The short-form week of 6–12 Jan 2014

13 Jan 2014

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 Tuesday at 11:06pm

Merry Christmas, everyone. Yes, I'm am atheist, yes, I said "Merry Christmas", just deal, ok? Enjoy His noodly appendage if that moves you.—@ndw
@ndw - I don't get the reference to "His noodly appendage" - please explain—@joseespinoza
@joseespinoza Search for Flying Spaghetti Monster.—@ndw
@ndw Ahhh - now that's funny!—@joseespinoza
@ndw Hyvää joulua! (fi) The warmest (+6C), rainiest & most black (no snow) Christmas I've ever seen in Helsinki.—@ttso
@ndw And to you Norm. Best wishes for 2014.—@dpawson
@ndw Merry Christmas Norm!—@kendall
@ndw you too. Having a merry atheist one over here in Copenhagen too. In Danish it's "jul" (="yule"), orig. from "wheel" (bc of solstice).—@MarieBilde

In a conversation that started on Saturday at 09:58pm

It's worse than I thought. It doesn't even boot reliably now. #grumble #linux —@ndw
@ndw is pretty solid; lots of new features, etc. http://iso.cdn.pcbsd.org/10.0-RELEASE/amd64/ if there's interest.—@CanOfBees
@ndw I don't know what your requirements are, but if you're feeling adventurous consider giving PC-BSD a try. The 10.0 release candidate (+)—@CanOfBees
@ndw It being .. some Linux variant?—@dpawson
@dpawson "It" being this Thinkpad W530. NVIDIA drivers: no ext display. Nouveau drivers: unreliable boot, suspend/resume. #linux #grumpy —@ndw
@ndw drat, that will apply here too.—@dpawson
@ndw @dpawson The nvidia GUI tool for configuring multiple monitors would always crash on me. Think I used their tool to generate config.—@pdxleif
@ndw @dpawson nvidia drivers are bad under other os as well.. :-(—@grtjn
@ndw @dpawson It doesn't have integrated Intel graphics available?—@pdxleif
@pdxleif @dpawson Apparently only the NVIDIA card is connected to the external display ports.—@ndw
@ndw @pdxleif Ouch. I can see the logic of that... but curiosity says it is 'switchable', either by a switch or a plug / header on the mobo?—@dpawson
@dpawson @ndw @pdxleif I realise you know how to use Google, but did you see http://tinyurl.com/aysvzsvY?—@sgmlguru
@pdxleif @ndw I opted for the nVidia graphics card, as I guess ndw did. Unsure if the built in is still available—@dpawson
@ndw you were brave to try linux on a laptop—@dckc

In a conversation that started on Sunday at 01:24pm

With Nouveau drivers, nox2apic and the MATE desktop instead of Cinnamon, I believe I may be winning. #linux —@ndw
@ndw if laptops where cars, yours seems to be a rainbow hand painted audi rs8 with sheep skins on the seats and a cassette radio.—@icing
@icing That seems a little harsh, but ok.—@ndw
@ndw my share of exp w/ linux on laptops has raised the pain threshold in regard to macs. good to see someone rattle the chains.—@icing
@ndw Isn't fiddling like this after decades of computing rather pathetic?—@perllover

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

@ndw Whoa, I was JUST ABOUT to try Linux Mint and Cinnamon on a recent VAIO, then saw your tweet. #savedbythenorm —@JamieXML
@JamieXML Don't let that stop you. Might work just fine on that hardware. Cinnamon is nice.—@ndw
@ndw You have too much spare time. Can I borrow some?—@alexmilowski

Tuesday at 07:15am

XML Stars, the journal is out! http://paper.li/dominixml/1329135087 Stories via @ndw @xmlgrrl —@dominixml

In a conversation that started on Tuesday at 10:18am

I’ll be talking about Web Components as distributed extensibility finally done right at @xmlprague http://www.xmlprague.cz/ :)—@robinberjon
@robinberjon So that *was* your paper I was reviewing :-)—@ndw
@ndw Is it possible you may have guessed so?—@robinberjon
@robinberjon That's too strong. But I had my suspicions.—@ndw

Tuesday at 04:34pm

If you write getters that have side effects I hope you step on a Lego—@importantshock

Tuesday at 06:04pm

Why is it I always ruom good jokes with typos/—@edd

Wednesday at 01:25am

Great programme at #xmlprague, I must say. Curious about @ndw's talk #2.—@sgmlguru

Wednesday at 04:38am

Wednesday at 09:48am

On the 50th Anniversary of The War On Poverty, I am reminded that we don't need wars. What we need is lasting societal change.—@BWJones

Wednesday at 10:00am

Having builds finish in roughly ten minutes instead of roughly forty feels way more than four times more productive!—@ndw

In a conversation that started on Wednesday at 04:35pm

I have FIREFOX_HOME, JAVA_HOME, JDK_HOME, MOZ_PLUGIN_PATH, and PATH set. Firefox still looks in /usr/lib/jvm/... for Java. WTF?—@ndw
@ndw DOT_PROFILE_HOME not set, obvs.—@svgeesus
@svgeesus Uhm. Well. Ok. I was using a "webex" profile, so I thought that was enough. Wrong?—@ndw

In a conversation that started on Wednesday at 04:45pm

32 bit Java and 32 bit Firefox in order to run WebEx is another hack that very nearly breaks my will to continue #linux —@ndw
@ndw Surely there are alternatives.—@cramerdw
@cramerdw And they'd be what, exactly? Funny tricks with VMs and VNC not withstanding.—@ndw
@ndw I find myself using Google Hangouts. It allows for showing screens but not surrendering control and there's a 10 person limit.—@cramerdw
@cramerdw It's a corporate thing. WebEx is what we use.—@ndw
@ndw If it makes you feel any better, I've seen webex fail to work on Macs too.—@cramerdw
@ndw I think it is: 32 bit Java + 32 bit Firefox + several cocktails + colorful language—@alexmilowski
@alexmilowski I don't need cocktails for colorful language, and cocktails are still, uh, 28 minutes away. Not that I'm counting or anything.—@ndw
@ndw have you got Netflix working yet? That should be good for a blog rant—@msokolov
@msokolov No. But I should have mentioned that Amazon streaming is a non-starter. Did it in the Windows VM yesterday. Prob. same for NF.—@ndw
@ndw right nf uses silverpoint—@msokolov
@ndw Are you pretty sorted otherwise?—@bsletten
@bsletten I think so. I'll write another installment in the saga tonight.—@ndw

In a conversation that started on Wednesday at 06:24pm

@slashdot Hope the law of large numbers saves you.—@ndw

In a conversation that started on Wednesday at 09:12pm

The continuing saga: http://norman.walsh.name/2014/01/08/settlingIn (bored yet?) #linux —@ndw
@ndw My tech life is so much simpler: no outlook, no exchange, no office documents, no webex, therefore, no windows. #luckybastard —@alexmilowski

Thursday at 12:27am

RT @mnot: https://t.co/hc8UklojJw <— awesome!—@ndw

Thursday at 12:28am

RT @KimDotcom: How to stop piracy: 1. Create great stuff 2. Make it easy to buy 3. Works on any device 4. Same day global release 5. Fair p…—@ndw

In a conversation that started on Thursday at 10:45am

scary article by @doctorow on W3C and DRM — hoping someone from @w3c will address and respond! - http://mostlysignssomeportents.tumblr.com/post/72759474218/we-are-huxleying-ourselves-into-the-full-orwell —@jahendler
@jahendler Speaking personally, I find it hard to address and respond something so blatantly scaremongering… @doctorow @w3c —@robinberjon
@robinberjon @doctorow @w3c seems like that would be easiest to reply to - refute the specific points.—@jahendler
@jahendler «The world is coming to an end, we’re all going to die, we’re doooooomed!!!» Try refuting that :) @doctorow —@robinberjon
@robinberjon - if it said “world will end by plague” (or other such) it could be refuted - seems to me @doctorow makes his fears clear—@jahendler
@jahendler It’s a long list… First, the W3C is not pushing for DRM, just trying to handle the situation. Browsers are pushing. @doctorow —@robinberjon
@robinberjon just to be clear, I’m not supporting his comments, I’m suggesting you guys should refute.—@jahendler
@jahendler I don’t know, every time we speak up it comes out distorted. Maybe I’ll just blog on my side :)—@robinberjon
@robinberjon do so, and I’ll tweet a pointer to your rejoinder happily—@jahendler
@robinberjon I’d retweet but page is not responding… can you check?—@jahendler
@jahendler I can access it without a hitch, as can others. Are you somehow blocked? Seeing an error message?—@robinberjon
@robinberjon working now, had to clear cache - not sure why...—@jahendler
@jahendler We’re so Huxleyed to the full Orwell that your browser was trying to hold you away from dissident voices :)—@robinberjon

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

Reviews of #TomsPhD thesis were positive & I may now proceed to the last step: the defense (date tbd.). :-D // CC: @mhausenblas —@tomayac
@alexmilowski Thanks (likewise good luck!) @ndw: https://t.co/qgOfmm0CUE ;-)—@tomayac

In a conversation that started on Thursday at 05:11pm

@cramerdw if there is room for change...Fuze works with Linux:)—@fuzebox
@ndw: Perhaps you can get them to evaluate/switch to @fuzebox, which is enlightened enough to offer a Linux client.—@cramerdw

Thursday at 05:32pm

In a conversation that started on Thursday at 06:01pm

Take your weird, bizarre syntactic nightmare for addressing into XML documents with some broken dot notation and ... oh, nevermind. Just go.—@ndw
@ndw Which nightmare is this?—@abcoates
@abcoates Ridiculous tortured syntaxes to make a.b.c do something meaningful. With extra sugar for erverything under the sun.—@ndw

Thursday at 11:10pm

Follow your heart. It’s in the styrofoam cooler in the back of that pickup up ahead. Step on it. You haven’t much time.—@NightValeRadio

In a conversation that started on Friday at 11:26am

There's nothing like the peaceful tranquility of the wood chipper.—@ndw
@ndw Wait until you've fed 10" logs into a tractor driven one.... Nowhere near peaceful, just makes me envious.—@dpawson
@ndw We had an arborist here for three days this week. THREE DAYS.—@bsletten
@bsletten Three days to modify some trees? Was he using DOM level-one directly or something? @ndw —@kiphampton
@ndw How much wood would a wood chipper chip if he were to chip wood with a wood chipper..—@grtjn

In a conversation that started on Friday at 01:02pm

IE says "Accept: text/html, application/xhtml+xml, */*". Really, IE, you have no preference for which one you get sent? Really? Are ya sure?—@ndw
@ndw So send it XHTML, always ... :)—@alexmilowski
@alexmilowski If you don't care what you get, man, I'm sending you straight up XML.—@ndw
@ndw Send along just one XHTML script tag in your #XML and see what happens. Every other browser will execute the script.—@alexmilowski
@ndw LOL! IE throws */* on everything. MSFT's version of "Feelin' Lucky" /cc:@jreschke —@mamund
@ndw it's just trying to be frIEndly.—@simonstl