This page is an archive, possibly an out-of-date one. You’ll find newer weblog postings at So… and more about norm on his homepage.

The short-form week of 25 Apr–1 May 2011

02 May 2011

The week in review, 140 characters at a time. This week, 46 messages in 44 conversations. (With 9 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 Thursday at 12:07pm

@leepollington Aw, fooey. This old Tecra 8200 won’t boot off a stick, I guess. Or I made the stick wrong. Noisy old CD install coming up.—@ndw
@ndw SF subways have cool walls too :) http://bit.ly/fX4mYv—@leepollington

Monday at 10:02pm

The Palace has a room 666. I wonder if anyone has ever refused it.—@ndw

Monday at 10:04pm

Note to self: if all you've eaten *all day* is a single hamburger, a 30 mile bike ride is ill advised. In other news, FEED ME NOW!—@ndw

Monday at 10:12pm

To all you oh-so-clever Ruby library developers: Magic is an anti-pattern.—@dorkitude

Monday at 10:13pm

Oh, for cryiing out loud. How long does it take to shuck six oysters!?—@ndw

Monday at 10:31pm

Yes, I'm very hungry, but bringing the main course while I'm eating the starter and the desert menu while I'm eating the main is annoying.—@ndw

In a conversation that started on Monday at 10:51pm

I don't know how much battery is left in my phone when the capacity bar is replaced by a red battery with a slash through it. Gonna find out—@ndw
@ndw not as generous as a petrol gauge on a car, I guess...—@johnlsheridan
@johnlsheridan Nope. About 10 minutes and 2 tweets.—@ndw

In a conversation that started on Monday at 11:00pm

@btusdin what a cutie!—@ndw

Tuesday at 09:23am

you win! MT @cynicalgrrl I reproduced my essential dorkiness. My daughter at age 5 sat her dollhouse people in rows to "take an XML class."—@RepoRat

In a conversation that started on Wednesday at 04:11pm

Allowing applications to recover from "unfortunate events" in seconds. --Ron Avnur #mluc2011—@ndw
@ndw what about a series of unfortunate events? _snicket_—@happygiraffe

In a conversation that started on Wednesday at 04:44pm

@hunterhacker @ndw Norms pure XQuery REST has no language boundaries and is therefore less likely to suffer code injection - JH. #mluc11—@leepollington
@leepollington @ndw Ah only sorta. :)—@hunterhacker

Wednesday at 06:03pm

Finished my REST talk with @ndw about an hour ago, then went over and made Sam Neth nervous during his XCC talk #mluc11—@ronhitchens

In a conversation that started on Wednesday at 06:14pm

Nice! XQuery decoder ring highlights SQL/XQuery similarities #MLUC11—@peteaven
RT: @peteaven XQuery decoder ring highlights SQL/XQuery similarities. Bummed I am missing #MLUC11. I want a decoder ring?—@harveybetty
@harveybetty ring from slide in @mathling's #awesome talk with cool XQuery ring graphic :) we miss u 2!—@peteaven
@peteaven DECODER RING? Awwww man. You're killing me here! What's next, a MarkLogic lantern that lights my way through unstructured data?—@MattioV
@MattioV :) #awesome Great schwag ideas! Ring actually from graphic on slide in @mathling's SQL<->XQuery talk /cc: @MarkLogic—@peteaven

In a conversation that started on Thursday at 10:05am

@ndw come back in October and there will be hawks—@abdelazer
@abdelazer Cool. But please tell me I don't have to cycle to the top of it again!—@ndw
@ndw one of the best hawk watchers does every day in the fall. He also has crappy binoculars that are older and more beat up than both of us—@abdelazer

Thursday at 01:49pm

I wish I'd remembered to mention our experiment with XProc during my REST talk with @ndw yesterday. #mluc11—@ronhitchens

Thursday at 02:05pm

David Singer (as individual): Don't just cure the symptom of behavioral advertising -- the data collection is what's creepy. #w3cdnt—@roessler

In a conversation that started on Thursday at 04:00pm

Within minutes: @ndw and @mdubinko talking about Configuration Management #MLUC11—@mdubinko
@mdubinko Can we rely on you to tweet while you present? #mluc11—@lisabos

Thursday at 04:11pm

@mdubinko and @ndw up now, configuration management FTW.—@collwhit

Friday at 07:37am

zombie lie n. A false statement that keeps getting repeated no matter how often it has been refuted. http://wspy.ws/zombi—@wordspy

In a conversation that started on Friday at 07:41am

If you are a man watching the #RoyalWedding, your penance is: dig 3 10' ditches, cut and split 2 trees, brew 1 batch of homebrew beer.—@MattioV
@MattioV Can I do the penance *instead* or do I have to do both?—@ndw
@ndw Instead is my choice as well!—@MattioV

Friday at 09:09am

Public disagreements and dissents from status quo are not acts of censorship or intolerance or thuggery.—@kendall

In a conversation that started on Friday at 09:10am

Latest TSA weirdness, asking my last name while holding my picture ID and boarding pass.—@ndw
@ndw Weirdly, they did exactly the same in Oslo two hours ago. Never happened before. #notacoincidence—@larsga
@ndw they're trying to keep amnesiacs off of planes.—@simonstl
@ndw re TSA. Thats to find terrorists who havent memorized their fake names.—@DALDEI
@DALDEI I guess. But, really!?—@ndw

In a conversation that started on Friday at 09:20am

Objects as arguments in JavaScript: where do you draw the line? http://bit.ly/jmLoyM—@shelleypowers
@shelleypowers curiously had similar presentation about args to #XQuery functions this week—@ndw
@ndw So what's your take? Is presentation online somewhere?—@shelleypowers
@shelleypowers It's flexible but subverts the compiler's ability to chk args. It's the right ans sometimes but not really about # args—@ndw
@shelleypowers I think it will be online in a bit. Will send link when it passes by.—@ndw
@ndw Thanks, Norm—@shelleypowers

Friday at 09:47am

The US is no longer a spacegoing power after today; I find that to be quite significant and disappointing.—@kendall

In a conversation that started on Friday at 09:51am

"74% of users do not like to be tracked online" —Trust-e #w3cdnt—@karlpro
@karlpro Are we sure the other 26% asked actually understood the question?—@ndw
@ndw see http://c8l.ca/167 1% I like it 22% I neither like or dislike 74% I do not like (tracking) Ads tracking in smartphone in usa—@karlpro
@karlpro was there also a question about how many users like or dislike free services and expect those to be available? #nofreelunch—@dret
@dret yes, but so far most of the time, there is no choice between free and paid lunch AND many people do not realize how they are tracked—@karlpro
@karlpro agreed we need awareness and choice, but this survey is as useful as asking people "do you like or dislike police brutality?"—@dret
@dret I would choose another metaphor ;) maybe "do you like or dislike fatty food?"—@karlpro

Friday at 10:13am

What would happen if i had control? App asks for perm to do X, Y, & Z. I grant only X. I guess it might fail in confusing ways.—@ndw

Friday at 10:14am

FT @quinnnorton Wow, a lot of tornados in the South. I guess it's God punishing them for being mean to the gays.—@aaronsw

In a conversation that started on Friday at 10:30am

My brother is having 30 tables at his wedding this Fall. 30. Three. Zero.—@MattioV
@MattioV if his wedding facilities were schema-less he wouldn't need all those tables ;)—@peteaven
@peteaven @MattioV Nice one, Pete!—@ndw
@ndw @peteaven You guys are awesome! ;-)—@MattioV

Friday at 10:39am

Dead trees beat bits. Forgot to charge my tablet. #rookiemistake—@ndw

In a conversation that started on Friday at 01:23pm

Curses, my tweet-nemesis @lisabos is at the same session as me again :)—@mdubinko
@mdubinko Hey, you have a full keyboard, no wonder you're faster.—@lisabos
@mdubinko @lisabos Ooh! I want a tweet-nemesis!—@ndw
@mdubinko You'll soon be rid of me!—@lisabos

In a conversation that started on Friday at 01:53pm

(The most fascinating thing about Twitter IMO is which tweets provoke response from others. It's completely non-deterministic IMO!)—@kendall
@kendall How dare you say something like that! That's outrageous! :-)—@ndw

In a conversation that started on Friday at 02:40pm

@gcarothers conceptually bad or poorly designed? I haven't had a chance to look.—@ndw
@ndw Seems conceptually funky? I guess a general way of putting JSON into XML is sort of useful if the world is XQuery ;) Otherwise Yuck.—@gcarothers
@ndw Where as PRODUCING JSON from XML/XSLT/XQuery is VERY useful, JSONx just doesn't look like a simple way to do that.—@gcarothers
@gcarothers Given that XML and JSON solve different problems, I think we can expect to need to convert both ways. If that's easier: win.—@ndw
@ndw Agreed, so long as it's used for conversion. The moment someone thinks that it's a good way to STORE data it goes back to HORRIBLE.—@gcarothers
@gcarothers I haven't looked at the particular fmt, but you'll be hard pressed to persuade me that JSON strings are inherently superior :-)—@ndw
@ndw I guess as an injestion format for JSON's it's not bad either. But I just KNOW that someone is going to store a lot of data that way.—@gcarothers

Friday at 02:58pm

C'mon folks. I'm tired, hungry, and in a hurry. A little signage would kill you? #wheredoiordermylunch—@ndw

In a conversation that started on Friday at 03:34pm

In an effort to control my behavior, links don't work on your page until after it all finishes loading. You suck.—@ndw
@ndw YES! I hate that. I was using Plesk on a server, and it does that. It makes me hate with stabby stabbiness.—@pointybrackets

In a conversation that started on Friday at 07:08pm

There's a first: nosewheel steering failed on the runway and our A320 drove into a ditch. #nothomeyet—@ndw
@ndw I suspect the Airbus computer system decided the flight crew wasn't steering properly, and made a helpful correction. #flying—@david_megginson
@ndw whoa.—@RepoRat

Friday at 07:12pm

RT @ndw: There's a first: nosewheel steering failed on the runway and our A320 drove into a ditch. #nothomeyet—@iansmall

In a conversation that started on Friday at 07:12pm

"They're going to send out a tug to pull us in, but don't worry, everything is normal." Normal? Safe, sure, but normal!? I don't think so.—@ndw
@ndw You should have stayed in SF for the #GeekDinner. I tried to warn you.—@ronhitchens
@ronhitchens Oh, *that* was the root cause! I should have guessed. Hope it was a wonderful dinner!—@ndw

Friday at 07:15pm

"Do not be alarmed by all the fire trucks and emergency vehicles" Heh. Good thing we were moving slowly.—@ndw

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

My concern is this: can a tug pull a plane with a broken nosewheel out of a ditch?—@ndw
@ndw how small is the plane? They pull fully-loaded 747/777, I assume....—@abdelazer
@abdelazer It's an A320. They claim to be hooking up the tug now. I wonder if we got off the active runway before the fail.—@ndw

Friday at 07:33pm

Maybe it only felt like we hit a ditch. They claim to be ready to tow as soon as they clean up a "significant" puddle of hydrolic fluid.—@ndw

Friday at 07:38pm

Underway! Tug, tug, tugging along.—@ndw

In a conversation that started on Friday at 09:42pm

H. O. M. E.—@ndw
@ndw S.F.O. Sigh. See ya next time.—@lisabos

Sunday at 01:01pm

Nice Sunday-morning love letter to the Web and all true: http://goo.gl/LVjbr—@timbray

Sunday at 02:07pm

Uh, folks, a comic feed that doesn't actually include an image of, you know, the comic is kinda stupid. #justsayin—@ndw