Hiring Blitz

I'll be heading to Waterloo next week for our thrice-yearly co-op hiring blitz at the University. It should be a good time; I'm working on improving my presentation, we're bringing more people with us to help answer questions and talk to people, and I understand we're bringing some actual, physical instantiations of the Sorry Bill book to give out.

If you're in Waterloo, and if you're remotely curious about what we do, and if you want to see me flail around on stage like a possessed maniac, then come check us out! Weaver's Arms pub, on Phillip Street, at 6:00 PM, this coming Monday.

Life

By turns, confusing and enlightening lately. I am happy.

Also, Jess managed to get a summer job (albeit in another city) that's actually relevant to her field, which is apparently pretty rare for first-year law students. I am proud, and hope she enjoys it.
(Posted on June 4, 2004 18:39)

Transportation

I have seen the Nitix-mobile. It lacks certain features often seen in other vehicles, such as a floor, and a seat, but I get the impression it probably has a really big engine.

As seen in the literature

(Posted on June 7, 2004 15:34)

So Very Tired

I am home now, having done 21 co-op interviews in two days, and a reasonably hyper presentation the night before. I think it all went quite well, and we were able to generate a fair amount of interest, despite having a recruiting event at the same time as the (dreadful) seventh game of the Stanley Cup final.

I thought sfllaw and I made a good interviewing team. Walking by the lobby at lunch time, we overheard someone make a remark about NITI and their Microsoft-style interview. That was a surprise.

Enjoyed hanging out and eating with lkosewsk and drheld. They're crazy in completely different ways.

Made a startling discovery upon my arrival at home...

Parenthood

...I made flowers! My very first ones! I'm a dad!

Life

I have been studiously ignoring real life while away. I wish I could say the next few weeks would be less busy, but I have to get my GUADEC talk in order. Good luck, me.
(Posted on June 11, 2004 02:22)

Xerblin

As I wrote back in February, I saw Simon Forman give a really neat demo of Xerblin at CodeCon. Simon has just moved to Montréal and is working for us now. Welcome aboard!

I would love to see him keep working on Xerblin during his NonDirectionalFridays and, if he wants, make a project page for it on our open-source wiki. The world needs to see more of this thing.

Random

A few days ago, dmg told me how pleased he was that he hadn't ended up in any of mich's NITI pictures.

I brought back some fine reading material from UW, and suddenly he didn't seem to care anymore.

Damian enjoys mathNEWS

(Posted on June 11, 2004 21:07)

Work

Our ExchangeIt Evolution plugin is looking pretty spiffy these days, thanks to wlach and pcolijn's hard work. Ask us about it next week at GUADEC if you're interested.

I've been trying to work really hard on WvSync lately, but I've been having trouble focusing on it for some reason. I've been done the librsync wrapper for WvStreams for a while now, and I've refactored some old synchronization-decision-making code that I hacked up a couple years ago, and those parts are looking pretty good.

What remains to be done is the protocol and the scanner/lister. Presently I'm trying to remember how to design a state machine. It's been a while.

That will get me a decent demo for my GUADEC talk, at the very least. Lots of smaller details won't be ready, I'm afraid, but I will have something to show.

jnc with SqueakyBird and Artie the anteater

Entertainment

I've always been vaguely interested in juggling, and dmg has been trying to teach me some new tricks. I can almost, very nearly, do 3-ball Mills Mess. Maybe one day.

Toys

So pphaneuf and dilu have both just gotten new cell phones that make my own last year's model look like a dinosaur. Must... resist... gadget-envy...
(Posted on June 19, 2004 00:20)

Here I sit, drinking tea and eating chocolate, facing an impossible deadline of my own design, coding up a storm. It is a good day to be alive.
(Posted on June 23, 2004 05:11)

Travel

Today I fly to Oslo, via Toronto and Munich, on my way to Kristiansand for GUADEC. I've planned to have a couple days to goof off and be a tourist in Oslo, but I also have plenty of code still to write, a presentation to plan, and a book to read (thanks, pphaneuf!), all of which should be more than enough to keep me occupied.

Planning to meet with hub and Stéphanie Saturday night in Oslo for dinner. Will bravely attempt to locate wlach and pcolijn in Kristiansand on Sunday. Also looking forward to having beer with louie who has indirectly agreed to said activity. Assuming there is any beer in Norway to be had.

Advogato

Still down. It has been several weeks. I feel vaguely silly linking to people there when I know the links won't even work, but I continue to do it because I am a chump.
(Posted on June 24, 2004 13:43)

Norway

So yes, I'm in Oslo now, and extremely tired due to my inability to sleep on anything that isn't a bed, never mind a plane. YUL-YYZ was uneventful, YYZ-MUC wasn't eventful enough, and MUC-OSL... presumably happened because here I am, although I can't swear to remember it.

Big inexplicable art thing in YYZ

Norway's countryside reminds me a bit of Canada, what with all the rocks and trees and water. I don't have a really good feel for the city yet, although it is quite pretty. There are, as usual, some subtle differences, and those are the ones that are most surprising.

Little things

Regardless, I anticipate sleeping well tonight. Current plans call for eating, sleeping, exploring, working on my GUADEC presentation, meeting hub and his wife for more eating, and so on. The plans really haven't changed since last time, I'm just more tired now.

in a park near Karl Johans Gate

Oh, And Before I Forget...

Oslo

(Posted on June 25, 2004 17:01)

I Function

...for I have slept. I have a tiny little bed in a tiny little room, but after 36 hours in various planes and airports with no beds at all, I didn't care.

I had smoked salmon for breakfast. Yes.

My hotel has surprisingly free (despite what the sign says) Internet access, which I've been using to work on my presentation a little. I've also been doing a healthy amount of walking around in Oslo.

"I should have taken the bridge."

This place is pretty seriously Americanized. (Said the guy from Canada.) Everybody I talk to seems to speak perfect English, there's less old and more modern architecture than I was expecting, and if you squint you can see a 7-Eleven in the picture below.

Karl Johans gate

The number of languages I've heard here is staggering. I've successfully conversed with complete strangers in German, French and English, and heard a few others I couldn't identify. A French speaker at my hotel asked me how well Linux runs on my laptop. For all I know he was probably on his way to GUADEC too, but that was before sleep so I didn't think to ask him.

I randomly stumbled upon a protest against the occupation of Iraq. It was very mild-mannered and well behaved, and even though I didn't understand a word of it, the signs were pretty clear.

"Stopp okkupasjonen av Irak!" and "Send soldatene hjem!"

(Posted on June 26, 2004 16:11)

GUADEC

I've been having a pretty good time at GUADEC, meeting new people and catching up with other people I hadn't seen in a while. It was interesting to finally meet hub after talking to him a lot over the last few months. Extra weird will be meeting him again at the airport in Montréal on Saturday. Sometimes the world feels less big than it really is.

The list of countries represented here is mind-boggling.

hub during his talk

Speaking of the world, being this far north a week after the summer solstice is pretty strange, as the sun only disappears for (maybe not even) three hours at night. You would think, in such a country, that hotel rooms would have thicker curtains. Nope. I shudder to think what it's like in the winter here. I can handle cold and I love snow, but I'm rather fond of daylight.

Waterfront in Kristiansand

Presentations

My talk is done, and seemed to go all right. I felt a little underprepared, but I got lots of feedback and great questions throughout the whole thing, which is really helpful and always appreciated. (I encouraged people to heckle by offering free t-shirts. I think I will continue this strategy.) I come out of it with some new ideas and a list of recommended reading material.

I've attended and enjoyed talks by Martin Sevior (Abiword), Dave Neary (GIMP plugins), and a particularly interesting one by Liam Quin on the science behind typography. I watched Miguel talk about C# by videoconference from Boston, and Nat Friedman provided entertaining thoughts about usability vs innovation in GNOME.

Technical difficulties: Dave Camp (L), Nat, and Jonathan Blandford (R)

Coming Home

Last day of GUADEC is today. Taking the train to Oslo tomorrow. Flying back to Canada on Friday.
(Posted on June 30, 2004 09:24)

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