Jonathan Oxer
[Blog]
>> Free at last!
Fri, Jul 27th 5:54am 2007 >> Conferences
Doing presentations at a conference is a huge mental/emotional drain, and no matter how much I resolve that I'm going to be prepared well in advance I don't think I've ever in my life done a talk where the slides didn't have tweaks within the 2 hours or so prior to the talk itself. Most of the time the final tweaks are in the 5 minutes prior: after connecting the laptop to the projector, but before actually starting.
So the moment at a conference where my last talk is finished is a huge relief. It signifies the time I can look at the conf program and actually figure out what sessions I want to see, instead of being stuck in a corner fretting.
And now I'm finished. In Mark's famous words, I'm freeeeeeeeee!
Lots of cool peeps here that I haven't seen for a while. Even Quinn turned up to do her body-modding talk - it wasn't on the original program, it seems she was pulled in to fill a slot.
Doing presentations at a conference is a huge mental/emotional drain, and no matter how much I resolve that I'm going to be prepared well in advance I don't think I've ever in my life done a talk where the slides didn't have tweaks within the 2 hours or so prior to the talk itself. Most of the time the final tweaks are in the 5 minutes prior: after connecting the laptop to the projector, but before actually starting.
So the moment at a conference where my last talk is finished is a huge relief. It signifies the time I can look at the conf program and actually figure out what sessions I want to see, instead of being stuck in a corner fretting.
And now I'm finished. In Mark's famous words, I'm freeeeeeeeee!
Lots of cool peeps here that I haven't seen for a while. Even Quinn turned up to do her body-modding talk - it wasn't on the original program, it seems she was pulled in to fill a slot.
>> Feeling spaced-out at OSCON
Tue, Jul 24th 12:26pm 2007 >> Conferences
Well, I made it, and just in time. I turned up at the airport for my flight and got as far as checking in my luggage and being issued a boarding pass, only to find that the flight was cancelled because Melbourne was totally fogged in. The plane that was meant to be used for my flight had come down from Sydney and couldn't land so it turned around and headed back to Sydney again - I bet those passengers weren't happy campers!
So the best United could do was tell me to go home and they'd let me know when they could arrange a seat on another flight. Next day they had a seat for me so off I went again, and about 26 hours of travelling later I made it to Portland just in time to check in, grab some sleep, and get up early to deliver my tutorial feeling like death warmed up: my tutorial started at 8:30am local time which put it at 3:30am Melbourne time. I think I was only lucid for about half of it but the participants were great and I think it still worked out OK in the end. I'm really hoping that the tutorial will just be the start of it for a bunch of people and we'll be able to get lots of code submissions, ideas, project descriptions and stuff up on the Real World / Second Life Integration site.
I've already bumped into quite a few familiar faces and caught up with people I haven't seen for ages, but the nausea and universe-is-out-of-kilter feeling got the better of me so I popped off to the hotel again for a nap in the afternoon. Hopefully tomorrow I'll be sailing on an even keel.
Well, I made it, and just in time. I turned up at the airport for my flight and got as far as checking in my luggage and being issued a boarding pass, only to find that the flight was cancelled because Melbourne was totally fogged in. The plane that was meant to be used for my flight had come down from Sydney and couldn't land so it turned around and headed back to Sydney again - I bet those passengers weren't happy campers!
So the best United could do was tell me to go home and they'd let me know when they could arrange a seat on another flight. Next day they had a seat for me so off I went again, and about 26 hours of travelling later I made it to Portland just in time to check in, grab some sleep, and get up early to deliver my tutorial feeling like death warmed up: my tutorial started at 8:30am local time which put it at 3:30am Melbourne time. I think I was only lucid for about half of it but the participants were great and I think it still worked out OK in the end. I'm really hoping that the tutorial will just be the start of it for a bunch of people and we'll be able to get lots of code submissions, ideas, project descriptions and stuff up on the Real World / Second Life Integration site.
I've already bumped into quite a few familiar faces and caught up with people I haven't seen for ages, but the nausea and universe-is-out-of-kilter feeling got the better of me so I popped off to the hotel again for a nap in the afternoon. Hopefully tomorrow I'll be sailing on an even keel.
>> Second Life Integration site goes live
Mon, Jul 16th 1:25pm 2007 >> Tech Toys
As usual I'm only days away from a conference I'm meant to be speaking at and I'm still way behind on preparation. Other than possible problems actually getting the hardware kits in time the Real World / Second Life Integration tutorial is coming along nicely though, and since there'll be a heap of source code for the participants to work their way through I thought it'd be best to create a website for it. At least that way I can keep giving them updates even after the tute.
And so Real World / Second Life Integration was born. Not much yet, but gotta start somewhere. There's already an SVN repo with a couple of code examples (including for a door in Second Life which can be unlocked with my implanted RFID tag, which should be a good way to freak people out) and I've created a group in SL called "Second Life Integration" in case anyone else is actually interested in this.
As usual I'm only days away from a conference I'm meant to be speaking at and I'm still way behind on preparation. Other than possible problems actually getting the hardware kits in time the Real World / Second Life Integration tutorial is coming along nicely though, and since there'll be a heap of source code for the participants to work their way through I thought it'd be best to create a website for it. At least that way I can keep giving them updates even after the tute.
And so Real World / Second Life Integration was born. Not much yet, but gotta start somewhere. There's already an SVN repo with a couple of code examples (including for a door in Second Life which can be unlocked with my implanted RFID tag, which should be a good way to freak people out) and I've created a group in SL called "Second Life Integration" in case anyone else is actually interested in this.
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