The short-form week of 3–9 Jan 2011
10 Jan 2011; last modified 13 Mar 2011
The week in review, 140 characters at a time. This week, 52 messages in 52 conversations. (With 10 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 07:29am
Doctorow on net neutrality: not having net neutrality is giving control back to the
media giants. http://instapaper.com/zBu5kgh1X—@mikeloukides
@mikeloukides That’s why the media giants are so anxious to crush it, surely?—@ndw
@ndw yes, the same media giants who serve us so well. Net neutrality is a big threat for
them.—@mikeloukides
Monday at 11:59am
What should the government do rather than keep playing Terrorball? Stop treating Americans
like idiots and cowards. http://goo.gl/Bxmkp #fb—@russnelson
Monday at 01:28pm
RT @xmlcalabash XML Calabash 0.9.30 released—@ndw
Monday at 01:38pm
computer programming is moments of triumph surrounded by hours of the computer telling
you you're an idiot—@davidbro
In a conversation that started on Monday at 02:59pm
Monday at 03:14pm
Monday at 03:41pm
Murphy's off to a careless start this year, the water tank broke *while I was home*.
Ha! Take that! Oh. Wait. The water tank broke?...—@ndw
In a conversation that started on Tuesday at 07:39am
"At some point in your life, the Antichrist is going to offer you a job. Don't take
it. And especially don't..." - http://bit.ly/eMkw54—@simonstl
In a conversation that started on Tuesday at 08:42am
The interaction between one time and repeating ical events, creation dates, the current
date, and timezones is painfully complicated.—@ndw
@ndw at least iCal gets timezones, dates, full day events etc somewhat right, compared
to the complete failure that is Outlook.—@martin_probst
@martin_probst Yeah, fair enough. In fairness, I didn’t say iCal was getting it wrong, just that
it was complex.—@ndw
@ndw as someone who implemented the XQuery date time functions by hand once - the whole
date thing simply is annoying complex.—@martin_probst
In a conversation that started on Tuesday at 09:16am
Twitter username URIs, e.g., /ndw, redirect to "hash bang" URIs, e.g., /#!/ndw, is
that odd syntactic convention explained anywhere?—@ndw
@ndw it's from Google "ajax crawling" recommandation: http://code.google.com/intl/us-EN/web/ajaxcrawling/docs/getting-started.html—@T1B0
@ndw I was under the impression that that was a Twitter-internal marker referring to the
#NewTwitter UI—@alecmuffett
@ndw it's from a Google suggestion: http://googlewebmastercentral.blogspot.com/2009/10/proposal-for-making-ajax-crawlable.html—@isofarro
@bortzmeyer @ndw It's one way of dealing with AJAX URIs for crawling. See http://bit.ly/31F0UO—@Coox
@ndwhttp://www.google.com/support/webmasters/bin/answer.py?answer=174992 explains the URL syntax. Using HTML5 pushState() would be better.—@annevk
@ndw @bortzmeyer Not sure but it looks like google's ajax crawling spec http://code.google.com/web/ajaxcrawling/docs/getting-started.html—@floriancargoet
In a conversation that started on Tuesday at 09:16am
RT @ndw: Twitter username URIs, e.g., /ndw, redirect to "hash bang" URIs, e.g., /#!/ndw,
is that odd syntactic convention explained anyw ...—@bortzmeyer
Tuesday at 09:19am
Tuesday at 09:43am
A service-side snapshot of mashup RT @psd: @ndwhttp://code.google.com/web/ajaxcrawling/docs/getting-started.html—@dongliu
Tuesday at 10:24am
Tuesday at 12:17pm
Seriously, vaccinate. Or I will cough on you.—@ginatrapani
Tuesday at 12:51pm
norman.walsh.name and xprocbook.com will be down for a few minutes while I install
new memory.—@ndw
Tuesday at 01:30pm
TZ puzzler: E1 created at 11a, 8 Jun (US EDT). E2 created at 10a, 21 Dec (EST). Both
repeat weekly. What time do they occur today and why?—@ndw
Tuesday at 01:30pm
norman.walsh.name and xprocbook.com are back up and running normally, I believe.—@ndw
Tuesday at 01:35pm
The back end of my bank's online banking system prints checks in the midwest and sends
them via postal mail. WTF or, yes, of course?—@ndw
Tuesday at 02:01pm
In a conversation that started on Tuesday at 03:53pm
Oh, FFS! What an #asshat. RT shelleypowers Scalia's scary denial of 14th amendment protection http://huff.to/dIolfK (via @FiredUpMissouri)—@ndw
@ndw @shelleypowers @FiredUpMissouri "Scalia's scary denial of 14th amendment protection" http://huff.to/dIolfK *facepalm*—@mamund
Tuesday at 03:57pm
Think the piece of 2010 US culture that bothers me most is our willingness to throw
away most anything, and to build assuming discard.—@simonstl
In a conversation that started on Tuesday at 04:37pm
RT @ndw The back end of my bank's online banking system prints checks in the midwest and
sends them via postal mail. WTF or, yes, of course?—@edd
Tuesday at 04:44pm
RT @ndw The back end of my bank's online banking system prints checks in the midwest and
sends them via postal mail. WTF or, yes, of course?—@arjenlentz
Tuesday at 07:41pm
Starting to think about planning to climb Mt. Katahdin in ME. My dad climbed it, probably
when he was about my age.—@ndw
Wednesday at 07:53am
Wednesday at 09:01am
RT @newsycombinator: Google's library for dealing with phone numbers (Java/JavaScript) http://j.mp/a1a2z8 << Cool! Could be really useful—@mikeloukides
Wednesday at 10:24am
Random telemarketer just called me asking for "Sun Microsystems". Uhhmmmm. No.—@ndw
In a conversation that started on Wednesday at 10:34am
In a conversation that started on Wednesday at 01:21pm
Why is it that on a plane, you get free coffee, but have to pay for WiFi, while it
is the other way around anywhere else?—@avernet
In a conversation that started on Wednesday at 03:16pm
and the new version (v0.5) is live and the first device is already updated via the
market.—@vbsteven
In a conversation that started on Wednesday at 03:25pm
Some cheeky OS X update removed the Java 1.5 that I'd so carefully reinstalled after
upgrading to Snow Leopard. Bastard!—@ndw
@ndw Java on OS X was always the red-headed step child. (Remember the vanishing 1.6 era?)
Now it's getting kicked out the house.—@gcarothers
In a conversation that started on Wednesday at 03:30pm
Oh, and the Java Preferences panel doesn't even offer 1.5 as a choice after I've installed
it again. Double plus pissed off.—@ndw
@ndw java 1.5 is EOL since two years, get over it.—@martin_probst
@martin_probst Yeah, well. If only it was that simple to change all the users to 1.6 too.—@ndw
@ndw I think most of that really is just inertia, not real technical problems. Haven't
seen any incompat from 5 to 6.—@martin_probst
@martin_probst Yeah, I think that’s probably true, but users don’t always see it in those terms,
do they?—@ndw
@ndw have you considered using hudson to take care of build/test different dists (or diff
java) dists ... ant alone can be cumbersome—@xquery
@ndw probably. And there are platforms w/ ancient Java. Question is if the added maintenance
cost for you offsets customer value.—@martin_probst
@martin_probst Indeed. I’ll probably try to setup and run ‘ant dist’ on a Linux VM with Java 1.5
because it’s fairly painless. Probably.—@ndw
In a conversation that started on Wednesday at 03:38pm
Wednesday at 04:09pm
In a conversation that started on Wednesday at 05:48pm
Trying to find consistent EMPTY elements in 20,000 elements. My brain isn't thinking
logically today. Wonder if wine would help?—@harveybetty
@harveybetty when has wine not helped? On second thought, nevermind.—@ndw
Wednesday at 08:16pm
In a conversation that started on Thursday at 08:53am
definitely not a member of this tribe: people excited by the words "app" and "store"—@psd
In a conversation that started on Thursday at 12:05pm
Evernote is in the Mac App Store! We're really excited. http://bit.ly/gaxK2L—@evernote
In a conversation that started on Thursday at 01:24pm
On a bottle of leather cleaner: "Do not take internally". What? Really? Sigh.—@ndw
@ndw There's a lawsuit behind every warning label. Just think about the indigestion on
that one.—@erinemiller
Thursday at 01:40pm
In a conversation that started on Thursday at 02:11pm
Thursday at 02:50pm
Note that the Mac App Store is nothing new. Linux distributions have had similar things
for years. Apple has only added non-freeness to it.—@peterwinnberg
Friday at 02:20am
After we put the Christ back in Christmas, can we put the Thor back in Thursday?—@prescod
Friday at 03:21am
what's needed is a protocol, a DNS for connecting people, not some centralised walled
garden greedily eyeing its inhabitants—@psd
Friday at 10:38am
@ndw, it's a tough call but we hope you read it in some form! DISAPPEARING SPOON is too
good to miss.—@littlebrown
Friday at 04:31pm
Dear automated phone message: no it is not the least bit urgent that I contact you
about lowering my credit card interest rates...go away—@ndw
Saturday at 01:01am
OH: There's nothing more permanent than a temporary solution.—@yammeradam
In a conversation that started on Saturday at 04:57am
Am I the only person who wants a computer with lots of RAM and fast CPU cores but
not with lots of drive bays and card slots?—@hsivonen
@hsivonen Not me -- I use the drive bays (having a backup drive online is great), and sometimes
the card slots (add wifi to my desktop).—@noahmendelsohn
@noahmendelsohn I have a NAS for the extra drive bays. This way, they have a separate kernel that
doesn't crash looking after them.—@hsivonen
@hsivonen @noahmendelsohn What’s your connection to the NAS? I tried one, forget which, and it was so gawdawful
slow as to be unusable.—@ndw
@ndw @noahmendelsohn I use AFP (from Mac) and CIFS (from Linux) over IPv4 over Gigabit Ethernet. (NFS
didn’t work and jumbo frames useless.)—@hsivonen
@ndw No NAS. I have two hard drives, no RAID. I clone vital data from primary to 2nd.
Spare space on both is used for noncritical stuff.—@noahmendelsohn
In a conversation that started on Sunday at 08:59am
Finally I already chat with Nadech :))—@dymeeina
@dymeeina จิงอะ ที่ไหนอะ—@Pampam1412
Sunday at 10:35am
First experience with electronic boarding pass worked flawlessly at both TSA and gate
in BDL. #technology #surprise—@ndw
Sunday at 11:08am
If you are an originalist about the US Constitution, presumably you should believe
the Second Amendment only protects musket ownership.—@tommorris