The short-form week of 29 Mar–4 Apr 2010

05 Apr 2010; last modified 13 Mar 2011

The week in review, 140 characters at a time. This week, 50 messages in 60 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 08:39pm

Spent all day flying and writing. I guess I am going to write an #xproc book after all. Release party at #balisage? Just maybe.—@ndw
@ndw I'd be very interested in an #xproc book.—@sgmlguru

Sunday at 11:03pm

♺@simonstl RT @gnat: The Onion nails TV news to the wall: http://onion.com/ccVoj9—@ndw

Sunday at 11:25pm

RT @ndw: ♺@simonstl RT @gnat: The Onion nails TV news to the wall: http://onion.com/ccVoj9—@ebruchez

Monday at 02:34am

Woot RT @ndw Spent all day flying and writing. I guess I am going to write an #xproc book after all. Release party at #balisage? Just maybe.—@innovimax

Monday at 02:52am

☺ ☞@ndw ☞@simonstl ☞@gnat: The Onion nails TV news to the wall: http://onion.com/ccVoj9—@bblfish

In a conversation that started on Monday at 06:52am

Thousands of people must use those little hotel room coffee makers every day. Is it really impossible to design a pot that doesn't dribble?—@ndw
@ndw The "Teapot Effect" is a surprisingly difficult physics problem: http://arxiv.org/abs/0910.3306—@david_megginson

In a conversation that started on Monday at 07:20am

@ndw - I would just vote for a design that lets coffee taste good out of those little pots.—@harveybetty
@harveybetty that would require good coffee, not the floor sweepings they put in those little packets. But beggars can't be choosers at 4am—@ndw

Monday at 08:12am

Half way through an attempt to describe p:http-request in terms an ordinary mortal might understand. Time for breakfast.—@ndw

Monday at 08:17am

@ndw Good luck with that. [Half way through an attempt to describe p:http-request in terms an ordinary mortal might understand.]—@vojtechtoman

Monday at 08:28am

Amazing. RT @benosteen 3d cube that fakes perspective http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=89OoXyuxTLM (via @codepo8)—@ndw

In a conversation that started on Monday at 08:30am

I've been tempted to write svn/git/hg/cvs wrapper scripts that figure out what kind of repo I'm in and auto-translate simple commands.—@ndw
@ndw I'd love you (even more) if you did that (a wrapper script for svn/git/cvs/etc).—@robinberjon
@robinberjon For your love, Robin, I'll move it up on my todo list.—@ndw

In a conversation that started on Monday at 08:37am

I think the fans on my laptop just stopped running. On Monday. In California. Fuck me.—@ndw
@ndw it happens to me two weeks before going to #Balisage last july #damned #apple—@innovimax
@ndw Does the fan run on your MacBook? You need that SSD then, mine never has to run.—@abcoates

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

On the plus side, that ear-splitting whine has stopped. Hopefully it'll limp along until Friday if I don't push it too hard.—@ndw
@ndw Is this a MBP? If it isn't under warranty/AC, it is pretty easy to replace the fans.—@bsletten
@bsletten It is. And it's under warranty. But I'm a long way from home this week and need the damn thing to do my job.—@ndw

Monday at 10:53am

Clearly my new colleagues were pulling my leg when they suggested an 8am start. Happily, I've flown west and started comfortably at 4am.—@ndw

Monday at 04:13pm

Committed my first change to the server. I are officially a productive engineer.—@ndw

Tuesday at 04:41am

Congrats !!! RT @ndw: Committed my first change to the server. I are officially a productive engineer.—@innovimax

In a conversation that started on Tuesday at 06:47am

Maybe I'll buy an iPad in support. No probably not. RT @RussB "Apple boycotts Fox News because of Glenn Beck" http://bit.ly/bPESYQ—@ndw
@ndw From the sound of your previous tweets, seems like you should be holding out for a new silver surfboard.—@JeanKaplansky
@JeanKaplansky I'm buying one of those as soon as they refresh the line. I see 8+Gb of memory and a big, possibly SSD, disk in my future.—@ndw

Tuesday at 07:48am

Well. That didn't take long. RT @dpawson http://is.gd/b6Bjh Solaris 10 no longer free as in beer, now a 90-day trial—@ndw

Tuesday at 07:53am

RT @ndw: Well. That didn't take long. RT @dpawson http://is.gd/b6Bjh Solaris 10 no longer free as in beer, now a 90-day trial—@ruidlopes

Tuesday at 08:47am

Good gracious, 101 is noisy in the morning #hotelbythefreeway—@ndw

Tuesday at 09:07am

"You can prove anything by attributing invented quotes to famous people, especially on the Internet" - Albert Einstein—@jamesiry

Tuesday at 11:24am

Vex: an open-source, CSS-based WYSIWYG editor for DocBook. http://intellectualcramps.blogspot.com/2010/03/flexing-vex-editor.html—@ndw

Tuesday at 12:03pm

Tuesday at 03:41pm

The camera is a magic window that transforms the world. - Irving Pobboravsky #Quotes #Photography #Photo #Quotation—@photoquotes

In a conversation that started on Tuesday at 04:48pm

Lots of stimulating conversations and interesting projects. Having a great time in #marklogic #engineering.—@ndw
@ndw Glad to hear it!—@abcoates
@ndw Norm, what did you do for Mark Logic before joining engineering?—@sss4r
@sss4r I worked for the media group doing pre/post sales consulting work, which was also, for the record, a lot of fun.—@ndw

In a conversation that started on Tuesday at 06:33pm

Nobody likes a funny search engine. Search Google for "recursion" and get "did you mean recursion?" http://bit.ly/bWMOU2—@Kellblog
@Kellblog I dunno, I think the recursion joke is pretty funny. But, then again, I'm easily amused.—@ndw

Tuesday at 10:00pm

RT @ndw: Vex: an open-source, CSS-based WYSIWYG editor for DocBook. http://is.gd/b7wJa #xml #css #docbook #editor—@innovimax

Wednesday at 02:05am

RT @wcandillon: RT @innovimax: RT @ndw: Vex: an open-source, CSS-based WYSIWYG editor for DocBook. http://is.gd/b7wJa #xml #css #docbook—@livetechdocs

In a conversation that started on Wednesday at 09:03am

Feeling too tired and full of cold to go carousing with @innovimax, @fgeorges, @adamretter and @abcoates this evening :(—@JeniT
@JeniT hehe, a pub crawl with this crew would banish any illness .. of course I am jealous and must admit to missing my old London haunts—@xquery
@xquery @JeniT Pity, Jeni, it's always good to see you. Next time then!—@abcoates
@xquery Also makes your programming skills sharper at 5am ;-)—@adamretter
@adamretter HA, you technically had the 2nd best submission though if corrected timewise I would argue the best!—@xquery
@xquery Nah im good with that, Stefan put in like 3 solutions. I only submitted the one...—@adamretter
@JeniT I'm feeling a little hung over just thinking about it. Hope @innovimax, @fgeorges, @adamretter, and @abcoates make it out ok. :-)—@ndw
@JeniT Unfortunately I wont be able to attend the Carousing either, far far too snowed under with work :-(—@adamretter
@adamretter @JeniT You too will be sorely missed Adam. Oh well.—@abcoates

Wednesday at 09:13am

Staples, Stop & Shop, and now the Crowne Plaza in Burlingame. I'm the mayor of such hip places, I tell ya. #foursquare—@ndw

In a conversation that started on Wednesday at 09:40am

How is the cooling subsystem on my Mac really? Let's find out: cd /Volumes/eng/src; cvs update -d -P; make—@ndw
@ndw you don't have make -j <nbproc+1> on mac ?—@gurneyalex
@gurneyalex Oh, yeah, I guess I could do make -j2. Probably should. Why pin one CPU when you can pin two!—@ndw

Wednesday at 12:05pm

Freaking awesome! RT @bsletten RT @mentalartist Emacs in the Browser! http://www.ymacs.org/ I repeat... Emacs in the Browser!—@ndw

Wednesday at 03:54pm

RT @ndw: Freaking awesome! RT @bsletten RT @mentalartist Emacs in the Browser! http://www.ymacs.org/ I repeat... Emacs in the Browser!—@jirkakosek

In a conversation that started on Wednesday at 07:17pm

+1 RT @gcarothers @shelleypowers Thanks for all your hard work.—@ndw
@ndw Thanks. Happy to be done. I'm playing with ePub and Drupal now.—@shelleypowers
@shelleypowers ePub's fun, check out http://oreilly.com/e connected to @ibisreader Web + ePub is very fun.—@gcarothers

Thursday at 03:05am

Freeking geeks! RT @jirkakosek, @ndw, @bsletten, @mentalartist Emacs in the Browser! http://www.ymacs.org/ I repeat... Emacs in the Browser!—@innovimax

In a conversation that started on Thursday at 01:37pm

Parsing like it's 1998 all over again. Now how do I get nsgmls to parse XML? Ugh.—@ndw
@ndw IIRC all you need is Sx, which is part of Sp, and has all this built in.—@larsga
@larsga but it's a pitty that there is no real SGML parser for Java. Recently I had another customer inquiry about this and sx was only sol.—@jirkakosek
@jirkakosek @larsga "SGML parser for Java" ?!!? I'll be having nightmares tonight ;-)—@al3xbrown
@ndw Hardcore! #nsgmls #parsing—@doxanize

In a conversation that started on Thursday at 01:42pm

Looking for the SGML Declaration for XML. Really. Would I make this up?—@ndw

Thursday at 01:43pm

Yes, I know it's the first of April. No, that's got nothing to do with the last two tweets.—@ndw

Thursday at 02:02pm

Thursday at 02:18pm

@ndw I have an SGML declaration for XML that I use in SP. Is this what you are looking for?—@harveybetty

Thursday at 02:42pm

iPad: like four iPhones taped together, but without the ability to run four apps simultaneously! ;)—@tommorris

Thursday at 04:41pm

Thursday at 04:53pm

Can we have IntelliJ too? RT @ndw @bsletten RT @mentalartist Emacs in the Browser! http://www.ymacs.org/ I repeat... Emacs in the Browser!—@avernet

Thursday at 05:00pm

♺@merlyn Heh - X-Wing Fighter Crash on Carrier Deck in 1942 - http://blog.usni.org/2010/04/01/usni-archives-fighter-accident/—@ndw

Thursday at 05:01pm

It's interesting. I can't find any XML parser that reports the content model ambiguity that nsgmls reports. And I think nsgmls is right.—@ndw

Thursday at 05:17pm

In a conversation that started on Thursday at 07:22pm

Transform a literal " into an escaped \" in a quoted, backtick-interpolated string in a shell script: sed s/\\\"/\\\\\\\\\\"/g #notajoke—@ndw
@ndw sed s###—@abdelazer
@ndw Wow, does that need escaping from the shell too?—@ceri
@ndw that's some nasty regexp you got there—@dscape

Thursday at 11:38pm

Wrapped up a week with my kick-ass eng colleagues. Great things afoot. And we're hiring! Let me know if you want in. (And you do!)—@ndw

In a conversation that started on Thursday at 11:49pm

Dang it. A bug in the test harness means I don't pass all the tests. I just can't bring myself to do a release that way. Boo. #xmlcalabash—@ndw
@ndw so, document the bug, patch it, and voila.—@svgeesus
@svgeesus Yep. But I didn't have time to do that the other night. Mostly fixed now. Release this weekend, I hope. #xmlcalabash—@ndw

Friday at 06:34am

The 4:25a airport shuttle is SRO!—@ndw

Friday at 06:37am

"No standing while vehicle is in motion sign" notwithstanding.—@ndw

Friday at 10:23am

As a READER: I still can't buy DRM-free, well-made EPUBs for ~80% books I read. Will the iPad change that? If not, I have trouble caring.—@adamwitwer

Friday at 10:44am

So impressed (as always) by the insight and erudition of @cshirky: The Collapse of Complex Business Models http://bit.ly/cK3Rg4 READ IT!—@timoreilly

Friday at 12:32pm

Spec archeology around model ambiguity is interesting. I conclude the DTDs are valid, but legacy SGML systems are allowed to report errors.—@ndw

In a conversation that started on Friday at 01:18pm

The more I think about the concept of "Apps" the more it seems like a way to close off the internet. Sanitize it. Makes me kinda nervous.—@feliciaday
@feliciaday you're not alone in that concern.—@ndw

Friday at 01:34pm

Yep, that about sums it up, I think Wow... Cory's iPad rant, right or wrong, is monumental. http://is.gd/bbnWN—@ndw

Friday at 02:51pm

I am buying an iPad, but *wow*: RT @ndw: Cory Doctorow's iPad rant, right or wrong, is monumental. http://is.gd/bbnWN #fb—@andrewsavikas

In a conversation that started on Saturday at 03:01pm

Getting my ass whupped at Svrabble—@ndw
@ndw Whoa! And your spelling, too! ;) Are you playing with an actual board and tiles?—@JeanKaplansky
@JeanKaplansky yes. And an unspecified number of #PTO margaritas. My spelling isn't the point: we're outside, that's the point!—@ndw
@ndw well of course! I figured the spelling was due to being blinded by direct sun! 'tWas gorgeous here today, as well.—@JeanKaplansky
@JeanKaplansky yeah, the sun. That's what I meant to say.—@ndw
@ndw have a margarita on my behalf. :)—@JeanKaplansky

Saturday at 03:02pm

Getting my ass whupped at Scrabble. Outside! #spring—@ndw

Saturday at 08:05pm

You say "holy" as if your belief in the supernatural deserves respect. Huh.—@CcSteff