...making Linux just a little more fun!
Jimmy O'Regan [joregan at gmail.com]
Hi. I'm in Sunnyvale now. I think I should be around after 6, if anyone can suggest a good meeting place.
Rick Moen [rick at linuxmafia.com]
Quoting Jimmy O'Regan ([email protected]):
> Hi. > I'm in Sunnyvale now. I think I should be around after 6, if anyone can > suggest a good meeting place.
Jimmy, if you're reading this, please let us know where you're hanging out, and Deirdre and I will be glad to join you.
Jimmy O'Regan [joregan at gmail.com]
2009/10/26 Rick Moen <[email protected]>:
> Quoting Jimmy O'Regan ([email protected]): > >> Hi. >> I'm in Sunnyvale now. I think I should be around after 6, if anyone can >> suggest a good meeting place. > > Jimmy, if you're reading this, please let us know where you're hanging > out, and Deirdre and I will be glad to join you. >
Oh, the sad, sorry saga this was...
I seem to have a knack of turning all my attempts at travel into farce; as this thread is already off-topic, I may as well recount some of the saga.
I decided from the outset to only take the bare minimum of time possible to attend the summit. I knew in advance that I would regret this decision, and I do, but there were two primary motivations behind this: firstly, my son has school holidays, and I didn't want to cut into time I would otherwise be spending with him; and secondly, I'm unemployed, and I simply couldn't afford it.
The flight I ended up taking would have left me in San Francisco airport at 11:40pm. I planned to spend the night in the airport, and trek to SF early in the morning for the bare minimum of tourism/souvenir shopping. My son collects drumsticks from the Hard Rock Cafe -- I promised I'd get him a set, plus it would be a nice, sight-filled walk to Golden Gate from there. According to Google Maps. Check-in at the hotel was at 3, so a meetup seemed feasible afterwards.
It becomes relevant later, so I should mention that I was more than a little excited about the trip, and only managed to drift off to sleep after 3am; my train to Dublin was at 6:18, so I had less than 3 hours sleep.
What actually happened was that my flight from Amsterdam to Minneapolis was delayed by 5 hours, and the connecting flight to SF was cancelled outright. Delta were wonderful, and arranged a hotel in Minneapolis, and a replacement flight the following morning. The only available shuttle was at 4am, and I only managed another 3 hours. I had gotten a little sleep on each flight, but only the bare amount I'd learned to get to avoid feeling my ears pop.
So, from the plane to SF airport, and a BART and Caltrain trip apiece later, I was in SF itself. In the end, Google's estimates of how long it should take to walk across the city were, in the presence of baggage and other people on the streets, woefully underestimated, even without the few wrong turns I needed to take to get my position on the map on my iPod. (Positioning by wifi alone sucks, in case you didn't know).
I got there eventually, but only had enough time to take a few pictures of Alcatraz from afar and buy the souvenir I promised. (Along the way I passed through Union Square and Chinatown, so not a total loss). I tried to climb Russian Hill, but after the first sloped block, I had to stop twice on the second (both times leaning against a tree to not fall back down!), so I got the first No. 30 bus, to get to 4th Street. At the wrong point along the route, but the driver was great and took me on the second route that took me there.
So, I got to hotel, only to be informed that my reservation had been
cancelled. They told me they could undo it, but only if I gave them a
credit card (I don't have one). Someone else intervened, and had them
look up my co-mentor, with whom I was meant to have been sharing a
room, and they passed me a note he had left for me: 'Jim, I'm at the
nearest bar. Meet me there.' They arranged that I would also share his
room, and I dumped my baggage, and met him at the bar (I'd have been
fine with taking the floor both nights, but he insisted on rotating.
I'd say I love that guy, but it's probably just the exposure to
Californians talking[1] 
I misplaced my power adapter and didn't bring my laptop to Google HQ the next day[2], my email volume was too high to process on my iPod, wifi was strained past breaking point at the hotel (300+ geeks in 1 place...) -- I eventually got Rick's email, but on Sunday; our respective schedules didn't allow for a meeting to take place in the end.
All that aside, I had a great time. I hope our application for 2010
will be successful and I get to repeat the experience, with a few
minor exceptions The 'Advanced Trolling' session alone was worth
the trip.
[1] I'm already overusing the word 'awesome'; my friends and family have promised to beat me out of that habit.
[2] Also, I was too hungover to search effectively... I managed to write 'localisation' as L12N (adding in the 'l' and 'n') for our talk topic; something I won't be allowed to live down in a hurry. That I fell asleep at a table (drink + fatigue + not being able to remember where 'my' room was) and had to be guided to my room was forgotten after the next night. (I drank 'til 5.30 in a much more moderate way (language nerds seem to out-party everyone else), and woke fresh as a daisy at 8.30)
-- <Leftmost> jimregan, that's because deep inside you, you are evil. <Leftmost> Also not-so-deep inside you.
Jimmy O'Regan [joregan at gmail.com]
2009/10/28 Jimmy O'Regan <[email protected]>:
> minor exceptions
This, I think, needs more explanation.
The basic idea was:
1) To know when you're being trolled, you need to understand trolling
2) Trolling can lead to improvements => x.org no longer needs a config file (at this, the ob. troll from the crowd rang 'But that used to be the only decent documentation we got')
3) Trolling itself is a valuable part of nerd culture => Unix Hater's Handbook; most e-mail from Linus.
There are some photos here: http://pippin.eaglescrag.net/v/Conferences/GSoC-MentorSummit2009/img_6508.jpg.html (reverse order, so follow the 'Previous' button), but most of the humour is lost in them.
For advanced trolling in action, Duke Leto's twitter stream is a good start: http://twitter.com/dukeleto "~@al3x Obviously you are not hip with the open source community. Trolling is the highest form of flattery." "Hey @slava_pestov and @chromatic_x , who is working on #factor on #parrot ? You do know the dinosaurs turned into birds..."
-- <Leftmost> jimregan, that's because deep inside you, you are evil. <Leftmost> Also not-so-deep inside you.
