Yep. Going a bit crazy trying to meet some deadlines ahead of this trip, though, so have been mostly offline.
I'll be staying at the conference hotel Wed & Thur, switching to the Intercontinental Bucharest downtown after the meeting ends Friday. I fly out Sunday morning.
How's it looking for a meetup?
My condolences on the loss of your friend. To my mind, a friend is a friend. I used to draw the distinction clearly, but don't anymore. It's rare that I'm able to physically interact with the friends I have from slashdot, twitter, etc. However, there are people who started as friends in real life - neighborhood, school, church, whatever - who are now geographically distant. My interactions with them are 99% online, with the 1% being the possibility of getting together in person the next time we're near each other. There are many, many professional friends and colleagues whom I know originally from e.mails, conference calls, etc. whom I meet up with maybe once a year or maybe never.
It would be terrific if we could meet up while I'm in Bucharest. On a visit to Portland a few years ago, I met up with Shadow Wrought; it was great fun. Of course, he lives there, not a long train ride away, but if it would be an adventure for you, I'm happy to provide the excuse!
I've ridden trains several times since coming to the East Coast, but only once did I ride overnight in a sleeper car. That was back in 1985, going from Kiev to Odessa. I don't think the long-distance trains in the Soviet Union are a good yardstick to judge the experience by, or at least I hope they aren't. The height of the Soviet Union was also its depth, if you know what I mean. Food, beds, noise level, overall comfort... I'm sure your experience would be better than mine!
It's been very mild here in the U.S. The jet stream is way north, keeping all that arctic air up in Canada and shoving it over to Europe. A very strange winter all around.
E.mail sent!
Got invited to go to Bucharest for a few days next month. I've never been to Romania, so this should be interesting.
I got two checks this week.
One was from Amazon KDP, for third quarter sales of a fiction anthology I wrote: $13.
The other was from a former employer, for continuing patent royalties of an chemical I helped invent: $97.
It's going to take a while (and a lot more book sales) for these to equal out.
ArsTechnica is reporting that:
I've never used Lego Mindstorms, but they seem pretty cool. One of the nice things about advising science fair kids or working with teams like this is that they are all there by choice and interest. That preselects for an above average level of enthusiasm. Intelligence is mostly irrelevant, to be honest; it's enthusiasm that drives science forward.
The theme of the Lego Robotics competition this year is food safety. All it takes is a quick bit of Googling on "food safety", "technology", "processing", "awesome" and other obvious search terms to make me pop up to fore. In this morning's e.mail, I just got another request to serve as an expert adviser to a group of schoolkids. Given my soft spots for science, engineering and inquisitive kids, how can I say no?
Shadow Wrought's JE on saying goodbye to Slashdot made me want to post a JE about... something. Anything.
I no longer think of slashdot as destination so much as a fond memory.
That pretty much sums it up for me as well. I started posting JEs regularly in 2004, made this my home for a long time. However, in recent years I've found other outlets for my urge to blather and found better venues for my desire to connect with the like-minded.
Sic transit gloria mundi.
Good luck with the move and godspeed in the new home & adventure in Hungary.
It's been a strange year, one that has given me plenty of opportunities to change and grow as a person. The biggest surprise to me is how many times people have cited a good sense of humor as one of my chief attributes. Perhaps another surprise is that this comes as such a surprise to me.
It's good to not be dead. This also makes your username rather ironically prescient.
It sounds like you are well-launched on your way. Exciting!
What the gods would destroy they first submit to an IEEE standards committee.
