BarCampBoston – June 2006

Posted on by grahams

Headed out to Maynard yesterday for BarCampBoston. I had the dubious distinction of being the first person to show up (other than the volunteers putting it together), but fortunately some others were quickly behind me. Hung around for about an hour or so before the first session… At first, it looked like it was going to be slim selection, but the schedule filled up quickly. The first session I went to was on “Neo-Cartography”, but it was pretty lame because the guys running spent about 15 of their 30 minutes on going around the room … I was worried that the “ad-hoc” nature of the event would cause all the sessions to be kinda chaucey, but I think people just needed a bit of time to figure out how short 30 minutes actually is.

Went to several great sessions, and I even took notes for several of the sessions I attended.. I used SubEthaEdit for the first time, and while nobody else contributed to my documents, a few people requested copies of the notes by adding their address to the bottom of the docs.

I didn’t go back for day two of the conference because I woke up early to take to the airport and when I got back I took a nap that ran “a little long”. I was going to do my talk today on “Why working on classified software sucks”, but oh well.. The deal with BarCamp is that every attendee is supposed to give a talk, so I’m a leech, but the whole grid was pretty much full yesterday, so whatever.. I’ll be more prepared next time around…

Music Update

Posted on by grahams

Here’s some music-related updates:

  • The first CD from Mike Patton’s new project, Peeping Tom, his the streets this Tuesday. I got my hands on the CD a little early and it is awesome… The first really accessible-by-the-masses album from him in a long time. It’s probably about as close as you’ll see him get to pop… Anyway, the band (featuring Dan The Automator, Rahzel, Dub Trio, Rob Swift (X-Ecutioners), and Imani Coppola) were on Conan O’Brien on Friday… Check it out. Also, an interview over at Suicide Girls
  • In other Patton news, Rhino finally released the two classic Faith No More videos, “You Fat Bastards: Live at the Brixton Academy” and “Who Cares a Lot: The Greatest Videos” (a.k.a. “Video Croissant”) on DVD last week.
  • Brainwashed is celebrating it’s 10th anniversary with a weekend festival in November. Brainwaves is going to be held at the Regent Theatre in Arlington, MA. The lineup so far is pretty out of control, you should totally check it out!

A Noted Harvard Symbologist

Posted on by grahams

I’ve been killing myself trying to finish this design document at work and I finally was able to send it out for review on Friday afternoon. Hopefully people won’t have too many comments about it, because I’d really like to write some code sometime this year.

Got my Powerbook back on Friday, it was shipped out, fixed, and back in the apple store in less than 72 hours. Seems to be working great now, I had forgotten how nice the keyboard backlight was after going without it for a few months. If I had known how fast the turnaround would be on the repair I would have had it fixed ages ago.

Pretty laid back weekend, saw The DaVinci Code with the film club last night. As I expected it was way better than the book, which is a worthless steaming pile of shit. That said, it isn’t a GREAT movie, just a good, entertaining flick. It was pretty much exactly what I was expecting, and I’m not entirely sure why the critics have been so harsh on it… Maybe they are all in the pockets of Opus Dei.

Oh….. Fudge…..

Posted on by grahams

I was pulling into my neighborhood yesterday and heard the dreaded sound of a flat tire. The tire had a slice on it’s sidewall on the INSIDE of the tire, which I don’t even understand. I pulled off to the side of the road to swap it out, jacked up the car, took off the lugs, and couldn’t get the wheel off. I called , who brought me a hammer and some work gloves. Wacked on the wheel with the hammer, stomped on it with my (lame) legs, and did everything I could to get the fucker off to no avail. I called AAA, who came in record time (10 minutes or so), but they couldn’t get it off either, and the tire wouldn’t hold air, so they called in a tow truck, which towed my car across the street (about 45 minutes later). So now I am waiting at home for them to call me, they estimated that it would be before noon, but who knows..

Effluvia

Posted on by grahams
  • Herm, the family groundhog, is now famous. The owner of that site contacted me for permission to sue one of my photos of Herm. Most of my photos are available under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommerical-ShareAlike license, but this guy did the right thing and ask permission for commercial use.
  • Took my Powerbook in for service today during lunch. The “Ambient Light Sensor” has been on the fritz for awhile, so the screen didn’t automatically dim and the keyboard didn’t light up anymore. I was putting it off but decided that if I kept putting it off I’d eventually run out of AppleCare support, so I backed up everything and took care of it.
  • Saw Jim Norton and Dave Attell on Friday night with John from work. Attell bombed, but Norton was funny, even though it wasn’t all my kind of humor… Had a good time out, though…
  • Took a bad spill on Saturday and have a big bruise on my arm and my shin and foot are killing me. Total klutz moment, as usual, when I was woken up out of a dead sleep. can attest that whenever I am woken up I act like a bomb went off a foot away from me.
  • Saw Art School Confidential with the film club on Sunday. Not a fantastic film, but a very enjoyable one.