CmdrTaco's Journal: LinuxWorld, BOFs, The O.C.

Just a short trip to Boston. Barely 48 hours. LinuxWorld in Boston has its flaws... the main flaw being "Not New York". I really love a trip to NY. I love to try to find a show to see or a fantastic dinner somewhere. Tradeshows are tradeshows, and they really are pretty much the same no matter what the subject matter is or where they are, so for me its more about people that I meet... old friends or new ones.

The show itself was fine- as is typical for LinuxWorld, the talks aren't as technical as I generally am looking for. For my time, I'd prefer an OSCON to a LinuxWorld in terms of raw 'Learning Stuff'. Case in point- Jay Beale from the bastille project gave a packed room a talk on the honeynet project... the speech was fine, but he spent the entire time discussing what a honeynet was, and what the project is. Now, I would imagine that, given the packed room, everyone KNOWS what a honeynet is... we're there for the juicy details: he spoke of having a psychiatrist on the project... but we didn't get to hear about the juicy stuff they GET from that. Tell me about the psychological profiles collected. Discuss what new tools the script kiddies are using. What sorts of attacks are gaining popularity? I guess I want less of 'What was it' and more of 'What they do'. I guess I'll just have to reading the juicy stuff on the web ;)

My own BOF went well, although there seemed to be something of a Snafu at the start... this BOF wasn't given a lecture room, but instead put into a lounge... plus they scheduled 2 BOFs in the same room at the same time... worst of all, my arch nemesis, the evil Brian "Krow" Aker was the other guy. Ooooo I hate him soooo muuuuch! Oh wait, no I don't :) I did my usual Q&A sorta thing. Some good questions but I wish I could do BOFs more focused on improving the moderation system, but only a tiny percentage of Slashdot readers truly understand it, so its hard to do that in a forum like a BOF. I can't exactly require a questionaire before you get to ask questions to guarantee that you understand the subtleties of the system ;)

After hearing words from many people (mostly Nate) saying The O.C. is good I finally decided to see for myself. I've now watched 15 episodes in the last 2 weeks and I finally have made my decision- it's just a flat out good show. Often it's simply soap opera brain candy, but I'm constantly amused by the accurate cultural stuff I see in the show. They play video games and talk about stuff I like. Characters are frequently named with not-so-sly comic book references... still no Slashdot reference tho... a clear oversight I'm willing to overlook... for now... but I've got my eye on you Josh Schwartz!