This page is an archive, possibly an out-of-date one.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 13–19 Feb 2012

20 Feb 2012

The week in review, 140 characters at a time.

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 Sunday at 06:07am

Must investigate supporting @adamretter’s cool REST function annotations. #xmlprague—@ndw
@ndw @adamretter interested here in the rest annotation stuff - is it in the slides?—@eedeebee
@eedeebee Hi Eric, I think you have the links now. The last parts of the paper are the best for detail. I will publish a draft spec v.soon—@adamretter
@eedeebee @adamretter Adam’s paper is in the proceedings preview.—@ndw
@ndw @eedeebee He published his slides on his website too: http://t.co/PGaN8wch cc @adamretter—@grtjn

In a conversation that started on Sunday at 11:13am

CMSMcQ never fails to be inspirational, educational, and delightful. Thank you, #xmlprague!—@ndw
@ndw And to give you work when you take minutes, as I am doing right now with the XSL working group ;-)—@fgeorges

Monday at 04:58am

Xml Techno is out! http://t.co/uKBUc9XK ▸ Top stories today via @aljopainter @ndw @smjwsk @gimsieke—@dominiquepere

In a conversation that started on Monday at 05:33am

@w3c I would really like to join http://t.co/Bmk0CMEZ but can't get past page asking me to tell you that I have no patents, despite emailing—@JeniT
@JeniT @w3c Yeah, it’s busted. I did eventually get through, but I don’t recall how.—@ndw
@ndw If you remember, let me know. Kinda bummed that I can't join. /cc @w3c—@JeniT
@JeniT we’ll get you in for sure!—@ndw
@jenit Hi Jeni, the person in charge will be up and about in a few hours.—@w3c
@w3c Pish, next you'll be telling me they take weekends off! ;) I will exercise patience...—@JeniT

Monday at 06:05am

Monday at 02:32pm

@xmlprague or @ndw will there be videos of the demo jam? #xmlprague—@micheee

In a conversation that started on Monday at 02:39pm

Hey, who's the basta^Wmysterious person who made me chair of XML-ER? I thought it was supposed to be @ndw!—@robinberjon
@robinberjon @ndw Make an educated guess #xml-mess—@innovimax
@innovimax @robinberjon @ndw Not me! Honest! #angleface—@grtjn
@innovimax I tried, but I can think of more trust-unworthy people who could've done it than I care to shake a stick at :) @ndw @grtjn—@robinberjon
@robinberjon @innovimax ’t wasn’t I.—@ndw
@ndw @innovimax I'll email the group to try to do this the kosher way :)—@robinberjon
@robinberjon @ndw MazelTov !!—@innovimax

In a conversation that started on Tuesday at 01:29am

http://t.co/lC92wT6Q says i love @jenit, but Jeni loves @robinberjon, Robin loves @jpcs ...—@jonathanrobie
@jonathanrobie Ah, but twitamore.com says the feelings between @ndw and @adamretter are mutual :)—@JeniT
@jonathanrobie That's hilarious! @jpcs then loves @adamretter, who loves @ndw, who cycles back to Adam! @jenit—@robinberjon
@robinberjon @jonathanrobie @jpcs @ndw @jenit Hey its just my Ménage à trois ;-)—@adamretter

In a conversation that started on Tuesday at 05:12am

Sharon made me scribe today. But I made some progress last night.—@ndw
@ndw Well that tweet didn’t go where I intended.—@ndw

In a conversation that started on Tuesday at 07:25am

Hey! where's the <sgmltag> element gone!? #docbook—@al3xbrown
@al3xbrown It’s just called ‘tag’ now.—@ndw
@ndw cool :-)—@al3xbrown

Wednesday at 12:39am

Wifi is free for 15 min in PRG. Better than nothing but I wish I'd noticed sooner. Buh bye PRG. MUC, EWR, & BDL next.—@ndw

Wednesday at 03:24am

Wednesday at 12:00pm

When posthumous baptism is outlawed, nothing whatsoever will change because there actually isn't an afterlife.—@mattyglesias

Wednesday at 01:27pm

She says, "How do I spell 'pterodactyl'?" I hear, "Daddy, please break every phonics rule they're teaching me in school."—@pgor

In a conversation that started on Wednesday at 01:49pm

It would be hyperbole to say everything that could have gone wrong with my flights today did. It would be a lie to say it feels otherwise.—@ndw
@ndw If count(takeoffs) == count(landings), all else is mere annoyance.—@eliasisrael
@eliasisrael I did say it would be hyperbole :-). I wish count(remainingtakeoffs) was 0 though. My travel plans today did not include YUL.—@ndw

In a conversation that started on Wednesday at 02:18pm

XInclude 1.1? Yes, please. http://t.co/hAA6zd6c—@ndw
@ndw some more implementations of XInclude as she stands first please. e.g. in Saxon.—@rahtz
@rahtz Hmm. I thought Saxon did XInclude. Pity. I have the code... /cc @michaelhkay—@ndw
@ndw @michaelhkay I fink Saxon does not do xpointer like href="resourcelists.xml#xmlns(t=http://www.tei-c.org/ns/1.0)xpointer(/t:TEI/t:*)"—@rahtz
@rahtz @michaelhkay I don’t do the xpointer() scheme either. Basic support for framework and elements counts as support to me.—@ndw
@ndw @michaelhkay xpointer is half the fun of it....—@rahtz
@rahtz @ndw Saxon will switch XInclude processing on in the parser if available, but it doesn't have its own.—@michaelhkay
@michaelhkay @ndw could just use soelim in my workflow and have done with it :-}—@rahtz
@michaelhkay @rahtz Is that pluggable at all? Can I write a class to do XInclude processing and get Saxon to use that? Pretty please?—@ndw

Wednesday at 06:10pm

I can haz BDL. At last.—@ndw

In a conversation that started on Thursday at 06:09am

Hmmm, it looks like the small bar we went to after the monastery in Prague gave me 1000 HUF in change instead of 1000 CZK! Not the same...—@robinberjon
@robinberjon "1 maďarský forint = 0,0859461453 českých korun" Ouch!—@fgeorges
@fgeorges Yeah, thankfully it's not that huge a sum :)—@robinberjon
@robinberjon Ouch!—@ndw

In a conversation that started on Thursday at 07:02am

I feel strongly that for the human race to survive that we have a lot of evolving to do in a short period of time—@xquery
@xquery What, like evolve gills or something? :)—@andrewwelch
@andrewwelch something like that ... though perhaps more brains more likely or learn a functional programming language or three—@xquery
@xquery So, to paraphrase: We're doomed.—@ronhitchens
@ronhitchens yes, perhaps I am having post #xmlprague depression ? ... but yes we are all doomed—@xquery

Thursday at 07:54am

RT @xquery: RT @ndw: CMSMcQ never fails to be inspirational, educational, and delightful. Thank you, #!—@wcandillon

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

@xmlprague Are all the videos from 2012 now online? I see some of them, but not all. And some don’t have direct links, though some do.—@ndw
@ndw @xmlprague Hey norm. I found the video links regrouped by half-day segments when clicking on the blue header line above the image.—@aljopainter
@ndw I think they are but you need to click on the link at the top of the page to see the other sections /cc @xmlprague—@georgebina
@georgebina Indeed they are. OMG. If I have to watch myself, I’m going to gouge out my eyes and ears with a spoon. How did you all survive?—@ndw
@ndw @xmlprague work in progress—@xquery

Thursday at 09:39am

Yay, mountain lion! Can't wait to when I'll have to root my mac to be able to install some non-apple-approved shit!—@peregrinogris

Thursday at 09:57am

The new OS X should be named "10.8: The Apology" but I fear it will instead commit more crimes.—@warrenparsons

In a conversation that started on Thursday at 10:52am

http://t.co/OIU31bCI mary vs wicked sharp knife, day one—@mathling
@mathling We need your fingers Mary, stop that!—@ndw

Thursday at 11:56am

The more Apple sues their competitors (Samsung, Kodak, etc), the more resolved I am to never buy another of their products. #thenewmicrosoft—@bdarcus

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

Trying something new (for us) for the #Stardog web site: absolute minimalist site...want to emphasize how simple #Stardog is to use.—@kendall
@kendall I like it.—@ndw
@ndw Thx! There are a few more pages that will be public on Monday when we do the 0.9 feature complete beta rel. Most are even shorter. :>—@kendall

In a conversation that started on Thursday at 02:28pm

"This product contains bhut jolokia which may cause skin, monkey, and eye irritation." http://t.co/dayYYqRO #hothothot—@ndw
@ndw Sure you wanna eat that? :)—@grtjn
Absolutely, @grtjn and I promised to take them to #xmlsummerschool so @hadleynet could watch. Pop a few in the snack bowl on the bar? :-)—@ndw
@ndw Fun! Try to feed some to Adam and Jeni as well! ;-)—@grtjn
@ndw "mineral oil"? maybe these are booster balls you're supposed to put into your gas tank.—@dret

In a conversation that started on Thursday at 03:14pm

I like figures like these: Zorba 24sec, basex 96min, Saxon 2.6sec, Mxquery fail. http://t.co/ET4002BK—@michaelhkay
@michaelhkay The updated results for BaseX 7.1.1 you might like less. :-)—@ndw
@ndw @michaelhkay Checked #xqparserperf on #eXistdb 508 seconds for compilation, 0.2 seconds for execution. Slow VM. But still I will...—@adamretter

Thursday at 03:29pm

Just the dust off the side of the box had a pleasantly sinus clearing effect.—@ndw

In a conversation that started on Thursday at 03:31pm

Gitorius looks interesting, but it differs from github how?—@ndw
@ndw It's open source, so you can host it privately without paying a company.—@pfhawkins
@pfhawkins Cool. I’m definitely going to take a look.—@ndw
@ndw gitorious itself is released unler a AGPL. You can run your own server.—@olivierjeulin
@ndw Self-hosted, AGPL. http://t.co/XUKbBMNw—@evanpro
@evanpro So I clone gitorious and build it, then I get the gitorious UI and functionality on my own private repos?—@ndw
@ndw Yeah, I think that's how it works. I've never done it, but I like knowing I *could* do it.—@evanpro
@ndw not currently subject to crippling DDoS attacks?—@mnot
@mnot Not that I’ve noticed. Maybe that did sound a bit flip. I was really just curious.—@ndw

Thursday at 06:13pm

XQuery engine competition? Good for users ☺ RT @ndw: @michaelhkay The updated results for BaseX 7.1.1 you might like less. :-)—@olivierjeulin

Thursday at 07:13pm

Thursday at 07:13pm

Thanks, Norm! RT @xquery: @ndw doing a good job giving overview to Corona—@deneensq8

In a conversation that started on Friday at 09:08am

Visual PL/1. I kid you not. http://t.co/OZUZa8sx—@ndw
@ndw -- Full PL/1 is a heckuva achievement. That can't be easy!—@patrickdlogan

Friday at 09:43am

[nooooo! it has arisen from the grave! be afraid, be _very_ afraid...] RT @ndw: Visual PL/1. I kid you not. http://t.co/j04ZVW02—@jeffsonstein

In a conversation that started on Friday at 09:48am

/me on the @GovUK calendar http://t.co/fdQ94yHD—@psd
@psd congratulations on the new gig.—@hadleynet
@hadleynet cheers Marc! Love to find an opportunity to introduce you to @GovUK people, it's an amazing team!—@psd
@psd congratulations indeed!—@roessler
@roessler hah! I mentioned you only this morning to @mattlucht as someone in W3C land to talk to!—@psd
@psd congrats!—@laurendw
@laurendw thanks Lauren. Fun times ahead!—@psd
@psd I hear congrats are perhaps in order? :)—@benosteen
@psd wow! great news! :))—@amyvdh
@amyvdh thanks Amy!—@psd
@psd I think it's @govuk that deserve the congratulations tbh :)—@JeniT
@JeniT @psd +1 to that!—@ndw
@ndw @JeniT aw shucks. It'll be fun until they find me out ;)—@psd
@psd Do you know what you'll be doing yet or is it hush-hush?—@JeniT
@JeniT since Monday been reviewng a ££££££ enterprisey project, planning how to turn off a domain, spiking code and interviewing people!—@psd
@psd wow, nice one, *jealous* (despite my excellent job)—@libbymiller
@libbymiller you should swing by sometime and I'll introduce you to people (the few you don't already know ;-)—@psd

Friday at 10:26am

I have a vague and so far unshakeable sense of dread and loathing today. So, like every other day, really.—@kendall

Friday at 11:14am

If not believing in God is a religion (as some people claim), then bald is a hair color.—@hekanibru

In a conversation that started on Friday at 11:16am

If I can't live tweet in my robot car, then I don't want to live in the future!—@kendall
@kendall Don’t worry, the GOP is working very hard to make sure you’ll be living in the past.—@ndw

Friday at 11:25am

I swear, out of the corner of my eye, I can see the receipts mocking me. #longtrip #expensereport #mustbeinapprovedbytuesday—@ndw

Friday at 03:19pm

“It's software, man, anything is possible.™” Heh.—@ndw

In a conversation that started on Friday at 03:41pm

Gotta love Norman RT @ndw “It's software, man, anything is possible.™” Heh.—@MoniqueSleek
@MoniqueSleek That’s not original, props to @mathling—@ndw

Friday at 03:59pm

RT @ndw “It's software, man, anything is possible.™” Heh.—@tobias_fischer

In a conversation that started on Saturday at 06:53am

TwitterPoll: What do you absolutely hate about HTML5? Bonus points: keep it to one tweet ;)—@mollydotcom
@danbri @mollydotcom That it’s impossible to embed XML from other vocabularies in it.—@ndw

Saturday at 01:27pm

People say emacs has a steep learning curve, but I don't see it. I'm getting pretty comfortable with it, and it has only taken 13 years.—@tcrawley

Saturday at 05:05pm

If you want to prevent abortions, you make sure everyone has health care, a high school education and birth control. Not the exact opposite.—@LOLGOP

Saturday at 05:15pm

What I hate most about Twitter is finishing a great tweet, having -1 characters left, and then having to decide which grammar crime to commi—@HangoverAIan

Saturday at 06:43pm

Famiily birthday party. 25 people. #oh #the #noise—@ndw

Sunday at 01:05pm

Still endlessly fascinating: 2d car evolution http://t.co/iCK1eq0f—@mathling

Sunday at 03:08pm

Pacifists are due some fat refund checks: “@RickSantorum: Government cannot force you to pay for something that violates faith or beliefs”—@acdha