Flutterby™! : Linux World wrapup

I'm still not sure why I went to the expo the whole week, but I did learn more every day I went, and whenever my feet got tired The Linux Show booth was a reasonable place to take a load off and meet people, so like those evenings when you think "how much can one more beer hurt?", I kept going back.

Highlights:

• The crowd at the Linux Astronomy booth almost always had good conversation. From the home-built seismometer they had on display to talking with Ron (of Alembic Guitars fame) and a few other folks about turning old milling machines into CNC devices with a Commodore 64 and other issues in motion control to the guy who's writing JavaScript games for EduCapers.org, there was always someone with an interesting history and set of experiences. I need to hang out around Santa Rosa some more.
• In my looking for a job, I got more than one "why don't you volunteer for a while and...", which... well... seemed kinda tacky for companies which alleged to be profitable by essentially removing the names of the people who'd actually done the work and putting their own name on it. I'm still not sure in the case of Lycoris, because they seem to exactly get my notion of where Linux on the desktop should be going.
• The folks at Netezza were a close second, but the Coraid folks hands-down won the blinkenlights award. A rack full of those babies would put any 1950s TV show computer to shame.
• It was fun to hang out with Diane, and neat to meet Kim and Doc and run into a bunch of folks I've met casually before.
• The Wyse thin client looked interesting on a couple of fronts, at least until Via finally ships the Nano-ITX boards...
• And of course Russ, Jeff and Arne of The Linux Show provided a great place to go rest my feet and hang out and meet people when I wasn't into walking around. And despite some of the production values issues with the show, I came away from watching them do several of their segments quite impressed. For one thing, unlike all of the mainstream media interviews I've ever been involved in, their pre-briefings are a quick chat before going live; none of this "interviewee hands you the typewritten conversation" stuff that usually seems to happen. Got me somewhat interested in listening, and also convinced me that some real-time audio (and perhaps even video) production software would be a good thing. If I could just figure out a business model...
• Oh yeah: Watching the .ORGs get hit with $150+ charges for alleged deliveries to their booths because of union finagling once again soured me on unions, but it also helped bring together an issue that I've been mulling for a bit: There are two types of ways to go about making money: One is by reducing friction in the economy, making it easier for people to get what they want; the other is by increasing friction in the economy, making it more difficult for people to get what they want. Unions, many commodities trading companies, and companies which use "strategic patenting" are in the latter category.

So today I'm back to catching up on the job and contract seeking I've been postponing. Time to hit the phones...