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The short-form week of 5–11 Apr 2010

12 Apr 2010; last modified 13 Mar 2011

The week in review, 140 characters at a time. This week, 79 messages in 79 conversations. (With 4 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 Monday at 07:26am

Hmph. Most of the pages Ephemera copied to my Kindle say "Sorry, this page is not available in Instapaper." Suboptimal.—@ndw
@ndw Checked Instapaper.com in your browser yet and tried to access the files there? If it works there, try again in Ephemera. Might have…—@Ephemera
@Ephemera Works fine in my browser. I'll try to sync again when I have a moment.—@ndw

Monday at 07:44am

Given the MAC address of my router, my neighbor's router, and my IP address, Google's geoloc API is correct to +/-181m. That's just spooky.—@ndw

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

I have more people following me on Buzz than I do on Twitter. I'm really thinking about dropping my twitter accoun... http://bit.ly/c4MgLf—@duck1123
@duck1123 The 140 character limit is as much a feature as it is a bug, IMHO. Ok, it bites every now and then, but it also focuses the writer—@ndw

In a conversation that started on Monday at 12:34pm

My discomfort with our freedom-less iPad future is being eroded by the sense of childlike wonder it evokes! Help!—@stevej
@stevej I feel your pain.—@ndw

In a conversation that started on Monday at 03:22pm

This is a irony, because now my passport has a little chip in it that tells everyone within a large amount of space everything about me.—@textfiles
@textfiles If that's the sort of thing that bothers you: http://www.thinkgeek.com/interests/dads/910f/—@ndw

Monday at 03:25pm

Love how the tech blogs talk about Apple's "community" of developers. The 'community' of people bound by NDAs not to talk to one another...—@tommorris

Monday at 05:22pm

Fixed bug. Every single XProc test suite test failed. Fixed fixed bug.—@ndw

In a conversation that started on Monday at 05:55pm

@ephemera Now I've totally confused it. How do I tell Ephemera to forget what it thinks its downloaded and resync it all?—@ndw
@ndw Simple: Connect your Kindle and use the Finder to delete the "_ephemera" folder inside the "documents" folder. :)—@Ephemera
@Ephemera that's the first thing I tried. Ephemera still says "nothing new" and leaves the folder empty.—@ndw
@Ephemera Ah. Ephemera seems to have told Instapaper that I'd read all those pages :-( Restored and resynced, but most still "not available"—@ndw

Monday at 05:57pm

@ephemera Heh. Even AppZapping and starting over didn't help. Must be a pref squirreled away somewhere.—@ndw

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

You know what's worse than parsing crappy XML? Remembering you helped design that crappy XML.—@MattioV
@MattioV yeah, but worse still is parsing all the non-XML formats.—@ndw
@ndw True! I'm very thankful I see little of that. ;-)—@MattioV

In a conversation that started on Tuesday at 12:49am

I am often disconcerted when taxi drivers need to use a GPS unit and even moreso when they can't spell "mountain"—@lmorchard
@lmorchard Best cab story so far (for some defn of "best"), cabbie needs GPS, ignores it, goes wrong way on 101. Hilarity ensues.—@ndw

Tuesday at 08:56am

If ripping a DVD only requires the VIDEO_TS folder, what is the AUDIO_TS folder for, exactly?—@ndw

Tuesday at 10:13am

Tuesday at 12:25pm

Randomly tweaking HandBrake options to see if I can get DVD quality rips of my ... DVD. Grumble.—@ndw

In a conversation that started on Tuesday at 02:10pm

Delighted to be joining the IDEAlliance team as the XML Community Manager. Look out for lots of tweets, links and announcements soon. - AJP—@xmluser
@xmluser Uh, ok. But who are you, AJP?—@ndw

Tuesday at 05:44pm

Any simple pastebin-servers I can install on Linux (pref w/o installing mysql and half a dozen other things)?—@ndw

In a conversation that started on Tuesday at 05:48pm

@TheRepoRat Ah, cool. Perfect. Thanks!—@ndw
@ndw any time! :)—@TheRepoRat

Tuesday at 06:17pm

Installing Quicken 2002 Deluxe on Deb's desktop machine. I wonder if this is gonna work?—@ndw

In a conversation that started on Tuesday at 07:21pm

@ndw yay you!—@peteaven

Tuesday at 07:42pm

Tuesday at 08:35pm

Ah tequila... We meet again. When last I left you I was but a learner. Now I AM THE MASTER. #fb—@JediLibrarian

Tuesday at 11:04pm

Wednesday at 12:41am

looking for an chance to make a difference? check what @ndw has to say http://bit.ly/cqxaJz - If you are excellent, we are hiring :)—@dscape

In a conversation that started on Wednesday at 01:59am

RT @nekogesaku: RT @bunny_car: http://tinyurl.com/ydaamyu Dita, DocBook and the Art of the Document - O'Reilly XML Blog—@livetechdocs
@livetechdocs That DITA/DocBook thing is from 2008. I'm just saying.—@ndw
@ndw I know the article is "a bit" old and DocBook came a long way since then. It was still nice seeing it on Twitter resurected again.—@livetechdocs
@livetechdocs: The article is wrong on a number of counts.—@dpawson
@dpawson which one are you referring to?—@livetechdocs
@livetechdocs: Docbook origins, scope of docbook usage etc.—@dpawson
@livetechdocs: http://is.gd/bicEx gives a short history.—@dpawson

Wednesday at 02:13am

Wednesday at 05:34am

With net neutrality dead in the US, how long before Skype quality degrades over cable systems that offer their own VOIP tel service?—@ndw

Wednesday at 05:59am

DocBook vs DITA, @kurt_cagle? I'd give the whole thing a miss except people are already mailing me the factual errors. Sigh.—@ndw

Wednesday at 06:01am

I wonder if I can talk my mom into phoning her MP about #debill. Maybe if I write a short script...the screenplay kind, I mean.—@ndw

Wednesday at 06:49am

Internet archive time warp. Sorry @kurt_cagle, the essay in question is from 2008, which I didn't notice. It's still wrong, but nevermind.—@ndw

Wednesday at 09:00am

Spectacular. #fibonacci ♲@peropaal Gorgeous piece, must see! RT @kevsmith: Why math is beautiful: http://bit.ly/c3zgTk—@ndw

Wednesday at 09:18am

Must see! RT @ndw: Spectacular. #fibonacci @peropaal Gorgeous piece, must see! RT @kevsmith: Why math is beautiful: http://bit.ly/c3zgTk—@jirkakosek

In a conversation that started on Wednesday at 12:36pm

My Mac has been booting for 15 minutes. Little spinning wheel be damned, I want a proper console so I can see what it's doing.—@ndw
@ndw Theres always command-v for verbose mode—@ashooner
@ashooner really? Well it's not having any effect now.—@ndw
@ndw Command-V Boot using "Verbose" mode (shows all kernel and startup console messages)—@sss4r
@ndw Google "mac verbose boot" says my guru—@docum3nt
@stevej (and @ashooner) Oh sweet jeezus, thank you! That feels so much better! Of course this time it booted right up w/o hanging. Grrr.—@ndw
@ndw There are new Macbooks coming out soon ;)—@detonator413
@detonator413 And one has my name on it. On the day. But today, repair disk seems to have fixed things.—@ndw
@ndw To always boot my Mac in verbose mode, I have enabled this: http://osxdaily.com/2007/03/25/always-boot-mac-os-x-in-verbose-mode/—@robinberjon

In a conversation that started on Wednesday at 12:40pm

@ndw do you sync it up with the desktop app? My jaw hit the ground when I saw the price on that one...—@JeanKaplansky
@JeanKaplansky @omnifocus iPhone app syncs over wifi. And the desktop app is expensive too!—@ndw

In a conversation that started on Wednesday at 12:49pm

@ndw so you do or do not use the desktop app? If not, then what are you sync'ing with via wifi?—@JeanKaplansky
@JeanKaplansky Sorry, you asked about desktop so I thought you were talking about the iPhone app. I use the desktop version, synced w/iPhone—@ndw

Wednesday at 12:59pm

@ndw OK. That makes sense, then. Hmmm. Which do I want more? To keep track of stuff, or to mind map stuff? That is the question. :)—@JeanKaplansky

Wednesday at 01:00pm

Rebooted, but still definitely ill. Finder takes *forever*. I suspect filesystem borkage. Oh, well, there's two days of my life gone.—@ndw

Wednesday at 01:10pm

When they say your system may become unresponsive during a disk verify, they really mean it.—@ndw

In a conversation that started on Wednesday at 03:47pm

Started a firey debate on #xml #namespaces on #xml-dev ... join in the fun !—@DALDEI
@DALDEI No, I think I'll let this one pass. But for the record, @michaelhkay is right. (A safe bet even if I hadn't read the thread.)—@ndw
@ndw @michaelhkay is always right, but then he isnt the one who's going to have to code this :)—@DALDEI

In a conversation that started on Wednesday at 04:26pm

US Airways to buy United. Ugh. http://nyti.ms/b4qNzv—@ndw
@ndw And I just signed up for their frequent flyer program... uh oh.—@emacsen
@ndw WTF? Actually, the article says "merge", not one buying the other. But, stii: WTF! As a VFF (Very Freq Flier), this can't be good...—@SheltieJim

Wednesday at 04:30pm

RT @ndw: US Airways to buy United. Ugh. http://nyti.ms/b4qNzv—@roessler

Wednesday at 06:01pm

Saw @hunterhacker win DemoJam & @ndw lay the smackdown w/ something he built too. Can't win if you don't enter: http://bit.ly/HrKzJ—@peteaven

Wednesday at 06:10pm

Dinner outside on the deck. In April. In New England.—@ndw

Wednesday at 06:50pm

RT @ndw: US Airways to buy United. Ugh. http://nyti.ms/b4qNzv <<== In case you thought air travel couldn't get worse.—@richardhamilton

Wednesday at 09:11pm

The US loses #netneutrality and the UK gets #debill. It took a while by the corporations won. The battle, not the war, I hope. !optimistic—@ndw

In a conversation that started on Thursday at 02:32am

stepping away from Apple ... my next machine will be a custom built debian laptop maybe running OSX (amongst others) via virtualbox—@xquery
@xquery Let me know how that goes. I'd be sorely tempted to switch too, were it not for CS4 and Lightroom.—@ndw

Thursday at 11:38am

In a conversation that started on Thursday at 11:55am

Free Twin Peaks music to celebrate the 20th anniversary. http://bit.ly/au7VPp—@lmorchard
The twentieth anniversary of Twin Peaks. Cherry pie and damned fine coffee (via @lmorchard)—@ndw

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

Comcast SMTP server is incredibly unreliable. I have to figure out how to route e-mails.—@kohsukekawa
@kohsukekawa Buy MailHop Outbound from @dyndns. Highly recommended. http://www.dyndns.com/services/mailhop/outbound.html—@ndw

In a conversation that started on Thursday at 12:02pm

woke up thinking if I have time to finish, I do have something to show that will melt some faces http://bit.ly/cx6P9e #MLUC10 #DemoJam—@peteaven
@peteaven Pete Aven, in da house!—@ndw

In a conversation that started on Thursday at 01:29pm

Signs of spring: college students have pulled all their furniture into the front yard where they're playing quarters.—@ndw
@ndw sounds like home to me! Then they all go away and you get your town back for a few.—@JeanKaplansky

In a conversation that started on Thursday at 01:30pm

Flickr Uploader's a real PITA when it crashes ever 10 photos.—@ndw
@ndw You're on OS X, right? iPhoto '09 and Aperture 3 both have good Flickr integration.—@sss4r
@sss4r I don't think I installed iPhoto after the last rebuild. I bet there's Lightroom integration too. But maybe this is a job for #xproc!—@ndw

Thursday at 01:50pm

How to drive me away from the iPhone even faster: put ads in my face.—@ndw

In a conversation that started on Thursday at 02:48pm

I just want Emacs on my iPad. I'l jailbreak it if I have to.—@peropaal
@peropaal That'd be sweet. That might make an iPad attractive.—@ndw

Thursday at 04:28pm

after #balisage and #xmlprague ! RT @ndw: Demo jam at #mluc10http://norman.walsh.name/2010/04/08/mluc10-demojam Bring out yer demos!—@innovimax

Thursday at 04:52pm

Counterpoint. RT @tomcoates Interesting post about the 'iPad is not for creation' cant: http://huff.to/dbGAF0—@ndw

Thursday at 06:01pm

Funny how "print view" became a euphemism for "remove all the useless crap and show me the web page as it should have been from the start".—@vambenepe

Thursday at 08:26pm

RT @vambenepe Funny how "print view" became a euph for "remove all the crap and show me the web page as it should have been from the start".—@ndw

Thursday at 09:27pm

@ndw the #iphone ads are already there, all #appl is doing is making it easer for the free apps to do what they are already doing—@DALDEI

Thursday at 11:48pm

RT @ndw @vambenepe Funny how "print view" became a euph for "remove all crap and show me the web page as it should have been from the start"—@innovimax

Friday at 07:25am

Woke up to find Deb's computer dead. Diagnosis: power supply. Performed transplant from old machine. Downtime: 45 minutes. I rock!—@ndw

Friday at 08:04am

For my next trick: swapping laptop hard drives. Again. Because Apple is going to fix the fans this time. Really. I mean it.—@ndw

In a conversation that started on Friday at 10:04am

Back from Norfolk; photos uploaded http://is.gd/blHZR—@al3xbrown
@al3xbrown Lovely images. I've often been to Cromer with my folks and Sheringham at least a couple of times.—@ndw
@ndw thanks Norm. Norfolk's great (esp when sun shines)—@al3xbrown

In a conversation that started on Friday at 11:20am

@ndw From my own experience, we rarely want XML documents themselves telling us what to do with them, do we?—@fgeorges
@fgeorges It's convenient in some contexts and totally wrong in others. It certainly isn't *always* what you want to do with them!—@ndw

In a conversation that started on Friday at 11:28am

Follow Friday love from my CEO. Back atcha bro' @Kellblog—@ndw

Friday at 12:30pm

A fantastic essay. "Apple Dev Program takes a stand on the nature of consciousness" http://bit.ly/co4GtZ—@ndw

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

Visiting the office, pro: great conversation, great ideas, great energy; con: exposure to all those parent's children's germs. *cough*—@ndw
@ndw icky. No wonder I haven't had quite the head cold problems I used to have. Archie's kid just turned 19 and i'm hiding out in the woods.—@JeanKaplansky

Friday at 12:46pm

A fantastic essay. "Apple Dev Program takes a stand on the nature of consciousness" http://bit.ly/co4GtZ [ via @ndw ]—@peteaven

Friday at 12:58pm

«theory of a “ghost in the machine”, implying…» (‘Apple Dev Program / nature of consciousness’) http://bit.ly/co4GtZ /via @ndw—@gridinoc

In a conversation that started on Friday at 02:14pm

How do people use editors that don't have M-x all, M-x kill/yank-rect, or recordable keyboard macros? #emacs—@ndw
@ndw RMS has major carpal tunnel syndrome, you know—@BkwdGreenComet
@BkwdGreenComet Imagine how much worse it would be if he had to use an editor that was less capable?—@ndw
@ndw they spend hours, days, or weeks, doing things manually one by one, and never question it. And management thinks this is acceptable :)—@docum3nt
@ndw Try using the mousepad and cursor keys sometime. You'd be amazed what you can do with those suckers these days.—@abcoates
@abcoates I have tried this mousepad thing of which you speak. Taking my fingers off the keyboard it requires. WTF is up with that?—@ndw
@ndw You need to let go of your fears and embrace the force. Er, mouse.—@abcoates
@ndw are there such editors.—@jcowie
@jcowie There are. I sometimes try to use them.—@ndw
@ndw sounds like witch craft to me. How can there be no M-x feature.—@jcowie
@jcowie What can I say? There are some dark and scary places out there in the world. Frustrating, unproductive places with bad key bindings.—@ndw
@ndw they are simply done much earlier because their editors start up in reasonable time *duck*—@martin_probst
@martin_probst Your editor comes up from a cold start in less than 4 seconds? I guess you really do get a headstart on me.—@ndw
@ndw It does now that we have solid state drives :)—@sinnema313
@sinnema313 It takes 4.046s of real time to start Emacs from scratch off a spinning platter in my laptop and type C-x C-c—@ndw

Friday at 05:02pm

In a conversation that started on Friday at 10:12pm

You need a reason for Laphroiag, @gridinoc, sez who?—@ndw
@ndw no, I don't need a reason for Laphroiag; but I just had a reason that made Laphroiag an imperative ;)—@gridinoc

Friday at 10:17pm

Yeah, that sounds about right. RT @doctorow If you don't understand this about #iPad DRM, you don't understand http://tinyurl.com/yavvu5b—@ndw

Saturday at 04:43am

Saturday at 08:42am

(Last retweet of @doctorow was via @ndw - new Twitter retweet interface doesn't let me give credit.)—@david_megginson

In a conversation that started on Saturday at 09:55am

The iPad is oddly heavy and undeniably appealing.—@ndw
@ndw isn't it though? It's hard to put down, too. The iPhone just looks so small now.—@JeanKaplansky
@ndw yes, having played with it yesterday it was surprisingly heavy...—@ivan_herman

In a conversation that started on Saturday at 10:39am

Anyone know of a service for syntax checking MIME messages? Apparently I'm doing something wrong but I'll be damned if I can see what.—@ndw
@ndw Elm :)—@docum3nt
@docum3nt Oh, I can see the data, I just can't see what's wrong. And it's multipart/form-data, not mail.—@ndw
@aloofschipperke Perfect, thank you!—@ndw
@aloofschipperke Alas, that seems aimed at MIME mail and doesn't appear to understand multipart/form-data.—@ndw
@ndw In other news, it helps if you spell the headers correctly. *slaps palm on forehead*—@ndw
@ndw like my user who came to me with a web page not working: he had used <spam> instead of <span> :)—@docum3nt

Sunday at 12:15am

Just read that Democrats could lose 70 seats in November! Gah! So many stupid people voting Republican... Like a never ending zombie attack!—@RussB

In a conversation that started on Sunday at 03:08pm

Can I justify another laptop from a company that's become repulsive? Probably. But only just. C'mon Adobe, port Lightroom/PS to Linux, ok?—@ndw
@ndw Dual Boot Windows 7 and Ubuntu isn't too bad. Both read/write NTFS just fine. And MS is (god it possible?) less repulsive?—@gcarothers
@ndw I'll be facing the same question once $project is finished. And I don't use any Adobe applications at all…—@mkhl
@ndw Or rather, c'mon Adobe, forget Flash, and focus on HTML5.—@avernet

Sunday at 04:51pm

A website makes it official, right? http://xprocbook.com/—@ndw