I've finally come off the waiting list - and my entry to the Winter Rickshaw Run 09 was accepted. I will be spending Christmas and New Years in India, then off for two weeks driving a vehicle that looks like this:



Yes, two weeks. All of our possessions with us. It's just going to be me and my (other) Australian team mate. Danger, excitement, and probably bad hygiene awaits. If you have suggestions for a team name (team "autocommit=1", "follow the sun"?), or sponsors I should approach let me know!

I'm at Barcamp Montreal nervously sitting down back in my seat. I just tried my luck at Slide Karaoke. The concept; a random volunteer gets to present a Powerpoint presentation they've never seen before on a topic they've never seen before.

Damn, I know nothing about housing reform in Quebec. I'm Australian.

I’m not one to use the phrase ‘full of win’ too often, but today’s xkcd certainly qualifies for anyone with a little SQL knowledge:

Via WWDN

This weekend, Monty and I got together for a different kind of hacking session.

Instead of developing software, we were working on developing a set of rough principles and rules for running a Free Software/Open Source business. We both have a good amount of experience working with various FLOSS projects (like Mozilla, MySQL, PHP, etc.) and FLOSS companies (like eZ Systems, Mozilla, MySQL, Zend, etc.) and hope that we can put this experience to good use.

For me, this was a tremendous help - I’ve been putting off working on this for Foo Associates for some months now. It is much easier to work on meeting the needs of customers than it is to work on planning for the future.

The notes are still extremely rough, but both Monty and I want to post them so that people can discuss. Also, …

So, within MySQL it's not 'allowed' to release or name anything prefixed with 'My' (but MySQL of course). An example is MyODBC doesn't exists anymore, it's Connector/ODBC.

But you see lots of successful MyThis and MyThats.

• 
  
• MySQL.com (duh)
  
• MySpace.com
  
• MyVideo.de
  
• MyWunderwelt.prosieben.de
  

Bah, anyway, there are lots of them of course. What's 'yours' on the net?

I'm starting to get into Django more and more, forgetting PHP. And some nice stuff is coming up.

Yesterday there was a post about a Django Cheat Sheet published by folks at Mercurytide. Still work in progress, but all tools are welcome for a 'starting' project.

And then there is the Django Book. It's getting quite heavy already in pages and you can leave comments to make it even better!
Of course, there are the usual PostgreSQL posts.. Well, they are funny. Like the one on Chapter 2 suggesting to indeed sort the database engines alphabetically because they should be equally good, but keep PostgreSQL first in the list.

Other comments suggest the MySQL python module MySQLdb doesn't work with Python …

Damian Conway is giving the funniest public flogging I have ever seen. He is single-handedly kicking the ass of Web 2.0, Sxip, patents, patent vulture firms, snake oil crypto, Microsoft, Google, r0ml and all the rest of us all at the same time.

Great quotes include:

• We have a patent on replacing the letter in a name with x, but still pronouncing it the same way.
• Every time you read the name Microsoft, you will see a kitten. We call it “Pavlovian Marketing”
• We thought that we might call it … firefly, fireangel, firebuffy. Then it became obvious - the new browser is called FireWhedon.

I sure hope that O’Reilly recorded this session.

Update 1

I just registered cxap.{biz,net,org} - now to go ask Damian what he would …

At the 2004 Foo Camp, Danese Cooper, a few other FLOSS advocates (forgive me, Foo Camp is a blur and I don’t remember who you were) and myself gave an ad hoc session on the methods and strategies that we each used to advocate FLOSS and to help people working closed environments become more open.

The session was a blast (and well-received), so much so that Danese and I proposed the session for last year’s OSCON. We didn’t make the cut, but I still tried again for this year’s EuroOSCON and, this time, the session was accepted.

The session should be fun to present, but a bit of a bear to write. I have only 45 minutes to try to fit in the most …

The PHP Vikinger is a community-driven PHP event that will be held in Skien, Norway from June 24th to 25th. Like the famous Foo Camp and Bar Camp, PHP Vikinger is driven by its attendees. The people who come choose and present the sessions at the event.

Attendance is by a mix of invitation and registration. 50 invitations have been sent to various PEAR and PHP contributors and 50 spots are open for people who register. Additionally, the invitees have been asked to nominate another 50 people who should be invited to the event.

The event is meant to be as affordable as possible; registration is only 20 Euros, and simple food and a place to sleep are …

I just sent out the invitations for the PHP Vikinger event. My method for choosing who to invite was pretty simple - I chose people listed in the the PHP and PEAR credits who I had written personal email to in the last few years.

Nepotistic? “Nay”, say I, “Nepotastic!” I know that the people I invited are cool, which will mean a good event for people who register. Also, as we have registrations, it won’t be too elitist or exclusive.

If you are curious, read on for the entire invitation (minus the list of attendees.)

NOTE: If you didn’t get an invitation email, then hold tight - you will still be able to register in a week or so.

Aloha $person,

This is an invitation to the PHP Vikinger - read on for details.

WHAT IS IT?
“”"”"”"”"”"
The PHP Vikinger is a community-driven PHP event that will be …