May 22, 2007
Foo Wha’?
A couple weeks ago, Brian was invited to Tim O’Reilly’s Science Foo Camp at the Googleplex in Mountain View, CA this August (yes, Jasmine:)… And O’Reilly’s just emailed today to say that I am invited to attend, too. (He said he was interested in hearing about ‘Sunshine‘…)
Whoooo-hooooo!
It’s happening the same weekend as my 20 year high school reunion. I thought for about a second and decided SciFoo was much more important. I mean, getting together with a bunch of people whose only real commonality is the fact that their parents chose to live vaguely in the same area of a city for at least 3 years OR getting together with a bunch of people you’ve never met before, but who are all doing amazingly interesting things that make you excited to be alive…? The former will be a night where I’d have endless short conversations condensing my past 10-20 years into a few bland sentences then listening patiently while people I can’t quite remember do the same; the latter will be a weekend of energy and excitement which will go on and on long past the three days we’re together.
There’s no question what one should choose.
production 
QR Code DVD 
Definitely the right choice… I visited Google a few months back and it’s a very cool place, not least because of the amazing restaurants. I think when I was there, Jeff Minter (8-bit video game hero…) had popped in to give a talk, but I wasn’t around for that.
I doubt I’d go to a high-school reunion even if I was paid.
I went to my 10 year reunion and it was “fun”. There were several people I was glad I saw and spoke to… but after 20 years? Most of my closest friends were either in the year above or the year below me or from other schools… and I’m still in touch with them (we have a messageboard)… I guess the main entertainment for me would be seeing how crap and old some people look. I saw photos from the Class of 86 and was genuinely freaked out by how old some of them looked. There’s definitely got to be some correlation between twatishness in high school and looking rubbish at your 20 year reunion. Luckily for me the opposite holds true – here’s me and my friend when we were 15 and 14 and again 8 years later… Dork to HOT.
See you at Foo Camp then!
Hey, Alberto! I’ll see you there!
OY, I’m envious–foo camp… I know it’s under Chatham house rules, so you won’t be able to give us the poop on your blog, but it sounds like a blast!
I looked like a dweeb in HS too; I got better with age. ;)
So, uh, you and/or Brian really should give me a shout (by email, you know the address) and we’ll hook up when you’re in town!
Also, the Googleplex is in Mountain View, not Palo Alto. (It’s about eight miles further down the 101.)
I do not want to go to any high school reunions. The people were boring and I don’t miss any of them. Isn’t that awful? I really couldn’t care less if I never spoke to any of them again! Team Science Camp!
See you there!
Awesome!
The closest I ever got to Googleplex was spilling Chinese food down my copy of ‘The Google Story’ while sat waiting for a train back from Palo Alto to SF :)
I’ll see you there, Andrew… :)
Jas, I’ve changed it.
See you there!
Whooo-hoooo! I’m getting really excited for it!