the talks were great, and i got into an interesting discussion with chris dibona about software as a service (which i personally have several issues with given how it is being done right now). got to chat with nat friedman for a bit this morning and visited with ted haeger a fair amount. ted's now with bungee which is doing some rather interesting things with online mashup development. sweet's gong-and-thong lightening talk proctoring was purely disturbing though wildly entertaining (seen in the pic below) and jono kept finding awkward social situations in which to grope me. he really needs to get out more ;-P
ben lamb did a great job with his kde4 presentation on the first day and the kde booth was pretty busy through the day and we moved some merchandise as well. the new base ball caps look cool =) i threw a bunch of stuff out into the crowd at the beginning of my talk today which kicked off the second day's proceedings.
unfortunately there were a few snags ... my name was mispelled (arron rather than aaron) and apparently i work for the bbc (which does, as i noted, rhyme with kde ;). no show stoppers there, though. i was in the atrium as well which did create some show stoppers, namely the sun which made the slides essentially invisible; apparently our day star is a bit more powerful than the average projector, and the glass roof of the atrium let it in in all its glory. sunshine after 9 days of pretty constant rain was nice, though, and the crowd really responded to the talk.
i had several people come up afterwards and say they were going to seriously check out kde4, including one of the lug radio guys. very cool. techbase is a huge hit and the amount of technology that we can show right now never fails to impress.
of course, i didn't get a chance to show everything (fairly impossible in an hour's talk, or two if we count ben's as well), but the idea of a complete experience, making it easy for developers to do things users want and expect and really pushing the envelope of creativity and technology is wowing people all around the world.
we are usually our own biggest critics, which is great: it motivates us to grow upwards. it is so terrific to see the excitement our (your) work creates in the faces of others. i do wish i could capture each of these events and share it with everyone else.
right now i'm in a hotel room at an airport near london where inge's plane departed. i leave tomorrow from heathrow and will catch the express down there in the morning. the room is a bit more expensive than i wanted, but it was all that was left (i didn't actually know i was going to be in london a day early until a few days before i left for glasgow) and it is a nice room =) i almost went into london to visit the ubuntu team who is doing a distro sprint right now at the canonical offices. but i'm just too tired and need some "me time" right now.
speaking of which ... there's a bath tub calling me.
