A boringmost blog about bugs
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Below are the 8 most recent journal entries recorded in the "blauzahl" journal:
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10:23 pm
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Ghost from the past: GCDS forgotten blog entry
So we'd get back late at night, and dani_l would look at me as I'd pull out my laptop, and say, "You're going to blog? At this hour?" And yeah, I did. I think consistently, even. Well, here is a post from the auto-save of my blogging software.
Yesterday was the last day of GCDS at the university for me. I dragged myself out of early to go and do DrKonqi stuff in the morning. Lunch was more "food". Then back to do more DrKonqi. Oh no, the paintball trip... Where we were supposed to leave from the Auditorium which we were no longer meeting at, nor were we anywhere near. So an interesting calling around began to see what was going on. Most people on the list seemed to have canceled from being too tired. Quite understandable at this point, really. Anyway, the locals finally found the name and location of the place and called us a taxi. Four of us took a rather scenic taxi. Er, well, yeah. The guy couldn't find the place, and so we drove around in circles on gravel roads and got to see ruins of houses built into cliffs and some nice rocks. (They're very good at using basalt here as accents in buildings, btw.) He didn't understand where we were going, and nobody seemed to be able to give him good directions. Anyway, we ended up getting off back at the Auditorium and had people come pick us up.
After that misadventure in transit, we were actually at paintball. It was quite interesting to see people running around diving into crouches and stuff. It was also kinda amusing to see who was good at it, but I think it safe to say you shouldn't mess with some of our developers. It was fun, and maybe something that can happen at a future aKademy. We all went home with bruises on random spots. [Who has the group photo from this anyway? URL please!]
Walking home, as it wasn't actually that far from the Auditorium, we decided to go back to our hotels, shower, meet up for food afterwards, and then go clubbing or something and enjoy the (for-most) last night. On the boardwalk, I finally got to eat proper tapas (finally, REAL FOOD! And fish even!). We found the Amarok hotel, and decided to howl at them and see who would answer back. They did! We then grabbed some other people, and wandered around the island looking for a reasonable club. We failed. Amusingly enough, Qt development discussion came up. And there is NOTHING like running around and talking about software development at 2am in the morning. We did find some actual dancing. When I left the others at 4am, they were talking about Qt again. :D
Wandering around was interesting: KDAB has half the island wearing their shirts now we could watch for people wearing shirts from our conference and randomly (or not) talk to them. The downside of this conference is that we've been too spread out. There's lots of people I'd like to have met, that I've barely ever even seen. And people I usually talk to I've seen almost zero of. I have met new people though, and have gotten to know some from online better. I wonder how many people have left by now. [ereslibre grabbed me online wanting to know if I'd met him or if I'd met an imposter! I have no idea! Did you bring me the real ereslibre or not? Collobora party]
I'm here for tomorrow still. I'd like to go rockhounding up by the stuff we were walking by yesterday, but we'll see how blistered my feet are. I seem to have really torn them up from the combo of paintball/dancing: I should have been paying more attention to the fact that my shoes were too loose. Heh, I should pack my bag first and see just how much less I'm taking back. [I was too tired to go walking that far. I instead found that our hotel was *right* by the rocky section of the beach and that late at night was low tide. Sand and saltwater feel very good on blistered feet and I got some great rocks!]
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By the time I left, 2am and 4am were normal "evening times" for me. There is nothing like night on a beach... And then watching the sunrise. There was either/both a full moon or strong light pollution: even though it was dark, you could see the whites of the breakers as they crashed. It was an entirely new pattern/way to watch an ocean. And beautiful.
I'd like to thank Sealne for letting me crash in the Penthouse my last few hours there. And for suggesting the hotel in the first place. I'd also like to thank Markey & Mamarok for letting me hitch a ride to the airport with them. I guess I owe you all beers. :) [&&]
Suggestion for next year: Nokia-sponsored beanbags in the hacking room. Or bring the Google ones over.
[&&] They can even be non-virtual!
Tags: architecture, beach, dancing, gcds, ghost blog post, gran canaria, kde, paintball, qt, rocks, software
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03:06 am
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drkonqi: not everyone is home from gcds yet
Drkonqi discussion. Now. 3-1. Till we get bored or hungry.
p.s. for some reason syndication decided to take my "music" tag and make that the subject line of my last post. bah.
Tags: gran canaria, kde
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03:11 pm
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Sleeping in at GC till 10am, then rolling down sand dunes
For the first day here, I was able to sleep in till the grand hour of 10am. This was incredibly luxurious, although I could certainly have used more. Nobody from our place was involved in Plasma or KWin so we could skip that bof. :) We left in time to make sure we caught the bus for the trip, and ended up being early enough for me to catch the Community bof. There we discussed having party packs to give to people who were having parties to promote kde, and how exactly that might work.
After that, it was time to go on the Formal Field Trip Thing. Which involved us splitting up into 3 buses, having one (or two?) of them break down, and us standing at a balcony overlooking dunes while we waited for the rest. Of course, we went to play! I'm sure someone will post photos. Perhaps even me, at least, what I took before I did the ill-advised move of rolling down a sand dune while holding a camera. The mechanism isn't entirely happy with me atm... I'm not sure who started with sand dune rolling: I saw someone do somersaults down a big one early on. That had to hurt somewhat. The idea of it is what tempted me to go ahead and get my shoes all sandy and join in the sand dune play. Indeed, it turned out to be quite fun, and you can go very fast when doing a proper roll from a large, sharp dune. *grin* (Those physics classes were good for something: maximizing angular momentum!) You then sort of stop when you hit the bottom, sand scatters everywhere, and find yourself looking up into the world. Sand dunes tower above you, and you are somewhat dizzy for a bit. I did this at least five times. And ended up with sand all over my skin, inside of my clothes, and even inside of my ears. I kind of wish I'd done it some more. I think I had more fun doing that then playing in the ocean later. (We also later saw a lovely church, and some of the bright pastel-colored city architecture up close. I found myself studying the rock makeup of one of the cornerstones. And identifying Tomaz's beach rocks. Those geology classes were good for something too! :)
I still have sand in my ears. Shower time. :)
We get up bright and early tomorrow: I expect we'll do some DrKonqi work where we can find a whiteboard and a somewhat unobtrusive spot. Amazingly enough, Dario has been working on keeping up with bugs while here. Otoh, he's also been sick at home lots, and is coughing up a storm these days. Hopefully he'll be well enough tomorrow.
Signing off, shower and rumor has it there is food in the Penthouse... At least, they have my gluten-free pasta and just came to take our forks.
Current Location: funroom, Las Palmas, Gran Canaria
Current Mood: sad, but not for why you think
Current Music: cars driving by
Tags: angular momentum, beach, funroom, gran canaria, kde, penthouse, sand dunes
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08:23 pm
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"Did you really enjoy eating that?" (or, food help!)
Is what I was asked by someone after a recent meal. The answer is, no, I didn't really enjoy it, but in terms of eating out, so far it was one of the better things I've had that I didn't have cooked in one of our kitchens. The meal? One of the "salads". In this case, tuna in the center, with some tomato, cucumber, something else, and shredded egg on top. I should post a picture, they look really goofy. And not like salads at all. I have celiac disease, so I avoid grain products pretty strictly [#]. I'm going to hit the bottom of my energy bar supply after our little field trip tomorrow. So I'm going to start needing to either figure out how to pack a lunch here, decide that the plain almonds I have left are tasty, or get used to paying 6.50 euros for a bizarre salad.
Ideas?
p.s. Yes, I will admit that the water tastes kind of bad. I wonder if it is more energy-intensive to import bottled water, or to desalinate the water here. Both are pretty bad.
[#] Note that I'm also allergic to milk (yes, allergic; I thought I could just eat lots of manachego while here, but the first time I had some it turned out to be too milky. Opps. My ears are still messed up. Better not be sinus infection.) and I'm quasi-vegetarian. Quasi.
Tags: celiac, food, gran canaria, help, kde
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08:13 pm
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Collaboration!
Was told my bof was the most collaborative yet. Bugsquad met up with Tobi, one of the Gnome people, and we traded secrets. We also talked with a few developers, some prospective helpers, and I managed to see Dario and Grundleborg in the same room. :)
Tonight was the Collabora party. As the evening wore on, the early trend of swapping nametags rapidly picked up. It became a game to see just whose you could get. I'm not sure who has mine right now. But I have ereslibre's, which is neat, because I didn't realize he was here, and I wouldn't have met him otherwise. Which is the downside to this conference: it is rather large. If you don't know who you are looking for, you might not necessarily run into them. All the same, I did run into and manage to talk to Sumana for a bit, which was pretty cool, as I haven't seen her since she moved out to NYC.
I was kinda dubious about to what extent having GUADEC and aKademy together would work, but some things do seem to have been perhaps more useful than they first seemed (not to be). Given who I've seen talking to each other in the hallway, anyway. And the conversations I got into at lunch. Anyway, late now, so signing off. But I get to sleep in tomorrow. :)
Tags: bugsquad, collaborate, gran canaria, kde
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03:42 am
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GC continues: the new location, laundry, TBD drkonqi hacking session, unsolicited medical advice
We got up early to walk somewhere to take a bus to somewhere. I am now sitting in a room, which thankfully has internet via wire. AND works. That is the upside. The downside is that only the front of this room seems to be wired, so we can't pick a corner per se. This room is rather large, so I'm not sure how well it will work for random discussion for a drkonqi thing later. If you're interested in that, btw, you should give me your contact info. I can't get twitter to my spanish cell phone... So you'll have to find some other way. ;)
Currently I'm in the secondary hacking room on the 3rd floor, btw. The other annoying thing about these is that they are all fixed desks and chairs. *cry* Not only that, the tables are VERY high up. I should have brought an external keyboard. I think I'll be moving to the floor RSN [*] as my wrists will be in pain very quickly if I'm in this bad of a configuration. Not to mention that I will bounce uncontrollably in a chair. [#] :) Chairs and I just don't get along. Our sponsors have not given us beanbags though. :)
Last night's amusement was doing laundry. The amusement part comes in with us attempting to read the washing machine (including one native spanish speaker, but there weren't exactly instructions; you could pick centrifugal amount!). I picked one of the three or four options for 40 degrees Celsius. That was last night. I went to go pick it up this morning, and found it was STILL going. That's some wash. And I'm not actually sure *what*. Hopefully my laundry is still good!
No clue where we're supposed to go for lunch exactly. But I'm wired. And just from writing this amount my wrists hurt.... OUCH. Hope the floor is cleanish. :P It looks very hard tho.
Maybe the table is softer to sit on?
At any rate, I'm wired, done writing. Time to work. Ping Dario or I on irc if you're interested in the drkonqi hacking session, especially since I don't know who is interested... Or when/where we'll meet. It will probably be later in the week, actually.
[*] For the uninitiated, look up RSI. Soft tissue injuries from overuse and misconfiguration. :} It isn't just the much-publicized-let-me-fix-you-for-$$$ carpal tunnel, it's an entire slew of injuries you can get from sports too. At any rate, no clue what I'm generating atm. [%]
[#] As I write this, I am sitting cross-legged in a chair and still bouncing. Oh, did I mention our lovely Nokia sponsors gave us lots of free drinks at our social get-togethers? I think I had 8 or so.... All caffeinated. I'm badly addicted now. :}
[%] For moving to the floor, I should have brought our lovely sponsor-provided Qt Software towel. I would have been stylish at least. Except, it's still in the laundry. Oh well, I guess Douglas Adams was right!
Tags: drkonqi, gran canaria, kde, towel
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04:11 am
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GC summary so far:
* Aftershave doesn't make for good shampoo. Opps.
* People are happy to trade ice cream tickets for coffee tickets.
* We've had network from day 1, I hear this is unusual. However, the packet loss...
* SVN konvi doesn't scroll right. I cry. Also apologies for disconnecting every two seconds.
* I have not figured out celiac food here at all...
* That hasn't mattered, as I mostly haven't been hungry, as I was dehydrated instead
* They are obsessed with bottled water here. Water rant follows:
Isn't this a first world country? I shouldn't catch anything from it, right? Am I wrong? Are all the pipes lead? I can't tell why exactly it isn't "safe to drink". I've had one person say it was chlorine in the water. But apparently plastic in the water leeched from plastic water bottles is safe to drink. I don't mind chlorine, I like my water dead. This has resulted in me not getting enough water... (One place refused to serve tap water; I had to spend 2 euro for a tiny tiny bottle) So I've been getting mostly bottled distilled water: zero salts at all. Little food, none of it containing salt... I went and bought a thing of salt and salted some water to make a rehydration drink. Water started being appealing again. Looks like I'll be drinking salted water from now on. Glad I brought my water bottle.
* The beach might as well be in another city. Vs. Jamaica, where we all sat on a deck next to the beach & coffee and hacked, here you have to find someone to leave stuff with and walk more than ten feet. I haven't made it there yet. I wore my swimsuit today tho, so maybe this will change. Having the hotel farther away doesn't help either... Hopefully things will improve once we change venues. (Having neither beach nor network is VERY frustrating. I seem to prefer network. :)
* Work! I gave two lightening talks. The first was one about DrKonqi that Dario and I put together. The second was on BugSquad in general.
* Collaborate! One of the Gnome bugsquad-equivalent people is now interested in us and will track me down. I'll note that BugSquad has a bof on one of the bof days. We'll do some planning and have a group photo. Everybody is welcome to come: you can drop by and say how much you love us or how much you hate us. If you want to drop by and say how we can effectively triage your bugs, that would be great, I'm happy to write up some kind of supplemental documentation to our stuff.
* Photos. Of course I have photos. Maybe they'll get posted someday. Especially the "tall guys" one.
* Qt gave us all green towels. Way cool and useful.
* I've met so many people I only knew from online before. Including one gnomey I knew from way back when. He was rather drunk and probably doesn't remember tho. (The meeting or who I am.)
* Dfaure said he liked seeing new faces... Perhaps those of you who didn't want to ask the eV for travel help should do it next year. ;) Make David happy.
* I can't hear properly: I had too milky of cheese the first day. It hasn't gone away yet! Apparently I'm speaking too softly. :P
* My hotel has Bugsquad, KDAB, and Kubuntu people in it. We've cooked food for each other and hung out at night, it was cool.
* I have an Ultimate frisbee. Who wants it?
* I terrified people with Twinkes and Sno-balls.
* Dario Andres of bug triage fame is here. He's one of my roommates. :) Tell him hi.
* KDE group photo tonight after awards, I'm being told.
* Did I mention I've met interesting people? One way to guarentee this is to offer to trade something with them, it turns out. Do I owe somebody lemon-honey-almonds? Do you need sunscreen?
* Er, many things I've forgotten. (Like plastic wrap for my laptop on the beach!)
Tags: aftershave, gran canaria, kde, what happened list
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10:32 am
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microblogs and phones.
Currently I send identi.ca-->twitter, and I usually microblog via SMS-->twitter. So I got a temporary Spanish phone... Except, twitter won't send to Europe atm. And I still can't SMS-->identi.ca. This all leaves something to be desired. Especially as it might be nice to tell you what I'm doing in Gran Canaria atm. And yes, I did eventually make it there, after much airport badness. Note: you cannot make it from one side of the Madrid airport to the other (which is practically in another city, you take a bus to it), and through customs and immigrations, and the slow luggage handlers in half an hour.
Tags: gran canaria, kde
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blauzahl's journal