The short-form week of 26 Nov–2 Dec 2012

03 Dec 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.

Monday at 03:56pm

@ndw DocBook seems not to define dir=ltr|rtl sufficiently. Does it set the base direction only, or does it create an embedding like HTML?—@fantasai

In a conversation that started on Monday at 05:58pm

This evening I learnt how to play "Pandemic" - a really great board game!—@johnlsheridan
@johnlsheridan Played it for the first time over the weekend (shout out to @jenit); great game, but it sure appears hard to win.—@ndw
@ndw @johnlsheridan @JeniT we've been playing for a while. Managed to win eventually.—@iand
@iand @ndw Do you have the On The Brink expansion? Recommended if you don't. /cc @johnlsheridan —@JeniT
@JeniT @ndw @johnlsheridan not tried that. Xmas here we come! Have you played shadows over camelot, another coop game, just as hard?—@iand
@iand No, haven't, will add to Xmas list, thanks! :) /cc @ndw @johnlsheridan —@JeniT

Monday at 07:51pm

"Europeans visiting the [US] can show their children what Europe’s infrastructure looked like during the 1960s" http://t.co/xGw3UZOF —@ebruchez

In a conversation that started on Monday at 08:20pm

One of the things the Addr Book/Contacts upgrade lost was the association of names and faces. Oh, dear $DIETY, how many am I getting wrong?—@ndw
@ndw oh no- first time i-ve heard of technological prosopagnosia—@drabshadow

Tuesday at 04:00pm

Sex and alcohol make you happier than kids and religion, study finds, shocking no one: http://t.co/NKvV8mVq —@BlowfishTwitter

Tuesday at 05:04pm

squinting at @ndw - http://t.co/poBUehr4 —@danbri

Tuesday at 06:09pm

Subscribe to Exchange calendar on Mac & devices. Subscribe to Google calendar on Mac. Now only http://t.co/hbGBY96j is incomplete. #irony —@ndw

Tuesday at 09:40pm

The best IKEA sign. Ever. http://t.co/xMy2J4Xs —@ThatEricAlper

In a conversation that started on Tuesday at 11:56pm

And yet another strike against Monsanto. http://t.co/KyYo8utQ —@kurt_cagle
@kurt_cagle t-shirt seen while on the urban farms bike ride: "OMG GMO WTF are we eating"—@ndw

In a conversation that started on Wednesday at 11:37am

Sigh. OS X Contacts/Google Contacts sync has just duplicated every entry in my address book. How fucking wonderful.—@ndw
@ndw had the same thing happening when switching from #MobileMe to #iCloud. it's very hard to control/debug these beasts. #whenmagicbreaks —@dret

Wednesday at 12:03pm

RT @fogus: Programming: (v) The act of solving computing problems for the purpose of uncovering the next problem. (see Sisyphus)—@ndw

In a conversation that started on Wednesday at 12:47pm

Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me. Fool me four times, fuck it I’m going to have to write my own sync tool.—@ndw
@ndw Which one gave you grief?—@rauschma
@rauschma OS X and Google contacts. It screwed up twice. Then I got it working for a couple of days. And this morning it screwed up again.—@ndw
@ndw Right. Did scary things with my data, too. Switched to iCloud, which is OK, so far.—@rauschma
@rauschma I suppose, but less useful for me since I want the Google contacts to be available on my #Android devices.—@ndw

In a conversation that started on Wednesday at 04:53pm

wonderful; the one time I need wifi on the plane, and it is unavailable—@christo4ferris
@christo4ferris I’ve *never* had wifi on a plane, though I’m lead to believe such things do exist.—@ndw
@ndw yeah, I don't think I've used it b4... I rarely see the need. Prefer to read. 2nite I needed it. Fortunately 2 legs (waves from plane)—@christo4ferris

Wednesday at 09:05pm

RT @miwie: Yay! 7 yr. old DocBook project works flawlessly with DocBook XSL stylesheets to generate #EPUB output! Validates against Epub ...—@ndw

In a conversation that started on Wednesday at 09:30pm

Apparently, conservatives just can't disguise their disdain for the non-rich: http://t.co/f1wn94st —@kiphampton
@kiphampton Aristocracy is back, baby!—@kendall
@kendall @kiphampton Clearly job one is making sure the poor^H^H^H^Hnot-rich can’t vote next time.—@ndw

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

On OS X, uname -a for 10.8.2 reports 12.2.0. For 10.6.something it reports 10.8.0. Because that could never be confusing.—@ndw
@ndw Kernel != OS. Or do you expect that uname -a on Debian 6 will print "Linux 6"? 'sw_vers' exists.—@nogfradelt
@nogfradelt Of course not. I was just amused by the juxtaposition. If 10.6 had been 3.4 and 10.8 had been 4.2 it’d seemed perfectly ordinary—@ndw

Thursday at 05:49pm

the remaining 10% is just wishful thinking. It's always a bot—@gabrielsaldana

Thursday at 08:04pm

A Borgesian door store that sells doors, is entirely constructed of doors, and upon entering it, you have simultaneously exited.—@Interdome

Thursday at 08:28pm

when life gives you lemons (a power /network outage in Cambridge/MIT) make negoronis in the darkened susteam office—@amyvdh

Thursday at 11:28pm

RT @peterc: Glad someone who's actually famous is saying human curation works and automated/social curation are weak imitations ;-) http ...—@ndw

Friday at 08:39am

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

Attending and presenting at an #nfais workshop on indexing and indices. Looking forward to hearing what everyone has to say!—@lisabos
@lisabos A good index is a work of art.—@ndw

In a conversation that started on Friday at 11:02am

Top 5 XMAS movies: NL Christmas Vacation, A Christmas Carol (George C. Scott version), Scrooged, Home Alone, Die Hard. Discuss!—@bphogan
@bphogan Alistair Sim over George C. Scott on any day of the week.—@ndw

Friday at 11:06am

finally figured it out. dark energy is inside Maven.—@puredanger

Friday at 11:42am

If you aren’t running an ssh server on a remote host, you can’t ssh into it. I’m just saying.—@ndw

Friday at 12:36pm

“Your credit card payment is due in 10.00 days.” Because those 14ish minute intervals are such a common timekeeping unit.—@ndw

In a conversation that started on Friday at 12:44pm

If corporations are people, and I've incorporated myself. I AM CURRENTLY TWO PEOPLE.—@jessicahagy
@jessicahagy Vote early, vote often!—@ndw

Friday at 12:55pm

"Person of the Year" nom. for Higgs Boson was riddled with errors. But you have to read it millions of times to prove it, statistically.—@mdubinko

Friday at 01:02pm

RT @ftrain: You know what's exponentially better than n+1? n² + 2n + 1!—@ndw

Friday at 01:39pm

"Lance Armstrong bug: the code never fails a test but evidence shows it's not behaving as expected" - http://t.co/UsGBKztT —@sinnema313

Friday at 07:01pm

Yes, Calendar, it’s my uncle Don’s birthday tomorrow. The first reminder was kind of sweet, but we’re into double digits now. I get it, ok!?—@ndw

Friday at 07:02pm

RT @LaurenAtBarRoom: "Why can't anything be easy?!?" I moaned as my real-time handheld connection to all the world's information briefly ...—@ndw

Saturday at 12:41am

They (who, I wonder) changed _The Man Who Folded Himself_ for the Kindle. I wonder if it was reprinted on paper too.—@ndw

In a conversation that started on Saturday at 02:10am

Ok iTunes 11 - resetting over 1300+ songs back to 0 plays is just not on ok?—@talios
@talios If iTunes does anything that's "ok," it's deemed a design flaw to be fixed in the next release.—@ndw

In a conversation that started on Saturday at 04:55am

Windows 8 is weird and baffling. Surprisingly Ubuntu Unity is actually better. #dualboot —@ldodds
@ldodds Wow. Just wow.—@ndw

In a conversation that started on Saturday at 08:40am

Got me a ticket to ride! http://t.co/jwXI040Z —@ndw
@ndw Have you flown South for the winter Norm?—@dpawson

Saturday at 09:41am

Amazed that CapitalOne expects me to wait 5-7 days for new card. Making me switch to another card on Amazon etc. can’t be good for them.—@ndw

In a conversation that started on Sunday at 03:53am

Seems the iPhone 4s can't handle even -8C. That's going to be a problem.—@larsga
@larsga Me, I'd have said the -8C was the problem.—@ndw
@ndw Problem? How am I going to ski if the temperature isn't well below zero? No, the problem is not being able to use Runkeeper.—@larsga

Sunday at 04:15am

Now that Movember's over, is anyone going to remove a body part for Dismember? All proceeds go to organ donation—@feathered_ape

Sunday at 09:09am

Norm Walsh (@ndw ) on publishing Microdata as note, only http://t.co/zEhOZcRJ —@shelleypowers

Sunday at 09:49pm

Again I have forgotten to bring a jacket to CA.—@ndw