Posted: Wed 19 October, 2005 | Author: Lyle | Filed under: Geeky, Travel |
being over here in Amsterdam, and knowing that that nice new PC is waiting at home, ready for the bits to be assembled into a working shit-hot PC that’ll do me for another three or four years.
Of course, it’ll be fine for when I get home tonight – but like any boy with a new toy, I want to put it together now.
And yes, there’s other reasons for looking forward to being home too. A sane waking-up time not least among them.
Posted: Tue 18 October, 2005 | Author: Lyle | Filed under: Euro OSCON 2005, Geeky |
On a far geekier note, it’s also been really interesting to be talking to, or seeing presentations from, so many of the people whose IT experience, programs and knowledge I’ve been using for years. People like Rasmus Lerdorf, who wrote PHP, Tim O’Reilly, the CEO of O’Reilly publishing ( the tech books with animals on the cover – and if you don’t know them, don’t worry) and Larry Wall, who created Perl.
That’s just a tiny subsection of the people here, obviously – but all the same, it really is pretty cool.
Posted: Tue 18 October, 2005 | Author: Lyle | Filed under: Euro OSCON 2005, Geeky, Thoughts |
One thing that’s interesting here (well, I find it interesting, anyway) is how many women there are among the attendees. It’s nowhere near a majority (yet) but I’d say about 15-20% of the attendees are female, which is a huge leap from what it was five years ago.
Definitely a good thing, when so many of the keynote speakers were banging on about (among other things) equality and open-ness in all things.
Posted: Mon 17 October, 2005 | Author: Lyle | Filed under: Euro OSCON 2005, Thoughts, Travel, Work-related |
Tonight I had an utterly fantastic meal in a restaurant in Amsterdam. (I need to do some research to find out what it was called, because I’ve forgotten) Overall it cost €65, but that included a starter with five full scallops (which was superb, they were absolutely perfectly done), a half bottle of a seriosuly pleasant white wine, and a main course that consisted of a breast of guinea fowl with creme de cassis and smoked bacon. So I’d say it was well worth the money.
However, it’s obvious that I’m SO not used to the entire “funded by the company” thing. I was in two minds anyway about getting the company to pay for the meal, as I knew it was probably more than they’d deem reasonable, but then I went and left the receipt in the restaurant anyway (which is why I also can’t remember the name of the bloody place) so it’s a moot point now. Ah well…
UPDATED : Ah, found a website for it – the restaurant was De Theeboom (the Tea Bush). Heartily recommended.
Posted: Mon 17 October, 2005 | Author: Lyle | Filed under: Euro OSCON 2005, Thoughts, Travel, Work-related |
One of the *cough* benefits of this conference is that when you register you get this little cordura “briefcase” emblazoned with “O’reilly European Open Source Convention ’05” (Hello Google), which is all well and good.
However, they are – to be charitable – a bit spoddy. And of course they advertise that a) you’re a geek, and b) the carrier of said bag is more than likely to be a tourist, carrying laptop etc. in said bag. Ergo, it could help to make you a bit of a target too.
Mine’s already back in the hotel room, and everything transferred over to the normal backpack. Makes much more sense to me. But anyway, it’s still surprising to me just how many of the people here are actually using the bags, and lugging them around with them.
Mind you, there’s also a truly disproportionate number of Apple Macs here today. I’m definitely in the minority for having a non-Mac laptop, and even further in the minority for running Windows 2000. Which, of course, suits me fine.
I do, though, think that this laptop’s days are numbered ( especially since seeing that Flybook site) – it’s running horrendously slowly, and also the battery life is beginning to die off badly. Damn.
Posted: Mon 17 October, 2005 | Author: Lyle | Filed under: Geeky, Thoughts, Travel |
It’s 9.15, and already I’ve been in this tutorial for 45 minutes. However my body clock is still insisting it’s an hour earlier, and thus it’s not even vaguely conscious as yet.
I can see the benefits of Ruby on Rails, and can see the speed with which stuff can be created, but both my brain and laptop are seriously lagging. I want to do more with it, but this tutorial is being done by a guy who really knows his stuff – I’m going to have to play catch-up once I get home, and work on it a bit myself.
Oh joy, another new language to get my head round. Still, it looks petty easy. Ha, I’ve said that before…
Posted: Sun 16 October, 2005 | Author: Lyle | Filed under: Geeky, Work-related |
When I’m travelling, particularly recently, I start to kind of worry myself. Here in Amsterdam for some reason I keep on wanting to use German. Which doesn’t really help matters, all things considered.
As it is, I’m OK with languages, except that I find I now have problems keeping them straight in my head. It’s not just “normal” languages, either – because of the work I do, there’s about four programming languages floating round at the same time, and I wonder if there’s some finite limit to the scope of the language centres of one’s brain.
My laptop’s no better either – currently it’s got Python, Perl, ASP and PHP on it, as well as all the normal gubbins for HTML, SQL, and the like. In addition, because of the first tutorial tomorrow morning, ( 8.30 – sounds OK ’til you remember that Holland is an hour in front of the UK, so I’ll be sitting in a tutorial at 7.30 in the morning. Gah) I’ve also just installed Ruby on Rails on here too.
I’m not sure which of us is going to break down first…