Norm Tovey-Walsh

ndw@toot.wales

By way of <a href="https://toot.wales/tags/introduction" class="mention hashtag" rel="tag">#introduction</a>, I'm an inveterate hacker of markup (XML, HTML, SGML, TeX, JSON, DocBook, RELAX NG, XML Schema, Schematron) and wrangler of bits (XProc, XSLT, XQuery, Java, Scala, Python, JavaScript, C#). Author. Photographer. Occasional cook. Frequent bottle washer. Employed by Saxonica. Resident of Wales. Website tinkerer, <a href="https://norm.tovey-walsh.com/" target="_blank" rel="nofollow noopener" translate="no">https://norm.tovey-walsh.com/</a>

Posts

Post #1717964
It may take me a few minutes to recover from the horrifying realization that I hadn't backed up the "production" databases for several of my websites since...October, 2024. I feel a little unwell.
Post #1590871
I&#39;m just boggled by the fact that Microsoft can simultaneously shove Copilot into Word (where you write critical business documents), Excel (where you track business critical financials), and the rest of the Office suite that they&#39;ve worked relentlessly for decades to get into every business and school, and at the same time claim that it&#39;s &quot;just for entertainment purposes&quot;. My dude! I assure you that even if you manage to amuse me, either the board nor t...
Post #1458203
If you claim to be a source of news and the date of publication for an article isn&#39;t clearly displayed (ideally adjacent to the title of the piece and the byline), you are not a news source.
Post #1086594
Migrating issues from GitHub to Codeberg. In the course of porting a project from (several) GitHub repositories to a (single) Codeberg repository, I found that I wanted to be able to migrate the issues. So I wrote a script to do that. #GitHub #Codeberg https://so.nwalsh.com/2026/03/27-migrating-issues
Post #1036504
I boosted a Mastodon toot that pointed to this blog post, but damn it, I want to boost it again: https://smallsheds.garden/blog/2026/on-the-acceptance-of-genai/. https://so.nwalsh.com/2026/04/08/171305
Post #610593
They&#39;re going to kill us all.
Post #610592
Bravo, Apple. You sent a &quot;track your package&quot; link when you shipped my package today. That link takes me to the DPD website where they confidently assert that they delivered that package in September, 2025.
Post #610591
DocBook 5.2.1ꞵ1. Testing the DocBook 5.2.1 release. #XML #DocBook https://so.nwalsh.com/2026/03/06-docbook
Post #610589
I think Liquid (Gl)ass is ugly, but aesthetic choices are personal. How did *this* get past QA? #screenshot #ux #Photography https://so.nwalsh.com/2026/03/07/095746
Post #610587
🧩 XML 🧩. I love how the pieces fit together. In this case, for a possibly mad idea about publishing with Typst. #XML #InvisibleXML #DocBook #Markdown #MarkupMonday https://so.nwalsh.com/2026/03/09-puzzle-pieces
Post #610585
My MacBook Pro vintage 2023 has started to exhibit doubled key presses. Reminds me of that gawdawful butterfly keyboard. Anyone seen this on more recent vintage hardware? Suggestions?