Concepts in the Paradox

Every year in August, nerds from the UNR CS department decend on Sand Harbor at Lake Tahoe for the annual Nerdapolooza event.

More photos can be found on http://nerdapalooza.pi.cx/2005

Work let me out a little early so I could make a trip to LinuxWorld and visit with some of the vendors. I made a beeline for the Broadcom booth to ask them why there was no source code or specs available for the community, and got the answer “wrong department, but we can take your information…”. I wonder how many times they got asked that question? I also went to the VMware booth and had a lot chat with one of the drones working the booth. He was quite knowledgeable, and told me VMware’s plans with their API, OpenGL, and DirectX support, along with how they are going to take advantage of Intel’s upcoming Vanderpool technology. The drone dissed Xen, but what should I expect from a commercial software company?

At least they gave me a free copy of their software for visiting their booth!

I’ve resolved to eat at a new place for dinner each night, and for lunch as well if possible. I had a awesome meal at this hole in the wall Vietnamese restaurant in 6th street. There were obvious crack addicts hovering around the place, but once inside I was treated to an awesome but inexpensive meal. For dinner I decided to walk south down Divisidero to see if there was anything tempting. I ended up chickening out and ate at a safe-looking sub place that was down past Golden Gate. It was also pretty good, but not as adventuresome as lunch.

I went to a tutorial session on Xen at LinuxWorld today as part of work. It was pretty terrible, and really didn’t contain any information that I didn’t already know. At least I got to get out of work a little early, though I think 4pm will be my normal going home time. I’m thinking of keeping a 7am to 4pm schedule during the week, because the morning travel seems to relaxed and slow at that time, and I avoid the commuting rush at both times.

Tomorrow I meet with HR to sort out all the money that UCOP owes me for moving and travel, then I’m back at LinuxWorld to check out the booths and exchange a few words with BroadCom about their driver support and open source. Why would Broadcom show up at LinuxWorld if they are so hostile toward Linux? The mind boggles.