What
· The World
· · Events
· · · · Northern Voice (1 fragment)
· · · · RailsConf (3 fragments)
DevBeat · This was an odd but not-bad little developers’ event in San Fran put on by VC-biz pub VentureBeat. I’m not 100% sure what DevBeat 2013 was trying to be, but anyhow the venue was cool and I got a neat picture of RMS ...
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DevBeat · I normally don’t post here any more about events I’m speaking at, but DevBeat looks unusual. I mean, follow that link and look at the list of entertainers, which includes RMS, Al3x, DHH, Rasmus, and Mojombo. Who have in common, near as I can tell, exactly nothing. It’s a VentureBeat thing so I guess it’ll be crawling with VCs and people looking for money; I’ll try to moderate my general negativity about the current state of VC. But I have to say, it’s one of the few events where I look at the roster and think “That should be interesting.”
Upcoming Gigs · I think this counts as a travel-planning Personal Worst. In November, I’m committing speechification in Tokyo, Shanghai, Broomfield, and Antwerp ...
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Upcoming Gig: MWC · That stands for Mobile World Congress, right around Valentine’s Day, in Barcelona. A whole tribe of Androiders are going, and the mock-up of our booth is boggling minds all over the ’plex ...
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October in Montevideo · I’m going to be at RubyConf Uruguay at the end of this month; there are surprises ...
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Upcoming Gig — JAOO · I don’t know what the acronym stands for, but JAOO 2010 is in Aarhus, a place I’ve never been to in Denmark; Oct 4-6. It’s a popular event and I’m honored to be among the speakers. What happened was, before I started at Google, they invited me to come and talk about my Doing It Wrong piece, which I regard as summing up my years at Sun. After I joined Google, I wrote back and asked “Can I talk about Android too?” so I’ll be speaking twice on successive days ...
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Upcoming Gig — GDD Tokyo · GDD stands for Google Developer Day; since not everyone can come to Google I/O, we take I/O on the road to various points in several continents and both hemispheres. GDD Tokyo, on September 28th, is 2010’s first; I’ll be helping out there talking Android in the keynote. I assume the Tokyo Googlers will find something else useful to do while I’m there. Regular readers here know that I have a special relationship with Tokyo — can’t wait to be back.
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Upcoming Gig — Mobile Tech · That’s MobileTech Conference in full, a new conference in Mainz, about which I know nothing except for it’s near Frankfurt. It’s by the same people who do the well-known “JAX” conference series all over Germany. September 6-8; notable for being my first keynote appearance on behalf of my new Android day job.
Head Count Fiction · When conference organizers count people, the number they care about most is registered paying attendees; they track that every day as the conference approaches. Suppose you are an outsider, considering attending or sponsoring or exhibiting at the conference, and you inquire as to the likely attendance. You will never be given the real number; instead you will be told a number which is at least twice that, and usually higher. This is justified by including trade-show exhibitors’ staff, the conference organizer’s own people, PR folk and journalists, the food service crew, and is basically pulled out of a monkey’s butt. Just thought you’d like to know.
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Three Pictures of Illuminares · For many years, Vancouver’s Public Dreams Society has presented Illuminares, a summer-evening festival built around a lantern procession. Typically held outside, around Trout Lake, it’s a nicely-hippie-flavored explosion of fire and noise and energy. This year, because Trout Lake park is under construction, they held it inside and it was still fun, if not quite as much. I got some pictures which are sort of pretty and represent a new frontier I think in my current low-light-photography obsession ...
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Five Pictures of OSCON · It’s my favorite conference, I think. I love the smaller, more focused events too, but OSCON is a gathering of the tribes and we need one of those ...
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Upcoming Gig — Scottish Ruby · Next March, I’ll visit Edinburgh (for the first time!) to keynote the Scottish Ruby Conference, along with the excellent Jim Weirich. Interestingly, this is the former Scotland On Rails; they’ve decided to broaden their spectrum.
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JavaOne 2009 Notes I · I’m covering these events in my capacity as a blogger; here in the press room, the consensus is that this is JavaOne’s last go-around. I have no inside information and not even a guess, so this is 100% fact-free speculation, but Oracle does have a track record of rolling in the trade shows of the companies they buy: BEA, Siebel, PeopleSoft, and so on. I’d probably be in favor, just because I know the crushing load that this kind of shindig puts on insiders to get their wares ready to show; I’m not sure you could do this more than once a year, effectively ...
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CSS · That stands for Colorado Software Summit, which I attended once, four years ago, and have been trying to get back there since. With eight months to think about it, maybe I’ll manage this year. I totally recommend it.
Annotated Questions · OSCON has traditionally featured bundles of short fifteen-minute keynotes. I gave one entitled “Programming-Language Questions” and loved the compressed intensity of the format. Unfortunately, my slides were irretrievably lost in the post-speech disk crash (yes, I usually drop ’em on a USB stick, this time I didn’t). There’s video online at blip.tv, but the quality is pretty basic, and I suspect that the on-screen URIs and code samples not useful. Here are all the missing pieces, should you want to watch it (only 15 minutes, remember); plus a little extra commentary ...
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Nine Pictures of OSCON · Herewith some illustrated take-aways from OSCON 2008; I enjoyed it (and, I think, benefited from it) as much as any conference in recent years ...
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OSCON and Marca · I’ve got a gig at OSCON 2008 doing a mini-keynote, fifteen minutes entitled Language Inflection Point. This was in my mind when I stumbled across Marca’s Public speaking versus blogging. I think he’s really wrong ...
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RESTful JavaOne · I only managed to take in a few talks here and there, but the ones I did catch sure had some first-rate REST preaching. To the extent that there’s a surprising trend at this year’s J1, I’d say it’s REST-is-in, “Big Web Services” (see below) are out ...
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JavaOne Day One · Whatever your feelings about Java, the opening of the JavaOne conference is really an outstandingly great event. I’m not sure if, in any given year, it’s the single biggest gathering of software developers, but it’s remarkably huge. I have some pictures to suggest the flavor of being there, and some specifics on the Neil Young segment ...
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Whatever One · I spent most of Monday at CommunityOne, and it makes me wonder about the future of JavaOne ...
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CommunityOne! · I haven’t been really that involved in the work on CommunityOne, although I’m MC’ing a Ruby panel. But just now I was poking around the schedule [PDF; bad, bad CommunityOne!] and holy cow, this is turning into one heavyweight geek-fest. Whether your jones is for for Free Culture or Subversion or Virtualization or alt-JVM languages or many-core pain or Ubuntu news or PostgreSQL, this is the place. And also it’s free. If you’re a Bay Area geek or a JavaOne attendee you’d be nuts not to spend May 5 at the Moscone.
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Upcoming Gig: Tech Days Mexico City · I’ve only visited Mexico once, for a few days fifteen years ago, and loved it. I’m totally looking forward to appearing at Sun Tech Days Ciudad de México, May 21-23. I enjoy these events; they draw a young, eager, refreshing crowd.
Upcoming Gig: J1 Blogger · There’s a really strict limit on the number of JavaOne passes for Sun employees. I can usually manage to score one, but that’s one that someone else isn’t going to get. But I’ve noted with approval that there are press passes for successful technology bloggers; I’m one of those so I applied, and now someone else can get that pass. I’ve missed two J1’s in a row, so I’m looking forward to getting back into that culture a bit. Now, can I actually dig up some news?
Upcoming Gig: Silly Valley Ruby · This is right in the middle of San Jose, April 18 and 19. To be precise, SDForum’s Third Annual Silicon Valley Ruby Conference. SDForum seems like a good organization. I actually have never been to any kind of Ruby gathering in the Bay Area, so have no feel for the local culture; I’m looking forward to this.
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Upcoming Gig: BCnet · Hey, two conferences in my home-town in one month, April 22-23. The full name is Lighting the Path: Connections for the Future but everyone just says “BCnet”. I’ll be wearing my Sun hat for this one, and hoping to see some of the hometown folk.
Upcoming Gig: Open Web · Right here in town, as the name suggests: Open Web Vancouver 2008, April 14-15. This is put on by the Vancouver PHP Users Association; it’s great to see the Web religions opening up to each other like this.
Launch Party Vancouver Jan. 25 · There’ll be geeks, VCs, hangers-on, and good times, all at the Launch Party Vancouver 3 this Friday at the notorious Lamplighter. And there really is going to be a launch: Sun’s Startup Essentials will be doing its Canadian launch. That’s a program that’s easy to understand. Be less than four years old. Have less than 150 employees. Get cheap hardware. I’ve got a gig in Austin that day and even though I free up in the morning, will have trouble getting home for the party. Pfui.
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Undergrad Geeks in Montréal · I’m talking about CUSEC 2008, that’s the Canadian Undergraduate Software Engineering Conference. What a blast. If you’re a student up here doing anything software-related, attend. If you’re a veteran and they ask you to speak, accept. If you’re an employer looking for talent, sponsor. With some ultra-cute pics ...
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Upcoming Gig: Austin Summit · To be more precise, that’d be the Avenue A | Razorfish Technology Summit on January 25th. It must be hip because, wow, it’s listed on Facebook. Oh no, that was 2007; it must be lame, because it’s listed on, you know, Facebook. It’s free (if you have a relationship with AA|R) and looks pretty interesting. I’ll talk about Web 2.0 culture and technology to an audience that sounds like it’ll be a little more mainstream than I’m used to.
Social! · Our traditional (well, this is the third in four years) New Year’s Day social went off very nicely, thank you. We had RSVP’s from 40 or so adults with at least ten kids. Things that we kept the same: Cordon Rouge, gazpacho, lentil soup, and coffee cake. Innovation: hiring a real babysitter to hang out upstairs with the kids. Emma was great but went home looking frazzled; there are still a few nerf darts on the ceiling ...
Upcoming Gig: CUSEC 2008 · This is the Canadian University Software Engineering Conference. They accosted me out of the blue at some conference last fall and said “Come to Montréal in January?” I love academic crowds and it seemed like a good and well-organized event, so I’ll be at CUSEC 2008 speaking at 10 AM on January 17th. They seem well-enough organized not to need a plug from me, but today I dropped by the speakers roster and well, oh my goodness. I’m in damn fine company. I’d pay real money to hear what these other people have to say. Going to have put some extra work into my preso or I’ll look lame.
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In The Audience · At modern high-tech conferences, many in the audience go online, and stay online during the presentations. To facilitate this, conference organizers often provide wireless networking, and extension cords for laptop power. There is strong disagreement as to whether this A Good Thing or Appalling Discourtesy. I have observations both from in the audience and on the stage ...
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Northern Voice 2008 · In Vancouver, Feb. 22-23, the Northern Voice “personal blogging and social media” conference. Lauren has more details. My favorite little blogger conclave.
Bad Ruby · I enjoyed attending RubyConf immensely, but I also regretted it. Not all is well in my personal favorite open-source community. (This article is full of complaints; for my love-letter on the same subject see here.) [Ouch, check the comments. My position on weekends is, um, not universally held.] ...
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Good Ruby · I was at RubyConf ten days ago and just now catching up, been overloaded. This was my second RubyConf and, like last time, I came away inspired. This is an illustrated fan letter; but there are problems in the community and at the conference; I’ve written about them separately ...
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UnGigs · Being a list of some cool events that I’m going to but not speaking at, or not going to but unhappy about. Item: I’m going to both RubyConf and ApacheCon, but I have no attention of climbing on a stage, I’m there to listen and learn and schmooze. Item: I’m not going to QCon San Francisco, even though they invited me in the nicest way and it looks like a great program and good people. Just couldn’t make it work. Item: I’m not going to the Colorado Software Summit (I committed to the Shanghai gig) and this one breaks my heart, it looks like an outstanding program. Item: I’m not going to Grails eXchange 2007 because I’m signed up for that Midwest trip. A pity, that background Groovy buzz isn’t letting up at all; glad to see there’ll be Sun people there.
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Upcoming Gig: Midwest Java Days · I’ll be doing the opening keynotes at the Midwest Java Technology Days in Minneapolis and Chicago on October 16th and 18th respectively. There’s an amusing story behind this one ...
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Upcoming Gig: Shanghai · I’ve signed up to do a couple of presentations at our Tech Days events; the first is in Shanghai, October 23-25. I’ve been to Hong Kong lots but never to the PRC proper; exciting! Obviously I’ll have to pull together some other things to do if I’m going all the way across the Pacific.
Which “One”? · At the beginning of the week now ending was Community One, an opening act or a curtain-raiser or a prelude or whatever for Java One. I was on stage twice, once in the opening, and managed to visit (I think) all of the tracks. I was one of three thousand or so people there. It’s taken me a few days to figure out what I think about it ...
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Upcoming Gig: CANHEIT 2007 · It’ll be back to my old stomping grounds in Waterloo in late May to do a plenary at CANHEIT 2007, which is the Canadian University IT conference. I hope to see one or two of my old compadres.
Upcoming Gig: RailsConf 2007 · I’ll be heading to Portland, Oregon for a keynote at RailsConf 2007, May 17-20. I gather that like most Ruby-related events it sold out more or less instantly. There’s a funny story about how I came to attend ...
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Mashing with Mike · Today we had that Mashup event at the Sun campus with Mike Arrington. There were somewhere between 100 and 200 people there; I had fun and learned things ...
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Upcoming Gig: RubyKaigi 2007 · The week of June 10 will find me in Tokyo for RubyKaigi2007, where my title is The World in 30 Minutes. Fortunately, they’ve provided this map. Wish me luck; I’ll need it.
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Upcoming Gig: AEA Seattle ’07 · To be exact, An Event Apart Seattle 2007, way off at the end of June. I don’t know the first thing about it, but with Meyer and Zeldman involved it’s gotta be good. I can feel my inner typographer squirming at the prospect.
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Upcoming Gig: WDW SF ’07 · To be exact, Web Design World San Francisco 2007, March 26-28 at Moscone West in San Francisco. I’m up first thing on Monday morning. I haven’t any idea what I’m going to talk about, but still, it’s been too long since I’ve spent time hanging out with designers; so I’m looking forward to it.
Upcoming Gig: Mashup with Arrington · The Sun marketing person said “We’re doing another startup outreach event, think you could come down on the 19th and pitch in?” I said probably and asked for more info. “This fellow named, uh, Mike Arrington, has agreed to do a panel, do you know who he is?” So I said I’d come. It’s called the Mashup Event and it’s an afternoon thing, basically just Mike and me talking a little bit about Web 2.0 and Venture Capital, followed by cocktails and schmoozing. I’ve never met the ubiquitous Mr. A so I’m looking forward to it. If you’re in the area and can spare an hour, drop by our coolio Menlo Park campus and join in the fun. Our entirely-unhidden agenda: find out what’s going on, & listen.
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Moose Camp · This is the one-day Unconference that happens the day before Northern Voice. Unfortunately I missed Northern Voice, due to a combination of a child’s soccer game and a vicious one-day ailment of some sort that knocked me completely on my butt for 24 hours. Anyhow, Moose Camp was 100% excellent. It irritates me that I went through the first forty-something years of my life without having had the Unconference experience ...
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Starting Up! · Yow, I just looked at the Startup Camp sign-up sheet and if you want to go, you better get on the list PDQ. Of the names that are there, I recognize almost none; which is exactly the idea. I asked David Berlind why people who are coming wouldn’t want their names to show, and he says two reasons: stealth-mode startups, and people with jobs who are looking for another one.
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