Back in 2007 I was the chair of the Washington, DC chapter of the ACM. The chapter had been dormant for a while so I thought hosting a lecture by a big name in computing would be a good kickstart. I emailed Brian Kernighan asking if he'd be available and willing to give a talk on Unix. He said he'd be absolutely delighted.
He was a wonderful speaker and just a great guy to talk to. He patiently signed copies of K&R C that folks had brought, told interesting anecdotes, and was a kind and pleasant person to everyone who spoke with him. Very approachable.
One thing I remember is him telling me that he only gets stage nerves if he knows he's being filmed. Massive crowd? No problem. Photographs? Go for it. Video cameras? If you do, you have my permission but don't tell me, and make sure I don't notice them.
After that I kept reaching out to other Big Names, and many of them said yes. I figured there was no harm in asking, all they could do is say no. And not a single person I asked said no because they didn't want to, it was always because the scheduling or travel just wouldn't line up properly.
This past February I had the honor of giving my first ever keynote presentation. The conference was sponsored by my employer. That said, aside from mentioning that I worked for said employer, I never mentioned it again nor did I try to sell anyone anything.
I had some of the best most awesome conversations during the coffee and lunch breaks. I can only hope that I gave a fraction of insight during my keynote that I received during the hallway talks.
Hello VonGuard, fellow Red Hatter here. I also love working for Red Hat, I think it's a great company. I'm a consultant, which means I travel to clients all year to build, configure, and fix RHEL products.
We're in desperate need of more consultants and trainers. However, it's a heavy travel load. Last year (2019) I spent 291 nights in a hotel room. Still, I love the job.
There's also Fedora. Part of what you're doing when you register with your no-cost developer license is tie into our repos of tested, patched, and supported (for paying customers) RPMs and containers. And you get that because you gave us your email and possibly/probably signed up for some newsletters that you can opt out of later.
Several states have passed tort reform laws, including Texas. It hasn't made any difference.
The big pharma players spend more on marketing than R&D. The smaller players like Mylan specifically try to find niche drugs so they can buy the rights and jack the prices. It's pure rent-extraction and a drain on our healthcare system and economy.
I much prefer the sublime perfection that is Platinum Games. Bayonetta's gameplay is damn near perfect. It strikes the perfect chord between stylish/beautiful and challenging.
Which strengths the original point. RHEL is suppose to be rock-solid. systemd is not (technical issues aside, it's new and should be vetted more thoroughly), and I have no idea why RH and Debian are staking so much on it. That's what bothers me.
I've heard of this idea before and it sounds great. But I can think of a hack for it that could make the trip even worse.
"This is a coin. It's just a regular coin from my pocket, but I want you to carry, and know that as long as you carry this coin - for the rest of the night - you'll be safe."
(lean in close to whisper into the recipient's ear)
"But if you lose the coin...if you lose the coin, you're doomed, mate. Completely f*cking doomed."
He was a wonderful speaker and just a great guy to talk to. He patiently signed copies of K&R C that folks had brought, told interesting anecdotes, and was a kind and pleasant person to everyone who spoke with him. Very approachable.
One thing I remember is him telling me that he only gets stage nerves if he knows he's being filmed. Massive crowd? No problem. Photographs? Go for it. Video cameras? If you do, you have my permission but don't tell me, and make sure I don't notice them.
After that I kept reaching out to other Big Names, and many of them said yes. I figured there was no harm in asking, all they could do is say no. And not a single person I asked said no because they didn't want to, it was always because the scheduling or travel just wouldn't line up properly.