as days pass by, by Stuart Langridge

The @media people have just posted a schedule for @media Ajax, in November this year. In addition to seeing me talk about how to destroy the Web*, there’s a veritable smorgasbord* of other speakers, like Brendan “I invented JavaScript” Eich, Douglas “I really understand JavaScript in a way that no-one else does” Crockford, Peter-Paul “quirksmode” Koch, John “Kelly Osbourne” Resig, Alex “Dojo is cleverer than you are” Russell, and others. It should be a good bash. I’m told that ticket sales are nearly closed, so if you want to come to London to see all these great people you need to get in quick. Get stuck in.

“A box that many people can’t figure out how to open without a Google search is an unusually pathetic failure of design.”

– Joel Spolsky

Haven’t posted much in the last few weeks: haven’t had much time.

First, photos. Guadec 2007, my holiday in San Francisco, a few from Linux World while I was in SF, and three of the Men with Bigger Stones in Edinburgh.

Next: random stuff I’ve read about that looks good.

• The Fedora team are building an “experimental” desktop spin. This is a really, really cool idea. A chance to do cool stuff that people might not like but could be a radical improvement. I’ve talked on LugRadio in the past about how incremental improvement is safe and easy but won’t win the war, and this sort of experimentation is exactly what I think we need. Great idea, fedora team. I’d like to be involved but I’m worried I don’t have time.
• Brad from LiveJournal posts a set of musings on portability of data between social networks, which has sparked lots of discussion on the associated mailing list.
• Webilder automatically cycles your desktop background through pretty Flickr pictures. I’m using it. This is cool enough to freeze nitrogen.
• Another Blender film. Excellent. I must pre-order this one. Hopefully this time it won’t be as weird as Weird Jack McWeird the Weird, like Elephant’s Dream was.
• Luis Villa gives me a beating about regaining my respect for Mark Shuttleworth’s commitment to free software. I, personally, think that Gobuntu is not a stooge distro, but it remains to be seen whether it’s actually pushed as an important thing when gutsy is released or whether it’s buried in some back alley bit of the website. I agree totally about there being no Launchpad source, indeed. As to why Shuttleworth isn’t investing in OLPC, well…you can only do so much at once. OLPC are indeed building a free software laptop. On the other hand, it’s not a free software laptop that I, Stuart, will be able to buy; someone ought to be trying to persuade people to make existing Western laptops run only free software as well. OLPC is a valuable project, indeed, but it’s not the be-all and end-all. Whether the Ubuntu/Dell deal, etc, counts as doing this depends on your point of view.

Oh, and in a couple of days I go to Italy for a week (note to burglars: no I don’t). Sun, sea, sand, pizzas. I love Italy. I’ll be near Lake Garda; I would say that if anyone lives near there then I’d love to meet up, but I suspect I might get into some trouble from the family if I disappear to talk about LugRadio. Italian people, if you want to meet up anyway, let me know!

Well, here I am in the land of the free and the home of the brave. Specifically: San Francisco. I shall be at LinuxWorld for a day next week as part of my trip here, and I’m here from now until next Thursday, so if you’re a LugRadio person or a Jokosher person or a web person or just someone I know, and you’re in SF or Palo Alto or around this sort of area for the next week, let me know and we’ll get some beers or something.

Note to self: must go to Alcatraz while I’m here.