I's got some links

A bunch of post-GUADEC random linking.

Dieguito got me a new hackergotchi photo. He also sent a proper hackergotchi, which I won't post until I can get some vendetta photos of him being carried off the pitch by 4 people after getting real bad cramps. 4 people! Have you seen the size of the guy? Clearly a geek footie game.

Plenty of floods all around the south of the country meant I had to get the train through Euston instead of direct through Reading/Oxford. It was pretty fun seeing all those groups of GUADEC people in different locations: Birmingham New Street platform - "Hey kids", Euston tube station - "Hey kids", Tube to Waterloo.. well, you get the point. That also means I got to see Kate Silverton in wellies.

I kind of fell asleep, that really horrible kind of sleep when you're just feeling as tired and punch-drunk after waking up, and dreamt that I had to organise GUADEC again. I'm sure Paul and Thomas' similar nightmares will be much more vivid than mine.

The online desktop talks also meant I got to put into action (bug filing action for now) my ideas from last summer's "GNOME and Freud" talk. Feel free to comment on the ideas, in bugs 459505 and 458133.

Thanks to Vicky for:

• mentioning that I look like some Big Brother contestant. I don't. Isn't that rubbish finished already anyway? Hopefully they'll get flooded in.
• proof that some people live under a rock. Mmmh, pagan-ilicious.
• providing Daniel with some much needed literature.

I should mention that it was pretty fun picking on Xavier with vuntz, filing dozens of bugs against Empathy: Xavier! Ca va pas!

My 3 GUADEC tasks

I had 3 main tasks when I came to GUADEC.

1. The USB keys
Mandriva provided us with 500 USB keys with a live distro, the usually-printed booklet, and loads of data provided by the sponsors (I quite liked that AMD chose to have compilers on there). If you didn't attend GUADEC, the booklet and data are available in the SVN repo. Shame they only arrived on Tuesday.

2. The football game
Apart from loads of bruises (and a huge nosebleed for me, thanks Glynn for ducking) and a map reading snafu to get there, it was great. For posterity, if you were there, please add the scores from your team and amend the teams if you got moved to another team. (My team finished second again, just one goal in it...). I should add that 3 hours of football is a bit too much.

3. Bluetooth and GNOME talk
Here's my slide, and the intro sound.

Slide 1

It was great not having any slides, but the video should be available very soon. As promised, here's a link to the use cases we have for Fedora.

More GUADEC-y stuff soon.

Tune In, Check This

Bad idea of the week. I went to jump up and down in a field park, in Guildford, to watch the Freestylers (of Raw As Fuck-fame, nothing to do with the Bomfunk MC's that sang Freestylers) at Guilfest.

I enjoyed myself, and talked a load of shite, but I'm knackered, and need to pack to head off in 3 hours for GUADEC. Bleh.

Ed the Duck, I've got your light.

FreeFA tournament 2007: teams sent out

The teams for this year's FreeFA tournament have been sent out by e-mail. You can check them out on the Wiki.

I've tried to balance the teams out, and the worst team in last year's tournament got nearly completely wiped out, which spells good things for the survivors (yeah, it was the whites, 20 to 1 isn't such a good result for your first game).

Be ready at 1 at the Conservatoire, or 1:30 at the ground
(It's on Monday by the way)

If you haven't received a mail, it's probably because you haven't entered your e-mail properly, or have a shite spam filter, so you found it fancy to omit characters in your e-mail address in the Wiki.

If you can't make it, please send me an e-mail, and I'll readjust the teams.

GUADEC: No smoking

Not me, silly! (last year's diet didn't work out, and I kept my bad habit).



This is just a quick note to say that from the 1st of July this year, you won't be allowed to smoke in pubs, train station platforms, or other places of work.

So:

• Visit the official website to know more about the smoking ban
• Follow the ban (unlike the law makers)
  
• Bring me packs of cheap fags from abroad (it's about 5 quid for a 20-pack of brand cigarettes, or 25g of tobacco)

I know some of you will appreciate the heads-up.

PS: Thanks UncleGogo for the image

Exclusive GUADEC posters for Comic Relief

Much like Paul, I'm selling some exciting memorabilia on eBay for Comic Relief. I had a lot of fun watching tonight (there's DVDs of the program for sale, well worth the pennies), and thought I'd sell my recently recovered posters.

Held by booze and fags, a wonderful poster

Unlike the picture, the poster doesn't look washed out. You will get one autographed poster, with the likes of Tigert, Jimmac, Miguel, Telsa, Jim Gettys, and many more (including yours truly). You will also get a clean one, to compare, and all. I expect to get at least a 100 quid off of it, so don't let me down.

BUY IT!