Another quiet week, and that's ok

[mdlbear]

This week was LinuxWorld; I went up to the Expo on Wednesday. In some previous years that would have been the high point of the week; you know Linux has gone mainstream when the most innovative products on the show floor were a new kind of ergonomic chair (which didn't seem to suit me) and some gorgeous, handmade wood mobius strips. OK, the 160GB flash drive on a PCIE card was pretty cool, too, streaming 256 movies simultaneously onto two large screens.

The point is that the real action has moved to more specialized conferences; all the open source developers were at OSCon two weeks ago in Portland, for example. As this blog post points out, that's not a bad thing. These days LinuxWorld is aimed primarily at IT departments considering making the move to Linux, or looking to upgrade their hardware or services.

It's an IT show, and I'm a hacker. Sold a CD to someone at the Creative Commons booth, though; easy sell, since all the music on it is CC. *shrug* I'll keep going as long as it's free and it's local. Let me know if there's an interesting conference or trade show in Seattle.

The Linux Picnic, which was this afternoon, was also smaller than in previous years, but still fun. Colleen came, and a visiting starless_knight substituting for the Y.D., who was off gaming with friends. I brought the XO, and Colleen brought her EeePC; I also brought Ruby and sang a couple of songs after lunch. No album sales, though.

Moving back in the week, we had a terrific talk Tuesday morning by our company president, on the history of $PARENT_COMPANY. It was followed by the company picnic; smaller than the Linux picnic, but the food was better.

All-in-all it's been a quiet week, but as I've said before, that's good. Very good. Compared to what many of our friends are going through...

Much of my creative energy has been going into the drafts of some River posts on conversation and communication. The first two (out of three) are just about ready, but I find that I like taking the time to work on them over the course of a couple of weeks. Plays hob with my other projects, though.

Comments

[technoshaman.livejournal.com]

$parent_company? Did somebody get bought, or are you guys a wholly-owned subsidiary?

[mdlbear]

R---- Innovations, Inc., of which the R---- California Research Center is a part, is a wholly-owned subsidiary of R---- Company, Ltd. of Japan.

Sakai-san is (as of April) president of RII as well as RCL's head of research. The upper management of RII CRC has become somewhat more complicated because it takes three people to replace Peter Hart, our former CEO/COO/lab director. Peter is still chairman of the board and a VP of R----, so we're probably looking at a fourth person eventually.

$PARENT_COMPANY is a convenient short-hand; there's no secret about who I work for, since it's stuff that anyone could get in 30 seconds from Google, but it's simple politeness to keep my personal blog from coming up prominently in searches for a company that makes digital copiers.

[technoshaman.livejournal.com]

WRT the Swing Chair... it might suit *me*. radarrider has been going off on his new "chair", which is essentially a mushroom-shaped cushion on a steel oleo strut, the nether end of which is the ball end of a ball and socket joint. The oleo strut's spring makes the seat tend towards vertical, but there's plenty of wiggle room (like, 20+ degrees worth). The base, which contains the socket, is shaped like a massive Euro symbol, with the socket at the end of the "e"'s center branch. I found this all well and good but I don't have the proper anatomical whatsis to sit unsupported for very long without tiring... but this thing has the swinginess (in one axis) of the mushroom seat, but has the back support of your standard office chair... it might do me. The mushroom seat might do you, I dunno. I can get you a link if you like. (One thing about the mushroom seat, you could play guitar, or almost any instrument, on it... percussion of various sorts might want something a bit more stable, but certainly winds or strings would work... though I imagine cello would probably want actual back support... then again, the one cellist I know well plays standing up! :)

One thing's for sure, though. Good chair, worth its weight in unobtanium. :)

[mdlbear]

Might, indeed, and not terribly expensive as good chairs go. What killed the Swing Chair for me was the fact that it took actual effort to sit in a comfortable working position; exercise might be good for me, but I can't keep it up for 8 hours.