of little Bobby Tables, I presume: http://xkcd.com/327/—@ndw

Saturday at 10:25am

♺@timbray Can u imagine a mkt dominated by a sgl bookseller that demanded 2 read & review all bks b4 they went on sale? http://is.gd/6PEZY—@ndw

In a conversation that started on Saturday at 11:13am

The OSX FileMerge tool isn't bad, but does anyone know how to pass filenames on the command line?—@ndw
@ndw `opendiff file1 file2 [-ancestor ancestorFile] [-merge outputFile]`. See man opendiff.—@tommorris
@ndw `opendiff file1 file2` should do the job—@john_oshea
@john_oshea Fantastic! Thank you!—@ndw
@ndw Doesn't Emacs do this stuff, from the command line? :-)—@abcoates
@abcoates Heh. Yeah, emerge is a wonderful thing. My go-to tool for merging, but FileMerge (ne opendiff) is a tad easier for overview—@ndw

Saturday at 11:37am

Saturday at 01:39pm

Just when you think you've ripped em all, your wife finds another big stack of unripped CDs. abcde -x -o flac to the rescue.—@ndw

In a conversation that started on Saturday at 02:47pm

Looks like I'm getting on an airplane again tomorrow and plans for the next week or so are up in the air.—@duncan
@duncan a whole week in the air? And I get grumpy about anything over 12 hours...—@ndw

In a conversation that started on Saturday at 03:31pm

First ever pair of glasses is like someone's used the Photoshop unsharp mask a bit too aggressively. On everything!—@tomcoates
@tomcoates I remember that feeling!—@ndw

Saturday at 06:26pm

Corked wine #thingsthattastebad—@ndw

Saturday at 08:47pm

Oh my. This may be the best news story EVER - http://is.gd/6Uedk - war between hipsters and Hasidic Jews over bike lanes. ROFLCOPTER ALERT!—@tommorris

In a conversation that started on Sunday at 09:43am

OMG, what kind of horrid crap are we introducing with HTML5? Scroll down, look at blog example http://bit.ly/WzBo9 -—@shelleypowers
@shelleypowers <iframe seamless srcdoc="<p>Yeah, you can see it <a href=&quot;/gallery/cover/1&quot;>in my gallery</a>."></iframe> ROTFLC—@ndw
@ndw My favorite was the double escaped amp but goodness knows what Twitter would do with that if I tried to type it out—@shelleypowers
@ndw Damn. Twitter un-escaped some of the escaped markup. What's up with that? If I typed &amp;quot;, that's what I meant!—@ndw