The short-form week of 15–21 Feb 2010

22 Feb 2010; last modified 13 Mar 2011

The week in review, 140 characters at a time. This week, 46 messages in 39 conversations. (With 1 favorite.)

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 02:10am

Just installed Reeder on my iPhone. Finally an RSS reader app that makes me happy.—@hunterhacker
@hunterhacker right you are! Thanks for the pointer!—@ndw

In a conversation that started on Monday at 09:16am

Getting quailty prints, even on a quality printer, is a damned black art. One I do not have, apparently.—@ndw
@ndw Clearly, you need to spend more time in Defense Against the Dark Arts class... watch out for those teachers though. They'll mess you up—@JeanKaplansky
@JeanKaplansky Printing isn't a Dark Art I want to defend against, it's a Dark Art I want to learn.—@ndw
@ndw yes, but what better way learn a dark art then how to defend yourself against it?—@JeanKaplansky
@ndw most important thing is good color management.—@bdarcus

Tuesday at 07:38am

Modal popups are the suck.—@ndw

In a conversation that started on Tuesday at 12:31pm

I really hope blu-ray will be the last standard of its kind. The mandatory previews, menus, and waiting are even worse than DVD.—@siracusa
@siracusa We have a region-free DVD player, lets you skip anything. Off-brand, who cares. Coming for Blu-Ray too I hope.—@timbray
@timbray Isn't that punishable by up to 4 years in jail or a $250,000 fine? So said the warning I was forced to read… :-/—@siracusa
@timbray Good luck with that. I'm not optimistic.—@ndw

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

Hey, @dopplrhq, a search for 'Oxford' finds Oxford street, Oxford circus, and Oxford, USVI but not Oxford, UK? Huh?—@ndw
@ndw Indeed, I couldn't find Oxford (UK) anywhere in the 3 pages of 'Oxford' results. Wow, @dopplrhq.—@abcoates

In a conversation that started on Tuesday at 02:08pm

"In the brain of every religious person there is a god-shaped vacuum" Jeremy Konopka—@micknugent
@micknugent As insults go, people have said worse things about my brain.—@abcoates

In a conversation that started on Tuesday at 04:22pm

How secure is @evernote? Do I want to store credit card information in it? A scan of my passport? Convenient to, but...—@ndw
@ndw What if you encrypt them first?—@sindoc
@sindoc Could do, but then they'd just be binary blobs in the client, so not much value.—@ndw
@ndw secure enough for work notes. There is a feature that lets you have an offline notebook that doesn't sync to the world...—@JeanKaplansky
@JeanKaplansky Yeah, but if they're not synced then I won't be able to see them on my phone.—@ndw

In a conversation that started on Wednesday at 03:18pm

Some of the music on my 'random shuffle' is definitely NSFW. I'm just sayin'—@ndw
@ndw Don't you work at home?—@abcoates
@abcoates Yeah, so there's no harm, no foul.—@ndw

In a conversation that started on Thursday at 09:56am

The Garmin Forerunner 205 GPS doesn't have a time setting for UTC? WTF!?—@ndw
@ndw I remember that I also did not find a time zone setting on my GPS but it auto-updates the time when I enter in a different time zone.—@georgebina
@georgebina That's *exactly* the problem. I don't want that because it makes geotagging photos a PITA.—@ndw
@georgebina And it knows when you cross a politically-determined boundary how?—@SheltieJim
@SheltieJim It has the map and it knows where you are.—@georgebina
@georgebina Ah, but the boundary between timezones can change at any time by a simple act of a legislative body...without consulting Garmin—@SheltieJim
@SheltieJim I guess that it depends on how much the maps are up to date to include that information.—@georgebina
@ndw: Not many people run across time zones Norm?—@dpawson
@dpawson True, but people who travel, like @ndw, can run in many different timezones.—@david_megginson
@david_megginson @dpawson @ndw I've always thought of Norm as omnipresent.—@abcoates
@dpawson I suppose lots of folks want the time to be in their time zone, but I want it always to be UTC, like my camera. Grumble.—@ndw
@ndw It seems that it will be easier not to travel then to properly set timezones both on camera and GPS;-) Real technology break-through :(—@jirkakosek
@jirkakosek So you want me to withdraw from XML Prague, is that what you're saying?—@ndw
@ndw I think he's saying you should move to Prague so you could attend the coolest conference ever without ever travelling. #xmlprague—@robinberjon
@robinberjon Mmmm. Tempting. But then it'd be a long trek to #Balisage, wouldn't it?—@ndw
@ndw no, no, you have to come to Prague. But now I have only 3 weeks to hack Garmin's firmware. Reminds me of idea of having only one tzone—@jirkakosek
@jirkakosek You're saved then, because I'm sending that one back and getting another one like the one that's at the bottom of the Caribbean—@ndw

In a conversation that started on Thursday at 10:32am

Downloading the XQuery test suite. I think I'm going to regret volunteering to write two tests.—@ndw
@ndw we desperately need a tool to make the test suite more manageable.—@martin_probst

In a conversation that started on Thursday at 10:49am

What's the state of the art in debugging complex CSS interactions?—@ndw
@ndw: maybe Webkit Web Inspector (in Safari, Chrome, and Arora on Linux), if you've not taken a look at it already..—@sideshowbarker
@ndw ? selector issues, layout?—@cwilso
@cwilso Trying to put a button w/a pulldown on a page. The result is a mangled mess for no immediately obvious reason.—@ndw
@ndw I like the Safari or Chrome Web Inspector. Right click text, Inspect Element, toggle inherited styles & checkboxes for each active rule—@abdelazer
@ndw I don't know about state-of-the-art, but Opera's built-in 'Dragonfly' CSS debugger has worked well for me I need to debug CSS.—@abcoates

Thursday at 11:01am

designer friends: forwarding q. from @ndw: "What's the state of the art in debugging complex CSS interactions?"—@sideshowbarker

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

Bah, the Forerunner 205 doesn't understand UTC and won't display current lat/long. #fail—@ndw
@ndw Did you buy it for running, for some other purpose?—@ceri
@ceri Mostly for geotagging photos, a bit of geocaching, and for biking.—@ndw

Thursday at 02:35pm

For a short week (in the U.S.), it sure feels like there have been an awful lot of hours in it.—@ndw

Thursday at 02:44pm

@ndw maybe they have GMT instead of UTC—@DALDEI

Thursday at 02:47pm

@ndw - firefox has a web developer extension that is very helpful with css develoment, and google's chrome browser has some helpful stuff.—@barefootliam

In a conversation that started on Friday at 11:57am

In which it turns out GET LAMP has a coin and people who bought it will get one: http://inventory.getlamp.com/2010/02/19/the-get-lamp-coin/—@textfiles
@textfiles You got me so excited I almost pre-ordered a second copy :-)—@ndw

In a conversation that started on Friday at 12:09pm

JATS-Con. New conference on my calendar http://dtd.nlm.nih.gov/jats-con/ Journal Article Tag Suite User Conference. Nov 1-2, 2010—@btusdin
@btusdin Makes me feel like I really should try to pull off a DocBook Con.—@ndw

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

HTML5 Quote of the Day, from Michael Kay http://post.ly/OfrP—@edd
@edd Everytime I see srcdoc, I think I must be misunderstanding it. Surely it would be an element child if it was a, you know, element.—@ndw
@ndw fwiw, a large part of srcdoc genesis came due to fairly cogent points brought up by Michal Zalewski on the whatwg list in December—@sideshowbarker
@ndw not claiming it's necessary the right solution, but for background, see messages at http://a.gd/43dfd7 from Michal and also Adam Barth—@sideshowbarker
@sideshowbarker Thanks for the pointer!—@ndw

In a conversation that started on Friday at 12:50pm

Anyone read it? RT @sss4r I want to read: The Rhetorical Nature of XML by J.d. Applen - http://bit.ly/bnyeui—@ndw
@ndw P.S. She only said it's new to her and included the companion site address. Are you connected to it?—@sss4r
@sss4r I've opened it in a tab :-)—@ndw
@ndw lol I was wondering if you were a contributor, or have a thumbs up or down on it.—@sss4r
@ndw No, sir--The director of our Scholars' Lab tweeted about it. I thought, what the hell.—@sss4r

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

wondering if 4,294,967,296 is enough WOEIDs for everyone, forever ..—@psd
@psd Seems doubtful. That's a res of about .1km^2, yes? So maybe, if there aren't dups and we never need to map more than the earth surface—@ndw

Friday at 02:42pm

Being busy is good. Being too busy to take any photographs is a little disappointing.—@ndw

In a conversation that started on Friday at 03:05pm

Oh! All that's Good and True in The Universe, can this week please be over now?—@ndw
@ndw *poof* Magic Time Fairy has just fast forwarded you ... to Sunday night. Guess what! You get to get up for work in five hours!—@shelleypowers

Friday at 03:55pm

They may be horrible clichés, but the artwork is better than average: www.101cliches.com—@ndw

Friday at 04:10pm

RT @ndw: They may be horrible clichés, but the artwork is better than average: www.101cliches.com—@roessler

Friday at 05:02pm

Starting to dread that moment at 5p when OmniFocus sends out a Growl notice for each item as it goes from 'due today' to 'overdue'. Sigh.—@ndw

Friday at 05:03pm

OTOH, it's 5p on Friday. Off to dinner. And drinks. Lots of drinks.—@ndw

Friday at 05:14pm

@ndw cheers! enjoy!—@amyvdh

In a conversation that started on Friday at 06:30pm

I just became the mayor of professional auto care on @foursquare! http://4sq.com/bDa106—@peteaven
@peteaven i don't think i should envy your being the mayor of an auto care shop—@iansmall
@iansmall yeah. Sort of like me becoming the mayor of Staples. Only worse.—@ndw

In a conversation that started on Friday at 08:45pm

Watching Buckaroo Banzai. What ever happened to Peter Weller.—@MattioV
@MattioV well done sir!—@peteaven
@peteaven you mentioned it weeks ago and set me jonesing for it. ;-)—@MattioV
@MattioV i remember us discussing it. you're the first to acquire & you've set the ball in motion again. now i've GOT to find it! :)—@peteaven
@peteaven "Evil, pure and simple, from the eighth dimension!"—@ndw

In a conversation that started on Friday at 08:53pm

Fernando's the man! But for some reason, I can't think of him without remembering that ABBA song. I know, i'm demented. He's awesome tho!—@peteaven
@peteaven Oh thank goodness it's not just me.—@ndw
@ndw @peteaven In Oz, Fernando was #1 for 14 weeks straight! http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fernando_(songg)—@abcoates

In a conversation that started on Friday at 11:23pm

Since everyone else is piling on, ow.ly constitutes abuse of the Web. Don't use it.—@timbray
@timbray Why is ow.ly worse than the other URL shorteners?—@ndw
@ndw ow.ly alters the data on the page to insert its ickly little toolbar goober. Totally unacceptable.—@timbray
@timbray Eeewww!—@ndw
@ndw @timbray AFAIK, no Canadian individual has ever been successfully sued/fined/jailed over pirated files. http://is.gd/8P2Z5—@david_megginson

Saturday at 01:32pm

RT @lizfraley Customer or Pirate? http://su.pr/1m1tTD Pretty much says it all.—@ndw

Saturday at 01:37pm

RT @ndw: RT @lizfraley Customer or Pirate? http://su.pr/1m1tTD Pretty much says it all.—@dcm

In a conversation that started on Saturday at 02:35pm

#iwant to find the original cartoon (Gary Larson?) that says "Hey, they're lighting their arrows! Can they *do* that?" Anyone?—@xmlgrrl
@xmlgrrl I believe it's in the 1984 book maybe on p 108? Contact Info: http://bit.ly/baEJys—@JeanKaplansky
@JeanKaplansky Oh! I didn't see your note about the 1984 book on p 108! Will check it out. Thx again!—@xmlgrrl
@xmlgrrl Definitely Gary Larson. I have a few Larson books around, want me to thumb through and send you a scan if I find it?—@ndw
@ndw Sure, if you're willing! I've got some Gary Larson compilations (Gallery 2 and Prehistory) but have been unable to find it.—@xmlgrrl
@xmlgrrl Found it in an authorstream slideshow... http://bit.ly/dpPBdU (slide 109). I stand corrected. it was 1982—@JeanKaplansky
@JeanKaplansky Re http://bit.ly/dpPBdU (slide 109) Thx! (@ndw Check it out.) Now I just have to find it in printed form. :-)—@xmlgrrl
@xmlgrrl welcome. I was stunned to find that we don't have ANY Far Side books. Get Fuzzy, Calvin & Hobbes, Doonesbury & Opus but no far side—@JeanKaplansky
@JeanKaplansky Get thee to a bookstore immediately! I actually bought Last Chapter and Worse recently (final 6mo before retirement).—@xmlgrrl
@xmlgrrl Off to Amazon I go...—@JeanKaplansky

In a conversation that started on Saturday at 04:18pm

Pirated movies are better: http://is.gd/8ONwC (The same effect is achievable with an off-brand DVD player that skips when you say skip.)—@timbray
@timbray I don't know of any BluRay players that support those features, and I bet they aren't legal.—@ndw

Saturday at 08:35pm

SO TRUE !!! Pass this on ! RT @ndw RT @lizfraley Customer or Pirate? http://su.pr/1m1tTD Pretty much says it all.—@DALDEI

In a conversation that started on Sunday at 02:23am

Now this is some serious cheese: $52 of Vacherin Fribourgeois, to be mixed with Gruyer to make fondue. http://twitpic.com/14hwy1—@avernet
@avernet Note to self: must make fondue soon. It's been ages.—@ndw
@ndw The best fondue is made with Vacherin fribourgeois + Gruyère. Next time you are in the Bay Area have one with us!—@ebruchez
@ndw Absolutely! My favorite, if you can find the ingredients: ⅔ Vacherin Fribourgeois, ⅓ Gruyer. Just delicious.—@avernet

Sunday at 04:52pm

XML Calabash passes 559/567 tests. Between implementations, we have two passes for 669/682 tests.—@ndw