grahambinns.com

There's a smallish set of my PyConUK photos on Flickr.

I seem to blog more when I'm at conferences. I have a sneaking suspicion that his is due to the fact that I've got time on my hands, being that it's not yet lunch time but there's no talks on that I want to go to. That was less of an issue yesterday, but at least there are tables near power points where I can plug in and bang at the keyboard like a monkey for a while.

The talks that I have been to, in complete contrast to PHPConUK earlier this year (which was on one day in a single lecture theatre in London) have all been interesting and informative, and I've Learnt Stuff, which is always a boon. Only one talk, the Stackless Python + PyPy one,  has sailed over my head so far, and that, I feel, was probably something to do with the fact that a) I've never done Stackless before and b) I missed the introductory Stackless talk yesterday in favour of the introduction to Twisted, which I felt would be rather more helpful for work purposes.

But I've enjoyed myself. I've met new and interesting people, networked a bit (though I'm not terribly good at that because it never occurs to me until too late that person X to whom I've just spoken might be able to help me in the future in some way), Learned Stuff and discovered that having a pre-beta OS on your laptop can cause interesting things to happen, like wifi suddenly going away or very long, very loud terminal bells when you shut the thing down.

I've also made a list of the features I want for grahambinns.com version 0.2, but that can wait until the next post. 

(Posting this in the morning from the conference; my hotel wifi went away last night and I'm damned if I'm going to pay another 10 Euros just to post this...) 

Dinner's over and, for a conference dinner, it was fantastic. I should have taken photos of the food itself; the omnivore main course - which should, I think, have been called the carnivore option given its content - consisted of some courgette, some carrots, some mashed potatoes with herbs, gravy... and the biggest piece of lamb I've seen on one plate. Except there was one on each plate. It was delicious, but I think I've eaten my red meat portion for the week.

I was sat at a table with Tim Parkin of Pollenation Internet and Russel Winder of Concertant LLP, amongst others. The conversation meandered pleasantly between photography, Python, business accounting, physics and university. Conference dinners are often a bit naff. This one was pretty good.

There were only two real blights on the evening. One was the cheese-smeared eighties pop muzak that started to blare from the PA system shortly after the after dinner speaker, LUG Radio and Canonical's own Jono Bacon, had finished (excellent speech Jono, by the way). The other was that, before dinner was served, we were asked to stand. No one told us why, and like obedient sheep we all did, only for the MC for the evening (I think it was John Pinner, the conference organiser) to say grace. Well, I say "grace"; what was said was "For what we are about to receive, let us all be truly thankful."

Let's state this in no uncertain terms. I spent my own money to come to this conference. I came down on the train last night, spending the weekend away from my girlfriend - the last weekend of her summer break from college, by the way - and I spent my own money to make sure that I could still have WiFi access and work whilst I was in the hotel. I came to learn and to talk about Python.

I did not come to have someone say grace for me. In fact, I find the fact that someone decided that they would say grace for me, assuming my consent, without consulting me first, to be deeply offensive.

Which brings another thought to mind.

We ask people about their dietary preferences. When the PyConUK delegates signed up for the conference they specified which menu they wanted (omnivore, vegetarian or vegan). We deliberately go out of our way to make sure that people eat only what they want to eat; we don't force them to eat something that goes against their personal preferences, whether their reasons for those preferences are logical or not.

So why is it considered okay for people to shove their religion, their personal, spiritual and to me irrational beliefs down my throat without so much as a by-your-leave?

Hello good travellers. I'm here at the Birmingham Conservatoire, utilising the suprisingly good conference WiFi at PyConUK . Bon.

It's lunch time on day one and my morning agenda so far has covered SQLAlchemy (cool but for me redundant at the moment), Twisted (pretty cool but I need to know more) and PyPy (very cool), the talk about which was presented by Mike Hudson, one of my Canonical colleagues and one of the PyPy developers from back when it was getting funded.

I'm not a huge fan of conferences. For one thing they usually a) necessitate being away from home, b) as a result of a. mean staying in a crummy hotel, c) have crummy wifi at best and d) put me to sleep. So far I'm pleased to say that PyConUK has only fulfilled points a and b, neither of which are their fault.

Incidentally, I've discovered once again that hotel wifi, when not included in the room rate (as it usually is for work) is stupidly expensive. And, again, crummy.

Of course the upshot of wearing the developer pants is that the writer pants are on the hanger and may not get worn this weekend, which is a disappointment for me. I had planned to do some novel-the-second outlining to try and ensure that I keep on track; the story has lost focus a bit in the last chapter and I'm having trouble finding a way to get the protagonist into the next chapter. Maybe that's something to be fixed on the train home.

The other upshot of wearing the developer pants is that I have a huge desire to hack at things. PylibMTP, django_(xml)rpc and grahambinns.com version 0.2 all need work. I just don't quite know where the time's going to come from. Oh, and I have things to do for work, too, which of course have to come first (because, you know, I like to buy food).