I will be speaking at Scotland on Rails in late March. My talk with Kevin McDonagh will be about how to create a community based open source project with an active community. I’d say go buy tickets but it’s sold out already!
After my talk is over I’ll put it up online. But for now I’ve put up a page about the project for those interested in what I’ve been doing with 1.5 years of Thursday.
In a hectic December I managed to go along to Devoxx in Antwerp, Belgium. Devoxx (Voxx is Latin for ‘voice’) used to be called Javapolis and is a Java and other JVM languages conference. This was the first time I’d been to an industry conference and it is certainly something I intend to continue.
On the way over to Antwerp from Glasgow I was amused by an old lady who when told she couldn’t have pie and beans on the plane promptly asked for a stick of rock and a cheese sandwich instead. I’m with her on the unhealthy plane meals revolution! I later arrived at Antwerp train station which is probably the most impressive train station I’ve ever seen. While still in UK mode I then hailed a taxi and tried to get into the passengers side for UK cars (which is the drivers seat in Europe). After convincing the driver that I didn’t want to steal his vehicle I then told him where I needed to go. He struck me with a confused look, asked if I was sure, then pointed to my hotel straight across the road. Kudos to him for not driving me around town then dropping me off at the same spot.
I chose the flights and the hotel myself (on JPMs dime) so I only have myself to blame for the hotel I chose. After quickly figuring out that the locals in Antwerp do not speak French or English and that I’ve never wanted to learn Dutch in my life, I realised this was going to get complicated. I arrived to my room after walking over a patch of dried blood. Luckily enough the tv had UK channels so I was able to watch the news and football in my room. It was around this time that the incessant knocking began. I had somehow booked a hotel which was also a Leprechaun retirement home. Every pipe in the building seemed to have a steady knocking sound like someone was hitting it with a hammer.
When I go abroad I use the same suitcase which was a corkscrew, a photocopy of my passport and some coins. I have now figured out that there is another thing I’m missing….a power converter. I wasted a lot of time going round stores in Antwerp unsuccessfully looking for a UK->Euro converter. My hotel unsurprisingly didn’t have one so I resorted to asking randoms if I can charge my iPhone off their USB ports (not cool).
The conference itself was a 3 day affair for me. It was hosted at a purpose built cinema/exhibition hall at the North of Antwerp which was easily accessible from the brilliant and cheap Tram system. All the big players in the Java space were there (including MS touting their Silverlight tech) and offering assorted goodies to get you to visit their stalls. The badge you got had an optional RFID tag which you could use at vendor booths to give your details over. It was also used to show you how full each room was and with what nationality. There were over 3000 attendees but only 100 were from the UK. Holland and Belgium by far had the largest mindshare, though everyone was speaking English (go old empire!)
Each day there were 6 timeslots for talks and you had a choice of different talks to attend. At the end of each day there would be free beer and games like fussball/wii. I really enjoyed going to Devoxx but I can’t say that I’d like to go to a conference alone again. I’d talk to someone who was sitting next to me at the start but you were always going to a different talk after and you’d never see them again! This was more difficult in the evenings as I had to go to restaurants alone (something I’ve never done before). Since I didn’t have any command of Dutch, I frequented Italian restaurants as I could still remember my tourist Italian from our Honeymoon to Florence.
One close call I had was when I got into the rhythm of asking the person next to me if they had been to a Java conference before and what talks they were excited about. I was about to do this during Brian Goetz’s concurrency talk but the talk started just as I was about to ask the same line of questions to the middle aged bloke sitting next to me. During the Q&A part of Brian’s talk the bloke next to me and put up his hand. Brian Goetz then said “Ah, I see Joshua Bloch has a question”. That’s right, I was about to ask the Chief Java Architect at Google if he had been to a conference before. Apart from writing large parts of the Java language, the guy was doing the keynote speech the next day!
A nice touch at the conference was the Whiteboards spread around the entrance. They had questions asking for your opinion on upcoming Java features and what people are working with today. I couldn’t resist helping start a TopGear-esque Cool Wall. The results are available online now from the devoxx site.
If you work in an Industry where you need to get training every now and again which usually costs around a grand. Ask your boss if instead of going on the exorbitantly priced training course, you would like to use around 3/4 of the same cash to go to a foreign country and have a great time (while learning!). It worked for me anyway.
So there was a discussion about the World Cup on Slashdot today.
It of couse came to the point about discussing what “football” is. i.e. the game using your feet instead of your hands and then this gem of a conversation happened:
UK Guy:
Funny, actually most of the world knows World Cup but not many know super bowl or world series. By the way you do realize that “world” in world series is a cruel joke right? oh well…
USA Guy:
Oh, we know. Every year we invite you foreign buttholes, try to make nice, put all our differences aside for a friendly game, but do you show up? No. We just sit here all by ourselves with our “Go France” foam fingers and cry into our beer that no one showed up for our party, so we scrimmage and go home, and then you guys wonder why we bomb the shit out of you.
Real nice, World. Real nice.
Well after last night we must all love Peter Crouch so I thought I would put up some of his videos:
This is him at the Beckhams party (before the Hungary game):
Here’s his goal and celebration uneditted from BBC last night:
And finally from the Crouch videos here’s a music mix with his celebration:
In other news a waaaayyy better England tune has been made by these guys for the world cup:
I’ve got some karma to burn so here it goes:
Extremely important advice and recommendations to be passed on to wives, girlfriends, fiancés, mothers, sisters, daughters, etc. (to all women in general).
These rules are to be communicated prior to the World Cup in June/July this year…
LIST OF RULES
1. From 9 June to 9 July 2006, you should read the sports section of the newspaper so that you are aware of what is going on regarding the World Cup, and that way you will be able to join in the conversations. If you fail to do this, then you will be looked at in a bad way, or you will be totally ignored. DO NOT complain about not receiving any attention.
2. During the World Cup, the television is mine, at all times, without any exceptions. If you even take a glimpse of the remote control, you will lose it (your eye).
3. If you have to pass by in front of the TV during a game, I don’t mind, as long as you do it crawling on the floor and without distracting me. If you decide to stand nude in front of the TV, make sure you put clothes on right after because if you catch a cold, I wont have time to take you to the doctor or look after you during the World Cup month.
4. During the games I will be blind, deaf and mute, unless I require a refill of my drink or something to eat. You are out of your mind if you expect me to listen to you, open the door, answer the telephone, or pick up the baby that just fell from the second floor….it wont happen.
5. It would be a good idea for you to keep at least 2 six packs in the fridge at all times, as well as plenty of things to nibble on, and please do not make any funny faces to my friends when they come over to watch the games. In return, you will be allowed to use the TV between 12am and 6am, unless they replay a good game that I missed during the day.
6. Please, please, please!! if you see me upset because one of my teams is losing, DO NOT say “get over it, its only a game”, or “don’t worry, they’ll win next time”. If you say these things, you will only make me angrier and I will love you less. Remember, you will never ever know more about football than me and your so called “words of encouragement” will only lead to a break up or divorce.
7. You are welcome to sit with me to watch one game and you can talk to me during halftime but only when the commercials are on, and only if the halftime score is pleasing me. In addition, please note I am saying “one” game, hence do not use the World Cup as a nice cheesy excuse to “spend time together”.
8. The replays of the goals are very important. I don’t care if I have seen them or I haven’t seen them, I want to see them again. Many times.
9. Tell your friends NOT to have any babies, or any other child related parties or gatherings that requires my attendance because:
a) I will not go,
b) I will not go, and
c) I will not go.
10. But, if a friend of mine invites us to his house on a Sunday to watch a game, we will be there in a flash.
11. The daily World Cup highlights show on TV every night is just as important as the games themselves. Do not even think about saying “but you have already seen this… why don’t you change the channel to something we can all watch??”, the reply will be: “Refer to Rule #2 of this list”.
12. And finally, please save your expressions such as “Thank God the World Cup is only every 4 years”. I am immune to these words, because after this comes the Champions League, Italian League, Spanish League, Premier League, etc etc.
Thank you for your cooperation.
Regards
THE OFFSIDE RULE EXPLAINED FOR GIRLS
You’re in a shoe shop, second in the queue for the till. Behind the shop assistant on the till is a pair of shoes which you have seen and which you must have.
The female shopper in front of you has seen them also and is eyeing them with desire.
Both of you have forgotten your purses.
It would be totally rude to push in front of the first woman if you had no money to pay for the shoes.
The shop assistant remains at the till waiting.
Your friend is trying on another pair of shoes at the back of the shop and sees your dilemma.
She prepares to throw her purse to you.
If she does so, you can catch the purse, then walk round the other shopper and buy the shoes.
At a pinch she could throw the purse ahead of the other shopper and, *whilst it is in flight* you could nip around the other shopper, catch the purse and buy the shoes.
Always remembering that until the purse has *actually been thrown* it would be plain wrong to be forward of the other shopper.
There you go poppet.
However if you were loitering by the till checking out the gift cards you are technically NOT INTEREFERING WITH PURCHASE and can be in that position when the ‘purse is thrown’. The purse must be allowed to fall to the floor before you can pick it up and buy the shoes though.
ANY QUESTIONS?
Please forward them to the guy at the back of this picture.
Yep, that takes care of that karma.
Above was shamelessly stolen from the spirt of football blog
I’m one of many Joe Wright’s and I currently dwell in Glasgow, Scotland. I run my own business providing software services throughout Scotland. I mainly use Clojure, Ruby, Java, and any automation tools I can get my hands on.
To complement this this blog I have a technically focussed blog: Joejag Tech
I used to be heavily into Gentoo Linux but since finishing my Bachelors and Masters in Computing at the University of Aberdeen I haven't found the time. I can usually be found hacking on side projects, writing songs on guitar or enjoying a fine Islay single malt. I'm happy to say this fascination has now manifested as a Single Malt Guide
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