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The short-form week of 14–20 Feb 2011

21 Feb 2011; last modified 13 Mar 2011

The week in review, 140 characters at a time. This week, 61 messages in 58 conversations. (With 7 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 12:25am

I know we all take this for granted, but it's really amazing that I can travel 14000 km and log into the same internet.—@diveintomark

Monday at 08:56am

On stage for our panel. I really should stop futzing with my slides "real soon now". #toccon—@ndw

Monday at 11:02am

Norm Walsh @ndw Lead Developer, Mark Logic #toccon #standards—@TAC_NISO

In a conversation that started on Monday at 11:18am

@ndw #toccon Interesting point been made 2X, standards orgs don't create tools, wondering if it wouldn't be valuable for orgs to do #toccon—@TAC_NISO
@TAC_NISO Different skills, different issues, I think. Harder to standardize, I think. Requiring interop. impl. may be enough, really.—@ndw

Monday at 11:21am

@TAC_NISO @ndw Or at least do and/or approve reference implementations of standards—@billtrippe

Monday at 11:22am

"I care about the angle brackets and things that go between them" - @ndw ...me too! #toccon—@meghanmac

Monday at 11:26am

@ndw Use cases between HTML + XML Use cases drafted by W3C http://www.w3.org/wiki/HTML_XML_USE_Cases #toccon—@TAC_NISO

Monday at 11:27am

RT @TAC_NISO: @ndw Use cases between HTML + XML Use cases drafted by W3C http://www.w3.org/wiki/HTML_XML_USE_Cases #toccon—@BookNet_Canada

Monday at 01:25pm

Really, Sheraton, you couldn't swing for a complimentary bag check? I'm so anxious for my next #sheraton experience! #not—@ndw

In a conversation that started on Monday at 01:55pm

Goodbye, #toccon, I hardly knew ye.—@ndw
@ndw dude, i know! didn't you just get there?—@peteaven

In a conversation that started on Monday at 02:23pm

"Watch the gap. Thank you, and have a safe trip." Wait, I thought the point was not to trip? #grumpy #pedant—@ndw
@ndw nahhhh, the point is just to have a _safe_ trip ;^}—@jeffsonstein

In a conversation that started on Monday at 06:45pm

Unicode Character 'HEAVY BLACK HEART' says "happy valentine's day!" http://goo.gl/VL6zw—@codinghorror
@codinghorror I dunno, "heavy, black heart" isn't how I'd want my sweetie expressing V-day.—@ndw

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

What's the #xmpp #im client of choice for #android? #lazyweb—@ndw
@ndw I gave up and just use Google Talk. Hoping there is a better answer.—@gcarothers

In a conversation that started on Tuesday at 05:53pm

Uttering the most obscene curses against HTML5 parsers not failing in the same way. XML validation behavior, where have you gone!—@roessler
@roessler Surely those are bugs. Consistent interpretation of any string of characters is one of the goals, I believe.—@ndw
@roessler What failed, how and in which parsers?—@hsivonen
@hsivonen in fact, respect.js acted fine on bad markup in one browser, and acted up in another. Seemed divergence betw safari and Chrome.—@roessler
@roessler Safari 5 doesn't have an HTML5 parser.—@hsivonen
@hsivonen that's the explanation, then.—@roessler
@roessler If you can think of a way to detect a tree is wonky, I'll be happy to add that to ReSpec as it'd help indeed. @hsivonen—@robinberjon
@robinberjon that would be nice, yeah. Can't think of a way though -- in this case, section levels got screwed up.—@roessler
@roessler The only way I can think of would be to include html5parser.js, parse the source, and compare the trees — too much overhead :)—@robinberjon
@roessler What I do is write polyglot (or close enough) and sanity-check with xmllint.—@robinberjon
@robinberjon yeah. Somebody forgot to do the xmllint part.—@roessler
@roessler I think you can get CVS to do it for you upon commit.—@robinberjon
@hsivonen possibly old Firefox involved as well. In any events, strangeness ensued, and no error was spotted.—@roessler

Wednesday at 09:50am

It is important that we protect the super-rich and their ability to buy private jets by gutting social services.—@buffalopundit

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

I've been away from #javascript for so long that it really does feel cack-handed.—@philipfennell
@philipfennell CoffeeScript is supposed to be an improvement: http://jashkenas.github.com/coffee-script/ (Haven't tried it myself)—@ndw

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

RT @tim: BREAKING: Google launches One Pass: news subscription & micropayment service to rival Apple's http://www.google.com/onepass/ St ...—@billtrippe
@billtrippe That's 404 for me—@ndw

In a conversation that started on Wednesday at 01:05pm

What's the best tool for diffing two versions of an XML document and inserting <ins>/<del> tags? Still using @ndw's diffmk program #lazyweb—@mreinhold
@mreinhold I've moved on to the diff product from the DeltaXML guys. Commercial, but does the job well, as distinct from my hacks :-)—@ndw
@ndw Thanks, but I'd really prefer a FLOSS solution—@mreinhold
@mreinhold @ndw Not on #Windows I suppose? There Open Source #Windiff seems OK. My client uses #BeyondCompare 2 (also on Win btw)—@wernerkeil

Wednesday at 01:09pm

So, google.com/onepass is a redirect and google.com/onepass/ is 404. I'm not sure that's an optimal design.—@ndw

Wednesday at 01:11pm

RT @ndw: So, google.com/onepass is a redirect and google.com/onepass/ is 404. I'm not sure that's an optimal design. / LoL—@gabrielsaldana

Wednesday at 04:13pm

"If you value freedom, you should flee from religion as the antelope flees the lion." http://t.co/gW9tNSj—@zaphgod

Wednesday at 08:21pm

Hitchens: "To the dumb question “Why me?” the cosmos barely bothers to return the reply: Why not?" http://awe.sm/5GVNb #inspiration—@ebruchez

In a conversation that started on Wednesday at 10:44pm

@noahmendelsohn Very cool. We hear owls once in a great while, but I've never seen one locally.—@ndw

In a conversation that started on Wednesday at 10:57pm

Gahhhh thousand dollar clock why can I not afford you http://store.biegertfunk.com/us/collection.html/—@textfiles
@textfiles I can offer you a cheaper version, if it helps: https://github.com/ndw/wordclock—@ndw

In a conversation that started on Thursday at 06:07am

When the app covers the desktop picture anyway, what's the point of making the menubar (Mac) or the Panel (Ubuntu) translucent?—@hsivonen
@hsivonen Beats me. I've written some tools that try to display info on the edges of the desktop, but even those are hidden most of the time—@ndw

Thursday at 06:35am

"the most obvious source of influence over policy that distinguishes high-income Americans is money." - http://bit.ly/gBjOzt—@simonstl

In a conversation that started on Thursday at 07:01am

Hmm. I'm going to have to tweak my twitter archiving tools to exclude spam somehow.—@ndw
@ndw Is your archiving tool available somewhere? Without archives, I don't even know if I asked you this already.—@robinberjon
@robinberjon No, but writing it up and publishing it is on my list. If only Adium wasn't telling me to spend less time hacking...—@ndw
@ndw Surely a man of your intellect can publish a piece of software without needing to interface with a lowly computer! What'sit written in?—@robinberjon
@robinberjon XQuery, as it happens. It runs on MarkLogic Server, including the community edition, I believe.—@ndw
@ndw Sweet, looking forward to it.—@robinberjon

In a conversation that started on Thursday at 07:46am

Why has Adium started to randomly change my status to 'Away'? Hmrph.—@ndw
@ndw It's telling you you should spend less time in front of your computer.—@robinberjon
@ndw Oh its been doing that to me too. Its quite annoying.—@honeydo

In a conversation that started on Thursday at 09:46am

So the "no open source" in Windows app store thing. Just a giant FU to the FLOSS community, or what?—@ndw
@ndw Given how little the Windows #appstore matters, I'd call it a very *small* FU.—@david_megginson

In a conversation that started on Thursday at 12:26pm

Pro tip: if you turn off your desk phone before a trip then forget to turn it back on when you return, you get far fewer incoming calls.—@ndw
@ndw Doesn't "desk phone" sound like "car phone"? Or maybe it is only because I haven't had one for now more than 10 years.—@avernet
@avernet Yeah. Maybe it's time I get a decent headset for my mobile and just use that. There must be decent headsets by now, I suppose.—@ndw
@ndw my college issued cell phones. Put it in drawer, forget it, after a while no battery, no calls, mission accomplished—@phidip

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

RT @DRMacIver Verbing weirds language, but adjectivising is just fail. (via @ndw's shortform)—@danja
@danja @ndw Short form?—@DRMacIver
@DRMacIver for the benefit of the twittersphere: @ndw's short-form week http://norman.walsh.name//2011/02/13/shortform—@danja
@danja @ndw Ah, never mind. I see.—@DRMacIver

In a conversation that started on Thursday at 12:46pm

@ndw when you #geotag a photo, do you give it the coords of the camera or the subject?—@danja
@danja The camera. Or, usually, of the GPS on my wrist.—@ndw
@ndw @danja Just got a camera with built-in GPS. See http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/User:Tom_Morris for photos...—@tommorris
@tommorris @ndw nice pics, and you found the Holy Grail! http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Free_Beer.jpg—@danja
@ndw co-ords of the camera, gottit. Has the wrist GPS helped you find yourself again when you've left yourself in a bar..?—@danja
@danja No, but sometimes it helps me find my way back to the bar after I've wandered away—@ndw

In a conversation that started on Thursday at 04:31pm

Economy Plus will be part of the new United! More opportunities to stretch out & relax worldwide, now & in the future. http://bit.ly/fzFvPC—@UnitedAirlines
@UnitedAirlines Thank goodness. (That's the feature that keeps me and my six and a half foot frame loyal, just so ya know.)—@ndw

Thursday at 05:05pm

2-step verification reveals I have more conn. to Google than I thought (mult devices, POP mail scripts, sync tools) but all seem to work now—@ndw

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

thinking of getting one of these done http://bit.ly/ecjzhc—@xquery
@xquery Heh. And here I was thinking I might shave off my beard for XML Prague. I'm so lame.—@ndw
@ndw @xquery Maybe you could shave off your beard - and then tattoo it back on.—@ronhitchens
@ronhitchens @ndw the beard then would be easy to maintain ....—@xquery
@xquery @ronhitchens I dunno, shaving to maintain a beard seems like the worst of both worlds—@ndw
@ndw @ronhitchens hehe, you got a point there ...—@xquery

In a conversation that started on Friday at 06:12am

Grrr... school just sprang an inset day on us week on Monday.—@JeniT
@JeniT What, I have to ask, is an "inset day"?—@ndw
@ndw A odd day that the teachers decide to have off "to prepare lessons/do training" aka random holiday—@JeniT
@JeniT And they spring them on you with just a couple of week's warning. Nice.—@ndw
@ndw Just one of the trials and tribulations of being a working parent :)—@JeniT

In a conversation that started on Friday at 08:46am

I'm revamping #MarkLogic #XRX Framework to turn it into a #Drupal-like blogging engine written using #XQuery.—@kurt_cagle
@kurt_cagle Just FYI: https://github.com/ndw/nwn—@ndw
@kurt_cagle interested in more details if you can share them—@eedeebee

Friday at 09:49am

Kirsty MacColl's "Children of the Revolution" seems particularly poignant this morning.—@ndw

Friday at 10:56am

Friday at 11:43am

U.S. House Republicans push through defunding of #NetNeutrality law. http://is.gd/SfNy6I via @simonstl/@cookiecrook/@Lioncourt—@ndw

Friday at 12:15pm

This has been fraud week. First, bogus credit card charges, now bogus mobile phone charges. Sigh.—@ndw

Friday at 02:01pm

1, write a book app. 2, force all competition off the device. 3, charge publishers what the traffic will bear. That's the Apple plan, yes?—@ndw

Friday at 02:06pm

Friday at 02:06pm

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

Holy spammers, Batman! "Apple" is clearly not a word you want to utter on twitter.—@ndw
@ndw By no means should you mention Apple’s Bieber Porn.—@bsletten
@bsletten Masochist. Oops. That's probably a mistake too.—@ndw

Friday at 02:23pm

RT @ndw Holy spammers, Batman! "<malus pumila>" is clearly not a word you want to utter on twitter.—@stand

In a conversation that started on Friday at 02:25pm

There's a 'beer bash' in the company offices on Friday afternoons. There's beer in my fridge. I have a cunning plan!—@ndw
@ndw Is your plan to send the beer in your fridge to the company offices in California? Maybe I read that wrong.—@ronhitchens
@ronhitchens Yeah, Ron. Try again.—@ndw
@ndw Is it as cunning as a fox who's just been appointed Professor of Cunning at Oxford University?—@Capt_Blackadder

Friday at 02:37pm

@ndw No one mentioned those potential types of perks to me before. Hm.—@MattioV

Friday at 03:21pm

RT @dweinberger Republicans remove all funding from Planned P'hood because unplanned p'hood always works out so well. http://bit.ly/e31FrL—@ndw

In a conversation that started on Friday at 03:53pm

@kendall @ndw it is in *beta* ;) Adding that to our test cases...—@peteskomoroch
@peteskomoroch @kendall Sorry, Pete, no criticism intended!—@ndw
@ndw @kendall disambiguation is coming soon, including "the other Owl" w/ Small Mammal Trapping, Rare Plant Surveys, Habitat Assessments—@peteskomoroch
@peteskomoroch @ndw Nice... As I said, that's as good an auto generated content page as I've seen.—@kendall

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

*Chuckle* This is almost perfect... http://www.linkedin.com/skills/skill/OWL /via @kendall—@ndw
@ndw Almost perfect but ends up being rather bad. Still and all, pretty good for auto-generated page.—@kendall

Friday at 05:06pm

Internal demos of some code I'm working on for V.next went well. Initial checkins to the trunk completed. #GSD—@ndw

In a conversation that started on Saturday at 07:23am

Looks like it's official: I'll be co-presenting with @ndw about ReST at the MarkLogic User Conference in April.—@ronhitchens
@ronhitchens @ndw looking fwd to seeing you here again—@eedeebee

Saturday at 12:12pm

Abstinence as a social policy is like "No More Crashes" as an airline regulation.—@ZellerNY29

Saturday at 02:14pm

hold on to something! gravity is a "theory in crisis"! http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intelligent_falling (via @stilkov & @plinskey)—@dret

In a conversation that started on Saturday at 04:58pm

Pulling the last bits of RDF out of my weblog. It's an extra layer of complexity that I'm not getting any value from anymore.—@ndw
@ndw Moving the metadata into just straight XML? Have found myself doing the reverse. Hrm.—@gcarothers
@hsivonen Well, yes and no. Most of the namespaces are still around, but the behind-the-scenes mechanics have changed.—@ndw
@ndw Wasn't the whole point of RDF that you weren't necessarily the person that got the value out of the data?—@shelleypowers
@shelleypowers Yes. I'm still *publishing* RDF, but I'm not using it internally anymore.—@ndw
@ndw Ah, I see. I thought it was an odd thing for you to do—@shelleypowers

Sunday at 02:06pm

On further inspection, the RDF tentacles go pretty deep. Maybe simpler to just generate the RDF after all.—@ndw

In a conversation that started on Sunday at 07:18pm

Should EPUB 3 force the XML version of HTML5 (esp post HTML/XML Task Force, @ndw)? http://bit.ly/epub3-html-xml #eprdctn—@abdelazer
@abdelazer Yes, I do. I'll add a comment to that effect tommorrow.—@ndw
@ndw signed up and getting my exercise on http://xrl.us/turbofirefitnessprogram?=mtg0—@LucindaSpraqui8
@ndw Thanks. I suspect it'll come up at the WG call on Wednesday, so it'd be nice to be slightly more informed.—@abdelazer