At the time of the ApacheCon planning meeting, I was on holidays. Yay, bliss and all that. Anyway, after the meeting, I set about turning the spreadsheet of talks into iCal files, in the hopes of having them ready before the conference

Now that speaker notifications have gone out etc, here they are. There’s a very, very chaotic-looking overall schedule, containing all of the sessions, across all of the tracks. The plenaries calendar contains the plenary sessions (duh! I just couldn’t think of a better name - this work was mind-numbing enough!), but also such useful things as coffee breaks, and lunches

The equally imaginatively named tutorials calendar contains the regular tutorial sessions, as well as the licensing/IP tutorials on Thursday.

And finally, there are four different calendars, corresponding to the different rooms. More imaginative names - Ulster Room, Munster Room, Leinster Room and Lansdowne Room. These don’t exactly match the rooms on the official schedule, and I make no promises at this stage what room anything will be in. The reason I’ve changed them around though, is so that the httpd track is in the same iCal file on both Thursday & Friday.

Update: these now match the official schedule, and should hopefully also match reality!

These calendars are only as accurate as the information I have, but I’ll do my best to keep them up to date. Please feel free to subscribe to the iCal files, so that you can have the bright, shiny, new revisions, as I update them

I was going to write about the barbeque I had yesterday, the two new Irish girls I met who’re living downstairs for the next semester, and how lovely the weather’s been.

But it’s gotten cloudy, and I’m majorly pissed off at people who think degrading sexist remarks are ok to make, and people who would rather tell me to shut up for pulling someone up on it, than tell the person making the remarks to shut up. It’s not right, or reasonable. And “but I’m a man” isn’t an excuse. SAGE-IE is overwhelmingly male-dominated, but has a culture that marginalises the morons who make sexist remarks, rather than letting those morons marginalise the women who contribute.

That said - not all my readers are sexist idiots, and not all my readers are idiots who think it’s ok to let other idiots be sexist, as long as they’re not doing it themselves (hint: it’s not). So here’s the recipe for the super-simple, super-tasty ganache I made yesterday:

Boil 250ml cream (ideally double), by putting it in the microwave on high for approx 3 mins. Make sure it’s in a microwave-safe bowl, that’s plenty big enough (mine holds just over a pint, and was barely big enough). Alternatively, boil it in a heavy saucepan, on the hob. When it’s boiled, take it off the heat, or out of the microwave (carefully, the bowl will be hot!).

Add 300g dark (70%) chocolate, broken into small pieces. If you can find them, use chocolate chips instead - breaking it up is a serious pain in the fingers! Leave it to stand for five minutes - don’t worry about the cream getting a skin, just wait. Once your five minutes are done, slowly and carefully mix it all up, incorporating the milk cream into the chocolate until you have a wonderfully smooth, rich chocolate sauce.

Serve warm, by dipping strawberries in and enjoying

So, this won’t be one of my usual (!) 1,000 word treatises - I’m writing it on my latest toy, the Palm TX. For this time of day, the airport is incredibly busy - there are queues for everything, moreso than normal, but everything’s moving, it all seems pretty efficient, and I haven’t had the “hurry up and wait” feeling that usually drives me mad in airports.

I got up just after four this morning, feeling pretty wrecked. Dad was up not long after, and was wonderfully calm and organised. I guess there’s something about having to leave so early that just forces you to Be Prepared

Dad gave me a lift out to the airport anyway - thanks dad! The departures drop-off area was open, so he just stopped there to let me out. My suitcase was fairly heavy (23.5kg), so he got out, to help me get it from the boot. I was a bit worried to see him go back, open the car door, and sit in to the back seat!! Thankfully, he realised pretty quickly, corrected his mistake, and headed off

There were serious queues for the “Germany/Italy” check in desks, so I went straight to the FastPass (electronic-/self-check in), and tapped in my booking number. For whatever reason, I was promptly told I couldn’t be checked in that way That explained the queues, so I started looking for the end of one. I was about halfway down the queue, when I spotted an Aer Lingus agent helping people through the FastPass stuff. I let her put in my number, and magically, it worked… Yay! Aisle seat, second row, and I was happy (there’s not much more leg room in the front row on the Airbus 320s, and the added hassle of no bags allowed on the floor around you).

The security check wasn’t too bad. The only trouble is, they’ve stopped making you take off your shoes before you go through the metal detector - these days they let you go through and set off the alarm then they make you put the shoes through the x-ray! Good work boys Apparently the tacks that are in the heels of about 90% of shoes are what set it off - I only saw one person who got through on the first try!

The flight was uneventful - I think most people just wanted a few minutes more sleep! Baggage collected, ticket bought, and I’m on the S-Bahn, Richtung Marienplatz It was lovely to be home, but it’s a beautiful day here, and I’m glad to be back.

(Update: Somehow, I failed to notice that the first part of my first sentence was cut off. The Palm made that into the ’subject’, so when I thought I had copied everything I had written, I had actually missed it. I haven’t gotten to posting from the Palm itself yet.)

For all you budding parents out there: there’s really no point at which it’s appropriate to tell your daughter that she should have been a boy, unless she is undergoing/has undergone appropriate gender-identity therapy.

Buying a penknife, multi-purpose tool, or general gadget, does not mean that your daughter should have been a boy. It means she’s seen something she likes, has had the available cash, and has bought the thing she wanted. Whether it was bought for form, function, or both, is entirely irrelevant. She’s a woman, and women can want knives, screwdrivers, bottle-openers and miscellaneous accoutrements too. It doesn’t make them boys. It doesn’t mean they should have been boys.

Why is it that almost any English speaker can tell you that a girl who behaves like a boy is called a “tomboy”, but very few have an analogous word for a boy who behaves like a girl? “Nancyboy” is the closest I can come up with - but has a slightly different word-formation, and quite different connotations.

If you have made the mistake of telling your daughter that she should have been a boy, you really should ask yourself why it’s then inappropriate for her to suggest that perhaps her brother should have been a girl - after all, he was the one who played with Barbie.

Douglas R. Hofstadter, author of “Gödel, Escher, Bach: An Eternal Golden Braid”, has written an interesting and thought-provoking article, A Person Paper on Purity in Language. It’s really kind of scary, and challenges the world-view that can be imposed by language. It’s somewhat depressing, actually, that something like this is writeable.

As a woman studying Computer Science, and a member of several related organisations, I am especially aware of the issues for women working in a male-dominated field, as distinct from the everyday discriminations. Ellen Spertus’s paper “Why Are There So Few Women in Computer Science?” touches on the economic as well as ethical issues with the lack of women in CS - without increased representation of minority groups in technical fields, there simply won’t be enough skilled workers to go around. And anything that helps women to break into this enviroment tends to similarly assist other minority groups. For those of you interested in redressing this balance, Val Henson’s HOWTO Encourage Women in Linux is an essential read.

Women are every bit as able as men - but the fact is, that in today’s world, we’re differently socialised. We’re brought up differently - and that means that not only can we do the technical stuff, but we can also communicate - something a lot of men (especially in technical fields) just won’t/can’t cope with. This is something I’ll come back to soon.

But this kind of stuff happens all around the world, and is sadly not avoidable simply by avoiding technology. Men claim that respect is something that should be earned, and not something that every woman is automatically entitled to by virtue of her status as a human being. And yes, I recognise that not all men do this - but I’ve heard it even from men I’ve dated. And no, I’m not aware of a similar claim ever having been made by a woman. Those men who do believe this are often remarkably silent on why other men are owed their respect (and the respect of women), when women aren’t.

The fact is, women are owed your respect (please see the update below). It’s not something they should have to earn. They’re people, and deserve respect, and courtesy, and general common decency. Certainly, it may happen that a particular woman loses your respect by her actions or behaviour - but really, really, really boys, respect needs to be the default position. It’s truly sad that in this era of equality, chivalry has gone right out the window. Certainly, men were never chivalrous to all the women around them - but the way to fix that isn’t to stop being chivalrous to some, it’s to start being chivalrous to all.

Chivalry isn’t anti-feminist. Feminism is about the advocacy of women’s rights - one of their fundamental rights is to respect. The whole idea of chivalry is about being polite, courteous and gallant. Men don’t generally need to be told to behave this way towards other men (at least, those they value the opinions of) - it’s the default. The reason you’re being told to behave this way with women is because you don’t do it without being told.

Now, back to the “women and men are socialised differently”. This is something I don’t think is scientifically disputable. It’s just the way our society works, and there are so many examples of it. But women can do technology, they can like multi-tools, they can learn the skills they may not have been brought up with. And damnit boys, so can you. “I’m a man” is no excuse for not cleaning, tidying, washing, socialising, communicating… You’re just as capable of being domesticated as I am of being clueful. You’re just as capable of learning to be romantic as I am of learning to code.

There’s a famous quote that goes: “When I was a child, I talked like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child. When I became a man, I put childish ways behind me“. Putting childish ways behind you involves more than just learning that “beed” is not the past tense of the verb “to be”, or that there’s more to growing up than birthdays. It also involves recognising that you can do anything you want to - and you have a choice. You can choose to perpetuate the myth that there are things you can’t do because you’re a man. Or you can choose to go ahead and do all the things you’re capable of.

Choosing the first path helps no one. It disadvantages you, because some day you’ll have to do those things. And it disadvantages the women around you, because by forcing them to take on the roles you won’t, you prevent them taking on the roles they’re capable of. Choosing the second path empowers you, and it empowers those around you - male and female. Some men need a little male encouragement to take that path - they just won’t listen to it from a woman. So boys, help your fellow-men too.

I’m not citing the source for the quote above, because I know the very mention of it would stop some people listening straight away. It won’t take long to find it, but hopefully by the time you get this far you’ve at least though about what I have to say. I also know that some men may read this post, or others expressing similar opinions, and immediately dismiss it because it comes from a woman. That’s a sad loss, for men and women. There are plenty men who hold these views too, so if you’re one of those, please, remember how important you are to passing on the message. The men who will listen are already halfway there. The men who won’t listen are those who most need to hear this.

And with that, I’m done sermonising, at least for now. Good night all.

Update: It turns out that respect doesn’t actually mean what I thought it meant, or what I intended by it. What I intended to say was that women are owed courtesy, politeness, civility.

I don’t find it inappropriate, or disrespectful, to start a technical conversation at the lowest realistic denominator, and move it up as necessary to the appropriate level, for example.

I do find it inappropriate and ‘disrespectful’ (using my sense of the word ‘respect’, which I accept is not the usual one) to judge the merit of an argument on the basis of the proposer’s looks, religion, race, or other irrelevant criteria. Certainly, these may not always be irrelevant criteria - but unless you’re discussing sickle-cell anaemia or neural-tube defects, they probably are. Wolf-whistles and cat-calls are all very well for canines and felines - but they’re really most unseemly in humans. Calling an adult black man “boy” was entirely acceptable for a long time, as calling any adult woman “girl” still is. But frankly, neither falls under my definition of ‘respectful’.

Ultimately, I suppose, it comes down to “Treat others as you would like to be treated”.

Easter is probably my favourite time of year. It’s a time for thinking, reflecting, but also for celebrating. Whatever you believe in, Spring is a powerful time of year. The days are getting longer, the winter is behind us, flowers, trees, plants are blooming…

Last week was stressful, for many people, for many reasons. I don’t really want to go into them, but the lessons learned were many. Sometimes, things that look like a disaster can actually be a blessing. One thing worse than being in hospital is having someone you care about in hospital, especially when there’s nothing you can do to help them. Suicide is a tragic loss that touches so many, in so many ways - and even knowing that several people may be saved by the organs that could be harvested from the dead person doesn’t make it any less of a tragedy, any more explicable, or understandable, or any less painful. Ultimately, we are all human; faulty, fallible, frail. I suppose we just have to get on with what we’ve got, make the best of it while we have it, and, if we can, enjoy the ride

Anyway, with all that morbidity floating around, Colm and I decided to get away, to go somewhere beautiful, remote, peaceful. It was a very last-minute thing, and couldn’t have been done without the car - so yay car We went to Ballina, in Mayo, and stayed in the beautiful Quignalegan House. We left on Good Friday - it was a beautiful, warm, sunny day, and there was very little traffic on the roads.

We got to Mayo in excellent time, stopping by Foxford Woollen Mills on the way (briefly - it was closed). Once we got there, we checked in to the B&B to a very friendly welcome, and then headed out again, to see the Céide Fields. Both Colm and I have been there before, but it was still fascinating to see, and the views out over the cliffs were truly awesome. Awful, artificial and amusing. The Atlantic was several magnificent shades of blue, the sky was clear, and the sun was out in force. Our tour guide was amusing, mildly political, and clearly very interested in his subject.

To be honest, I’m not entirely clear on the order in which everything happened over the course of the weekend. We passed through nearly every townland in North Mayo (Colm assures me this is an exaggeration. Suffice to say, we passed through nearly every townland big enough to feature on the map we had). We visited Belmullet, which was unspectacular. We spent a few hours on Achill Island, which was far from it. Incredible hair-pin bends, beautiful views, sheep everywhere and people nowhere. A pub with banners up all over the place to wish Annie & Mary a happy 90th birthday, and one old man at the bar.

Heading back to the mainland, we found more amazing views - the most stunning purple heather. Vast acres of tree plantations - mostly non-native trees, but nonetheless awe-inspiring. Roads through the bog, that could only be called such in jest, but had speed limits double those on the dual-carriageway outside my home. We laughed at the 50c/hour that parking cost in the town centre in Ballina

We had a barbeque on a stony beach - one of those disposable ones (barbeques Stephen, not beaches). What madness - but what fun. And boy, did the food taste good A whole dinner, including dessert (marshmallow tea-cakes without the biscuit bit) for less than 5EUR each Not bad, for Ireland. We drove all the way to Sligo, to see if we could find a cinema, only to discover (when we got there) that there wasn’t one in Sligo - although there was one in Ballina!

(Doh! I had written and posted this when I remembered something I had totally forgotten, but wanted to write about!) The Museum of Country Life is the only part of the National Museum of Ireland located outside the capital - it’s also the most recent section of the Museum, and the only bit I hadn’t been to, prior to this weekend. I’ve now fixed that, and I’m very glad I did. It was a most interesting place to visit - the 19th Century Rooms were a bit dull - I’ve seen many Big Houses that were much more effectively restored. But the museum itself is fascinating, with stories, artefacts and videos of country life in Ireland, primarily pre-1960. Well worth a visit if you’re anywhere in the northwest, but not really worth a trip from Dublin, unless country living, and the ingenuity born of associated necessity, rock your boat.

In the evenings, we watched movies. The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen, still one of my favourite films ever. And Phonebooth, possibly the oddest film I’ve actually enjoyed. Truly, a bizarre one, but well worth watching. Almost all the action takes place in a phonebooth. It’s really, really weird. But it works. And hey, it has Colin Farrell, it’s gotta be good, right girls?

We drove back to Dublin on Easter Sunday morning - bright and early, and what a lovely day. I’m fed up of all the nonsense about the military parade, commemorating the 1916 Rising. Frankly, I think it’s unnecessary - a waste of money, unseemly, crass. I don’t understand the need for a military display of force (although it’s been suggested that that’s an overstatement, it’s more like a military display of rag-bag) to commemorate an event like that. I don’t bet, but I’d be reasonably confident that there are very few people alive today - and that there was no one present on O’Connell St today - who actually remembers the events of Easter 1916 in Ireland. Anyone old enough to have been there, to remember it, would have to be at least 95, almost certainly older, and life expectancy just isn’t that good - particularly for the people who were there that day.

We dropped by Colm’s parents, and saw some very cool video footage & photos of his dad’s recent trip to Brazil. Then it was over to my much more chaotic house, where ten people had just finished Sunday dinner. We stayed for about ninety minutes of lively discussion on almost everything under the sun, chocolate in myriad forms, and general mayhem, before disappearing off. It’s been a very long week. I’m going back to Munich on Thursday, and there’s a certain amount of panic associated therewith too.

God, give me strength.

The ApacheCon folk have now officially waived my registration, so I’m looking forward to seeing you all in Dublin this June!

Now if only they could make it warm and sunny as well

Colm and I picked Rich Bowen up from the airport on Friday morning, and thus began a long but fun weekend with the ApacheCon planners. We got him safely to the hotel, by the most circuitous route possible, Colm went back to work, and then Rich and I went walkies, looking for food. By the time we got to the Green, I had about eight missed calls from Colm, so we went back to the hotel and picked up Ken. The three of us took a taxi to Nassau St, to look for a blackthorn stick for Ken, with no success. We visited Carrolls, via the Book of Kells, and eventually found a blackthorn-esque stick. Then it was back to the Porterhouse for that food we’d been looking for!

Colm joined us at the Porterhouse, and ended up bringing us all back to the Burlington, where Ken & Rich retired for the night. Colm and I went to the airport again, picked up Lars, and had a drink with him when we’d gotten him to the hotel.

Saturday morning involved some chaos, when I brought Penny for a walk, only to lose her halfway through Luckily, she came home of her own accord, and I wasn’t too late to the planning meeting. Essentially all of Saturday was spent in the meeting room in the Burlington, with Colm joining us after college, and lunch being delivered at a suitable hour. By about ten o’clock, we had picked the tutorials, and almost all the talks. Dinner was at about half ten, in Millers on Baggot St - an excellent venue, and one I intend on visiting again. By the time we got home, we were all absolutely wrecked, but happy with a day’s work well done.

Sunday was slightly easier, filling the last few slots, timetabling, adding some more slots, and filling those. A little after lunch, we managed to get everything finished and finalised - thank God! After a tour of the hotel, Frank had to leave, and Ken, Rich & I went geocaching. We successfully located the cache we were after, and Rich dropped off Sarah’s travelbug. We started looking for another cache, and Ken took photos of magpies (!), but were eventually driven back to the hotel by the rain. Dinner was a most agreeable affair in Coopers, although we were all glad when they turned off the Abba! We had a couple of drinks in the hotel, but everyone was fairly wrecked, so we were home by about midnight.

Monday morning, everyone bar Lars & Noel was gone home, so I brought them out to do a brief tour of Dublin. Unfortunately, I only remembered whilst we were in the queue for the Book of Kells, that all the museums would be closed Still, we did a nice walking tour of the city, Lars left for his flight at lunchtime, and Noel & I finally finished up at about five o’clock. Then it was home, to the usual chaos. It was good to see everyone again - I’m not really looking forward to going back to Munich, I’ll really miss everyone

Today is turning into a truly bizarre day. I’m blogging this, because I suspect that otherwise, I’ll have to write it out several times.

In response to the Minister for Health saying that the health service was such a state because consultants were only available 9-5, Dad wrote a letter to the paper last week. He talked about the hours he’s been working (hint - they’re much longer than 9-5), and what he’s contracted to do (hint - it’s actually less than five 9-5s a week).

He got a letter at the hospital, but he’s on a day off today (hint - it’s well earned), so someone faxed it home to him. He let me read it - and it’s the oddest letter I’ve ever read. It was written on an old-fashioned typewriter, and it runs to several pages. The language is English, but just. There are a few interesting, but comprehensible, anglicisations of Irish words too. The grammar is more or less non-existent, with lots of ellipsces, and very few recognisable sentences.

We reckon it’s probably supportive of his position, but it’s a bit hard to tell. Dotted around the letter are small, mostly relevant, clippings from newspapers, generally backing up the impression of supportiveness, but it’s completely rambly and mostly incomprehensible.

While I’m trying to read the letter, someone rings the doorbell. I’m reading, so dad answers. It’s a guy whose written a book about the Dublin & Monaghan bombings. Apparently, the bookshops won’t sell it, for fear of being sued, because it names people implicated in the bombings. But the author intends on leaving a copy “in every house. In the world”. A brief, but interesting conversation ensues. On the day of the Dublin bombings, my dad was a 19-yr old volunteer with the St John Ambulance (he’s still a volunteer today), collecting money in the city centre, on their “Flag Day”.

The author asked dad where he had been that day - so dad told him. The St John volunteers were dispatched to the local hospitals - dad told the author that his job was putting the bodies into temporary coffins. To whit, the author proceeds to tell him what a great job they had done in that hospital, that day. He told dad how good the nurses were, bringing tea to the people who were waiting on news of their loved ones.

Of course, he mentions that they’re asking for a donation, and suggests 10E, which I happen to have in my pocket, so we get the book. Dad’s interested in that sort of thing anyway.

Now, I’m just waiting for the guy to pop out and tell me I’m on Candid Camera. It’s really all so very odd.

A huge “thank you!” to Sun Microsystems - in particular Damien Farnham (Performance QA) and Conrad Wace - for sponsoring my trip to ApacheCon.

My first introduction to the world outside Windows was as a young teenager, spending a full weekend, with my best friend, trying to install RedHat (probably RH5, looking back) onto a PC that was no longer usable as a Windows machine (it had been my father’s office computer, at some point). We had an install CD, no bootable CD drive, and approximately 300 floppy disks. I don’t think we ever got the OS to boot, although we did get close. I very nearly ended up throwing the computer out my bedroom window, however, and wanted nothing more to do with these computer things!

As an IB student, my Computer Science portfolio was put together on the Sun machines in Trinity’s Westland Square building - many stressful hours were spent, poring over code I didn’t totally understand, on an OS that was entirely alien to me. As a CSLL student, when I got to Trinity for real, the Sun labs became my home, my quiet little haven, and it was the Applet I wrote (and demonstrated!) on the Sun boxes that won me the ticket to my first Trinity Ball.

When I was in second year, they closed those labs to undergrads, and made them into postgrad offices, but I still preferred LG08, the Sun lab, to the shinier-but-noisier Dell lab next door. The quirky keyboards were definitely not designed for my small, girlie hands, but what can I say? I guess Sun got me early, and I’m really delighted that they’re the ones sending me

I’m hugely looking forward to the conference - to get to ApacheCon anywhere would have been cool, and the fact that it’s in Dublin just makes it even better. I’m looking forward to meeting the people who know the code inside-out, and hopefully being able to pass on what I learn through the documentation!

Thank you too, to the individuals who helped me along the way - your donations have been passed on to the ASF. I’m really overwhelmed, to be honest - thank you all, and I hope I do you proud!