Aquarius

First off, I want to thank Google for giving out water bottles.  This morning I forgot my lanyard with the name badge on it, and had to walk for forty minutes in the sun to the hotel and back.  Google, you made it much less unpleasant than it could have been.  Also, Nokia gave us towels and USB keys, and Intel are giving us coffee and ice-cream every day.

The flight to Las Palmas was delayed yesterday, and we missed some of the opening talks-- apparently RMS was singing.  But we arrived in time for the lightning talks; I heard one on refactoring, one on KDE's triage team (which sounds like a great idea), one on improving OCR in Linux, and some others.  Later I went back to the hotel and slept while other people were eating (my choice: I was quite horribly jetlagged) and then we all ended up on the roof talking about tech stuff until about midnight, when we dispersed.

There was a sign up saying "Don't try to upgrade your system: there are 700 of us here."  The network has been getting a little overloaded.  I'm now sitting in a talk about Bluetooth.  People keep trying to pair with the speaker's devices.

I will take some pictures and post them.  I haven't seen any actual canaries here, but perhaps I haven't been looking hard enough.

Out the window

I am sitting in the foyer of the auditorium hacking and waiting for the next talk, which is on GNOME Shell, something I have a particular interest in. Just to show you how close everything is to the sea here, this is the view from where I'm sitting.

ebassi's talk on Clutter

ebassi's talk on the state of Clutter:

0.8 was released at Guadec '08.  Then they were bought by Intel.  0.9 release came in July.

Got more complicated because people other than them are using Clutter now and they have to check bug reports etc.  1.0 is imminent.

What's changed in 1.0?

• Performance
• API consolidation
• New animation stuff

So:

• API will be stable for two years (until 2.0)
• Minimal amount of API.
• Full documentation

Thirst

Written for Fin, because I miss zir very much.

My health needs are few,
but water comes first.
I tell you, it's true.
My health needs are few,
And water is you.
I'm aching with thirst.
My health needs are few
but water comes first.

Each moment makes of you and me an Us

...and a sonnet for Katie.  There was so much I had to leave out of this one...

Do you recall the day when there were two?
I know it's rather easy to forget
the day when there was Me and there was You,
instead of Us, the day before we met?
It's shadowed, for the memories are bright:
in each, we find a unifying theme,
I join a shining sun within her light,
you join a dreamer deep within a dream.
   The day you spoke the love you hold for me!
   You hugged me, like a jet plane when it lands!
   The evening when we kissed beneath the tree;
   The nights of candlelight and gentle hands;
and millions more to come, repeating thus:
each moment makes of you and me an Us.