The short-form week of 17–23 May 2010

24 May 2010; last modified 13 Mar 2011

The week in review, 140 characters at a time. This week, 65 messages in 68 conversations. (With 3 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.

Monday at 12:57pm

I was trying to get a handle on this week early, but it broke off. So now I'm trying to grab it from the sides, and it's really awkward.—@RussB

In a conversation that started on Monday at 05:18pm

David Tennant+Patrick Stewart+Hamlet. Please let this be #awesome!—@ndw

@ndw Let me know what you think. I've watched the first part. It looks good.—@bsletten

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

yet another attempt to redesign w3c specs http://bit.ly/aDP5i7 The issue is not to create a better layout but the consensus on it—@karlpro

@karlpro will a new font magically trim a 900+ page spec into something more manageable?—@shelleypowers

@shelleypowers nope. but some people are sensitive to the design (I am), but as I said the issue is which design ;)—@karlpro

@karlpro @shelleypowers The technical one? Or is that asking too much?—@ndw

@ndw @karlpro I don't think changing the style will make the content more palatable, or comprehensible. Or unbiased, viable, or feasible.—@shelleypowers

@ndw @karlpro Package crap with a pretty bow, you still have crap.—@shelleypowers

@shelleypowers @karlpro Indeed. Hence my suggestion that perhaps it should be changed in technical style so as not to be, you know, crap.—@ndw

Tuesday at 07:54am

The MA RMV doesn't open for about 10 minutes and I'm already about number 20 in line. Sigh.—@ndw

In a conversation that started on Tuesday at 07:56am

Has it really been 30 years since Mt St Helens erupted? Where were you when it happened? (I was in Portland, glued to my TV.)—@merlyn

@merlyn I was in Coulee Dam. Blue sky on one side, jet black sky on the other, and fluffy white clouds in front of both.—@ndw

@ndw @merlyn I was in Yakima Wa watching the sky get black, outside trying to find cat as ash poured around me--it hissed as it fell—@shelleypowers

Tuesday at 10:53am

XML processor profiles published today. The other half of the XML Processing Model WG chater. http://www.w3.org/TR/xml-proc-profiles/—@ndw

Tuesday at 10:53am

XML processor profiles published today. The other half of the XML Processing Model WG charter. http://www.w3.org/TR/xml-proc-profiles/—@ndw

Tuesday at 11:02am

RT @ndw: XML processor profiles published today. The other half of XML Processing Model WG charter. http://www.w3.org/TR/xml-proc-profiles/—@vojtechtoman

Tuesday at 12:36pm

RT @ndw: XML processor profiles published today. The other half of the #XML #Processing #Model WG charter. http://is.gd/ceSPv #xproc #w3c—@innovimax

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

Wow, just reminded by @ndw that Mount St. Helens blew 30 years ago today. I was in Yakima, which ended up buried under ash.—@shelleypowers

@shelleypowers I remember the pictures of Yakima. Tens of feet made our couple of inches seem pretty insignificant.—@ndw

@ndw It wasn't feet, but it was deep enough. I didn't know you used to live at Coulee Dam. Small world.—@shelleypowers

@ndw It was a unique experience. One that you don't forget no matter how much time has passed.—@shelleypowers

In a conversation that started on Tuesday at 02:03pm

One monitor was enough for decades, two monitors was enough for years, how long will two monitors be enough?—@ndw

@ndw Until us coders evolve a third eye—@adamretter

Tuesday at 02:16pm

@ndw depends on the size of the monitors. A 30" cinema display has been quite enough for me so far—@gabrielsaldana

Tuesday at 03:01pm

Friend has Dell laptop running Vista. Occasionally it "forgets" the DVD drive. No drive, nothing in Hardware Profile, etc. Anyone seen this?—@ndw

In a conversation that started on Tuesday at 03:39pm

OK, My Mount. St. Helen's story http://burningbird.net/node/96—@shelleypowers

@shelleypowers Drat. I guess this would be the day to tell my Mt. St. Helens story too. But I've got other irons in the fire. Maybe later...—@ndw

@ndw Would enjoy reading it—@shelleypowers

Tuesday at 03:50pm

XML processor profiles published. The other half of the XML Processing Model WG charter. http://www.w3.org/TR/xml-proc-profiles/ (via @ndw)—@xmluser

In a conversation that started on Tuesday at 05:35pm

The O'Reilly sources for DocBook: TDG are so full of whitespace changes it's almost impossible to compare them to the current sources.—@ndw

@ndw oXygen XML diff tends to work nicely with human authored DocBook—@gcarothers

@gcarothers It's probably oXygen that changed the whitespace..—@abdelazer

@abdelazer the last version of oXygen added support to change only the modified nodes when editing visually, not the whole document.—@georgebina

@georgebina thank you for clarifying. The re-serialization and pretty-printing was a big issue with XMLMind—@abdelazer

@gcarothers Not well enough in this case. I knew what I was getting into when I agreed to let O'Reilly copyedit 4.5 sources though. Maybe.—@ndw

@ndw You may try setting some options: ignore whitespaces, ignore attr order, merge adjacent diffs, ignore expansion state for empty elem—@georgebina

@ndw Does it look due to conversion house work (specification) or a transform by-product? (whitespace in our DocBook)—@grechaw

@grechaw @ndw durnit late to the game again.—@grechaw

@grechaw My guess is transform-by-product. I've given up trying to fix those problems en masse. I'll just fix em as I touch em.—@ndw

In a conversation that started on Tuesday at 05:36pm

WHITESPACE IN MIXED CONTENT IS SIGNIFICANT!—@ndw

@ndw Yes, but everyone has used HTML which only treats the FIRST whitespace as significant. And not even always that.—@gcarothers

@ndw whitespace in mixed content is significant even between adjacent elements *always*, #XSLT please note :)—@docum3nt

Tuesday at 06:13pm

Now the hard part: extricating all the bits of the ref pages out of the expanded, parsed source and putting them back where they belong.—@ndw

Tuesday at 06:32pm

I believe that the *only* thing touched by the copy edit was the Description section, right? I mean, I have to. Right?—@ndw

In a conversation that started on Tuesday at 06:32pm

Admit it: If you're a developer, JSON is like a pheromone. #iiw—@xmlgrrl

@xmlgrrl Not really.—@ndw

Tuesday at 08:41pm

@ndw Pet theory: "pretty" browser rendering makes XML seem far more tolerant of whitespace than really it is, leads to slop—@jclip

Wednesday at 08:38am

XML processor profiles published today. The other half of the XML Processing Model WG charter. http://bit.ly/9lALLb -RT @ndw—@peteaven

Wednesday at 09:06am

Apropos of nothing, the flowchart on http://charliejane.com/ is very funny.—@ndw

In a conversation that started on Wednesday at 10:18am

I want to make something that would take ten minutes on a table saw. I don't have a table saw. Dang it.—@ndw

@ndw we do... but somehow, I'm betting it's not worth the 2-3 hour drive.—@JeanKaplansky

@ndw #nanoassembler :)—@docum3nt

In a conversation that started on Wednesday at 02:04pm

I can haz more screens! http://www.flickr.com/photos/ndw/4622402958/—@ndw

@ndw Is that a fan blowing on the laptop?!—@MattioV

@MattioV It is. An Arctic Breeze. Dead quiet and keeps things cool. Not as important on the new laptop as it was on the old.—@ndw

Wednesday at 03:28pm

After presenting on a webex, even after I quit the app, I always worry that I'm still broadcasting my desktop to the world.—@ndw

In a conversation that started on Wednesday at 04:35pm

do you know how #awesome it is to learn Schema from Mary Holstege? I'm a padawan in the temple of Jedi Masters!—@peteaven

@peteaven aka universe's tallest padawan :)~—@jasoncbooth

@jasoncbooth dude, so growin out my rattail for the next team mtg. padawan style! http://bit.ly/9Lvv3A—@peteaven

@peteaven In my experience, your statement is true no matter what you replace 'Schema' with.—@ndw

Wednesday at 05:02pm

Cool conference: Balisage. Cool contest: http://norman.walsh.name/2010/05/19/BalisageContest—@ndw

In a conversation that started on Wednesday at 09:16pm

doesn't quite seem right that I'm currently the earliest Emacs user on @mytechne : http://mytechne.com/text-editors/emacs/—@jtauber

@jtauber I first used GNU Emacs round about 1987.—@james_clark

@james_clark I would love to see your entries included on the site—@jtauber

@jtauber Reloading the page on mytechne after adding something is really annoying—@ndw

@jtauber Looks fun. You're missing one OS I used: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Panos_(operating_systemm)—@james_clark

@jtauber Not anymore!—@liza

@liza thank you :-)—@jtauber

@jtauber Trying to get my husband to join with his 1987 emacs pedigree.—@liza

In a conversation that started on Thursday at 10:56am

Yesterday I created 300,000+ small files (spread across 6656 directories). Today I'm deleting them. Not sure which is going to take longer.—@ndw

@ndw norm, file deletes don't take long at all if you format the drive. ;)—@jasoncbooth

In a conversation that started on Thursday at 11:03am

When TimeMachine says it's backing up 'X of Y Gb', is there any way to see a list of what it's backing up?—@ndw

@ndw you can probably query it with the fsevents tools, but I forget (more likely, never knew) the detail—@ceri

Thursday at 11:11am

RT @ndw: When TimeMachine says it's backing up 'X of Y Gb', is there any way to see a list of what it's backing up? / No, it just works :P—@gabrielsaldana

In a conversation that started on Thursday at 02:13pm

I wonder why Wikipedia data has some many Unicode surrogate pair characters (\uD8xx, etc.)?—@ndw

@ndw I'd like to look at why Mediawiki is spitting out all those surrogates. Any specific place I shoul look?—@hexmode

@hexmode I believe this page contains some: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chalcedon (after the word Phoenician)—@ndw

Thursday at 06:12pm

Outside. On the deck. Wine. Music. Setting sun. Hacking DocBook: The Definitive Guide.—@ndw

Thursday at 07:10pm

Note to self: you thought it was too early for mosquitos. You were wrong.—@ndw

Thursday at 08:29pm

Gah! The docbook.org website isn't under version control? WTF!? /me runs screaming. I must be mistaken. Tomorrow. Look at it tomorrow.—@ndw

Friday at 07:20am

hacking DocBook? :)) Sounds like a dream :) RT @ndw: Outside. On the deck. Wine. Music. Setting sun. Hacking DocBook: The Definitive Guide.—@livetechdocs

Friday at 08:22am

Found the hg repository for docbook.org; back in sync. Whew!—@ndw

Friday at 09:02am

RT @kplawver Hot damn, XKCD nails it again: http://xkcd.com/743/ #opensource #ftw—@ndw

In a conversation that started on Friday at 10:31am

Starting 7th June I'll be working for MarkLogic. I'm excited to be able to continue working on #xquery with such an awesome team.—@jpcs

@jpcs Congratulations! I'm happy for you, John.—@evanlenz

@jpcs Hey! You finally made it public! Welcome to the kick-ass #marklogic team!—@ndw

@jpcs — awesome!! Welcome in John. We are absolutely psyched to have you here! (or at least I am)—@dscape

@jpcs Congratulations! I was wondering about your ML e-mail address when you signed up for the XQuery meetup in London.—@abcoates

In a conversation that started on Friday at 10:44am

Tabbing onto a submit button is causing a form to submit, but I don't see any on-focus handlers on the button. Debugging suggestions?—@ndw

@ndw does disabling javascript stop the form submission behavior? Could be other handlers (onblur or somesuch).—@gusgollings

@gusgollings It does. There's no blur handler on the input field I'm tabbing off of, either.—@ndw

Friday at 10:54am

All you other sharp folks out there, team #marklogic is still looking for top notch talent. Feel free to ping me for details!—@ndw

Friday at 11:42am

Visual Event reveals there are no handlers on that button. Must be something about the input field. Not that I can see what. YUI rathole.—@ndw

In a conversation that started on Friday at 12:39pm

Dug my way to the bottom. Sort of. Pblm is oSelf.unmatchedItemSelectEvent.fire() in YAHOO.widget.AutoComplete.prototype._onTextboxBlur WTF.—@ndw

@ndw Ah! Because someone puts a handler on that event that calls searchform.submit(). That was a long and winding path. Now. Why?—@ndw

In a conversation that started on Friday at 01:38pm

Debugging suggestions? @ndw Beer.—@sgmlguru

@sgmlguru That always makes the debugging *feel* better, but I'm not confident it improves the results.—@ndw

@ndw So true, but then, I never considered myself to be a good programmer. Perceived success is better than no success.—@sgmlguru

Friday at 01:43pm

RT @ndw All you other sharp folks out there, team #marklogic is still looking for top notch talent. Feel free to ping me for details!—@peteaven

Friday at 01:44pm

RT @ndw : @jpcs Hey! You finally made it public! Welcome to the kick-ass #marklogic team!—@peteaven

In a conversation that started on Friday at 03:11pm

â™º@docbook: DocBook.org updated. At long freaking last. Includes latest DocBook 5:TDG updates.—@ndw

@ndw "DocBook 5: The Definitive Guide (01 May 2005)" 2010?—@abdelazer

@abdelazer Gah. Fixed.—@ndw

Friday at 03:30pm

RT @ndw: All you other sharp folks out there, team #marklogic is still looking for top notch talent. Feel free to ping me for details! #jobs—@xmlguild

In a conversation that started on Friday at 05:34pm

Is there any justifiable rationale to an online shopping cart that empties after 30min of inactivity!?—@pgor

@pgor they don't really want to make the sale?—@ndw

@ndw Must be it. I discovered later that "indefinite cart" is a "benefit" of registering. <ick>—@pgor

Friday at 05:48pm

.@jpcs Welcome! RT @ndw: @jpcs Hey! You finally made it public! Welcome to the kick-ass #marklogic team! #data—@JanetJoz

In a conversation that started on Friday at 07:02pm

It's not a Manpurse, it's an iPad carry-all.—@SaraD

@SaraD if I get an iPad, I will have to get a larger manpurse. I do not believe this is among my conscious objections to getting an iPad.—@ndw

Friday at 07:58pm

The grey treefrogs are in full chorus tonight.—@ndw

In a conversation that started on Friday at 08:44pm

CSI: NY, Rear Window edition. They knew they were ripping off a classic, right?—@ndw

@ndw Probably betting on the audience being culturally illiterate!—@bsletten

Friday at 09:41pm

RT @doriantaylor Theory isn't a bad word. Theory models and articulates reality. If theory doesn't reflect reality, it's called fantasy.—@bsletten

Saturday at 06:20am

+1 RT @bphogan: I am seriously pissed off that Better Off Ted is cancelled, but the frickin' Office is still going.—@ndw

In a conversation that started on Saturday at 08:13am

I may have found my new IDE, Webstorm. Nice JS debugger, plus it has Git integration! From the Intelli-J folks. http://bit.ly/a5cnNm—@jasoncbooth

@jasoncbooth That does look pretty spiffy.—@ndw

In a conversation that started on Saturday at 04:24pm

SSOD: the striped screen of death? http://yfrog.com/49ydxj—@ndw

@ndw It doesn't look good. Hope it's fixable.—@sgmlguru

@ndw ssod != good. That sucks :(—@jasoncbooth

In a conversation that started on Saturday at 04:40pm

Fuck. When I reboot I get the PGP disk password screen, a flash of the normal login screen, and all those stripes again.—@ndw

@ndw Oh no! So sorry to hear that, sounds abominable.—@abcoates

@ndw is this a #mbp hardware issue?—@dizzzz

@dizzzz No. Booting off my "checkpoint backup" looks fine. Now trying repair to see if it's that simple. Then reinstall if I must.—@ndw

@dizzzz I'm not sure, buy I don't think so. New idea is maybe I can ssh in. Will test later today.—@ndw

In a conversation that started on Saturday at 10:21pm

People are upset, so we are working nonstop to make as many "BP cares" shirts as we can. Tweet #IWantMyBPtshirt if you want a free one.—@BPGlobalPR

.@BPGlobalPR I don't believe for a single f'ing minute that you care about anything but the PR problem. Free tshirt? R U f'ing serious?—@ndw

@ndw It's a satirical account, not really BP.—@pfhawkins

In a conversation that started on Sunday at 02:48am

4th MacBook Pro 2010 freeze. This time looking somewhat different, making it video worthy: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ban9gizUgWU #bug—@avernet

@avernet interesting that my issue seems video related as well. But it's my first and I did let the PGP enc. machine run to 0% bat. My bad?—@ndw

Sunday at 08:56am

All hail SSH and rsync & unix. There will be (up to the minute) backups. I don't know if it's funny or sad that I don't trust time machine.—@ndw

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

RT @sdouche: interesting: Why I Switched to Git From Mercurial http://goo.gl/fb/yN8iN—@ndw

@ndw In one sense I prefer Bazaar, which is not so unlike Mercurial, but I agree it's hard to ignore the apparent rise and rise of Git.—@abcoates

In a conversation that started on Sunday at 09:47am

I'm on a boat (@ Cydonia) http://4sq.com/clTucF—@afalk

@afalk every time you say that I think about the commercial: "I'm on a horse."—@ndw

Sunday at 11:41am

"As hard as it is to win by fighting, it's impossible to win by doing nothing." - FTW, @doctorow (thanks, Cory!) http://is.gd/clYZ4—@worldmegan

Sunday at 01:48pm

I may be half evil, but I'm ahead for the moment! http://yfrog.com/3oji9nj—@ndw

Sunday at 02:20pm

It didn't last, but statistically, it wasn't likely to. My win percentage is a hair under 20%. Yeah, we record all the scores. You don't?—@ndw

In a conversation that started on Sunday at 04:21pm

What do you call a Manhattan made w/Campari instead of red vermouth? I call it delicious!—@ndw

@ndw I like @kendall's suggestion, Pepperidge Farm cookies notwithstanding. I love Manhattans and Negronis, and will try this.—@bobdc

@ndw A Milano?—@kendall