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For now, these are posted exactly as I took them down during the talk. I’ve realised that there’s so much going on at the conference that if I wait until I have time to edit and fix things up before I post them, I’ll never get anything posted.
No, I won’t be taking notes on all the talks I go to. Probably not even most. But I was excited to hear what Shuttleworth had to say, and I hadn’t gotten to talk to him prior to the talk (thereby sussing out his opinions in advance  ). Finally, his talk was simple, and easily note-able… So here goes.
Notes from the Keynote:
Open source has come a long way in 10 years
First time he threw up as a cosmonaut – “There, there, you’ve got that over with, you’re practically a cosmonaut now, just one or two small challenges ahead”
Guerilla war, premature victory declaration dangerous
#13 Pretty is a FEATURE
Look & feel elegant – not just code
10x work for great software that’s easy to use, than just great software
Equally important on the server side
#12 Consistent PACKAGING
Solved problem
Why care about packaging? Interface to end-users
Patches disappear between upstream & distros
Improves ability to deliver code to end-users
Reduces appearance of fragmentation in the OS world
#11 Simplified LICENSING
Creative Commons seems to catch full-spectrum
Certain amount of fragmentation is essential/fundamental – CC reduces unnecessary fragmentation as far as possible
#10 Pervasive PRESENCE
Star City – no hot water, -15C “I think I forgot to turn your hot water on”
Expectations
Dealing with identity, security, “who’s present”?
#9 Pervasive SUPPORT
Support /is/ there, but there’s no sense of pervasive support.
The guy who sold the computer, the guy studying computers, should understand free software
Show non-IT-pro community that support is pervasive, professional, immediate
#8 Govaritye PA RUSSKI
350 languages with >1 million speakers
Translation is vital, vital, vital
Harness energy, communities – create expectation that /everyone/ can use free software
#007 Great GADGETS
Desktop battleground is
RedHat et al creating beachhead
Fragmented – linux is biggest platform on smart phones, but totally fragmented, therefore ineffective to create change
No championship/leadership for driving linux into still-small spaces
Telephones 10x more common in Africa than broadband (1/100 vs 1/1000)
Climb the gadget mountain
#6 Sensory IMMERSION
Tokyo guy who’s made his house into WoW – walks into rooms, hears what’s going on in parts of the world
Pervasive presence/always online + blur lines between real & digital with sensory immersion
VoIP, voice, presence
#5 Getting it TOGETHER
Leap in productivity = new goal
Fundamental change to productivity
Opportunity for OS to leapfrog – show people they can be more productive with OS
Realtime collaboration to desktop, real-life office tools
We live in a world where certain things were presumed true – have bandwidth, collaborative tools (email, revision control)
Invite people in to your desktop, to work with you, in real time
Artificial divide between people in the room, people reading later
Readers are keen – but second class citizens
Use technology to bring readers into the room
High bandwidth of body language in the room – perhaps distribute completely, therefore level playing field
When free software reaches parity with best commercial, you see an explosion of innovation – Firefox with plugins
Innovation on desktop
1st get to parity, 2nd have vision, go beyond that
#4 Plan, Execute, DELIVER
Lazy on delivery – ship when it’s ready?
Don’t make bad decisions just because it’s time to get out the door
Collaboration, collaboration, collaboration
Fragmented communities
Cohesive plan of what we want to get done, and when we want it done by
Communication to community – what’s going on, who’s responsible for what
Mozilla/Firefox RC/build systems allow people to see features/plans that were going to join the mainline at a planned time
Project clear picture of what’s important, what we’re interested in doing
#3 The Extra DIMENSION
Extra 1/2 dimension
Semi-transparent world
XGL/AIGLX
Integrate transparency, increase productivity
People don’t want to map 3D via 2D
Simple change in desktop experience – layering windows, sorting between information, keep people aware of what’s happening while allowing focus on primary tasks
Different layer of the desktop – always conscious even while working, dial-up/dial-down
#2 Granny’s New CAMERA
Power-user – extraordinary experience, absolute control, tuning, security, Linux is a great desktop for you today
Fixed-function user – Linux is still a great desktop for you today. Tele-computers, web kiosks. Don’t want granny to plug new camera into this computer.
Central block – family home PC, can’t predict what’s going to be needed, apps or peripherals. Packaging issues – plug in peripheral should make it easy to install associated software.
Today – shipping free software = monolithic block, has all the drivers it will have
New hardware = new software releases
Challenge to kernel community – evolving peripherals need evolving software
#1 Keeping it FREE
Freedom in both senses
Freedom has lit the flame amongst 1000s of developers around the world, need to keep that flame burning bright
No view on GPLv3 – will look when it’s done
Don’t fragment around issues of freedom
Value of collaboration
Belief in collaboration – happens best at source code
My #1 priority – kid growing up in Jakarta, Indonesia has the same access to technology as his little bro, moving to London from SA.
Don’t compromise on essential freedom and focus on freedom
It’s all about fixing BUG #1
Q: How to deal with so many distros?
Distributed revision control allows people to go and see what they want to do, without completely breaking off
Soft-forks – fork because people have different focuses, still have easy mergability
Freedom to fork needn’t come at the cost of collaboration
Find the best work, fold it back in to others, back upstream
Fragmentation at periphery is good, as long as it doesn’t fragment the core
Airline manufacturers – lots of early fragmentation, some consolidation later
Preserve the right of people to pursue what they’re interested in
Notes from the “Ubuntu” talk:
Ubuntu has an average of 3.5 users per country, in the countries it has users in.
Canonical supports Ubuntu, but wants to be an “anchor tenant” in a building that grows and grows – wants Ubuntu to have a plethora of support providers
Ubuntu is not a democracy. Dictated meritocracy.
Community is not just coders – professional artists are involved, for example.
Working towards certification and standards-compliance
Simplicity, and JUST WORKS philosophy
Won’t release free software, but will allow users to pull in non-free software.
Don’t want work to go to waste, so Launchpad (designed to track bugs, releases etc) is designed to be easy for others to add to and take from, to share – both ways – with upstream code providers.
Currently we have excellent collaboration within projects, but not between projects – need to fix that.
Local community teams – getting people together, supporting each other, bringing the talent out of the woodwork.
Dapper – very user-focused, simplicity/Just Works/prettiness; Eft – developer-driven, let the pendulum swing, let community unleash itself on new technologies
Ubuntu wouldn’t have been possible five years ago – but now there’s enough acceptance of the underlying technology
Financial success can bring stress, but transparency and good governance can make that a very healthy thing
Yesterday, David Reid of the ASF and FeatherCast interviewed me about Dublin, in the run up to ApacheCon Europe 2006.
The podcast is now available, at FeatherCast.org. David has edited it marvellously, so that I only say ‘emm’ about 325 times, and ‘literally’ about half that
I think sound a bit like the girl who announces the stops on the Aircoach, but I’m hoping that’s not terminal!
It’s less than a month now til the conference, and I’m really looking forward to meeting the Apache crowd there – so if you’re heading to Dublin, have a listen, for all the tips & tricks you’ll need
This is my take on the “why are women so underrepresented in technology in general, and open source in particular” debate, inspired by several things that have come up lately – primarily the publication of the FLOSSPOLS report of findings & recommendations, a thread on the women@apache mailing list, and a seemingly innocent comment on my Frustrations! post…
A brief technical bio: I’m a woman who only really got interested in computers late in my school career, because they were something I felt I was good with. I had computers around earlier than that, but frankly, I played the games I was given – I wasn’t programming in BASIC, or ‘peek’ing and ‘poke’ing to make my screen do funny things. I’ve worked in both closed-source (in Microsoft), and open-source (httpd-docs/ASF) environments. I’m a fairly active member of several allied organisations – amongst them SAGE-IE, ILUG and Linuxchix. I’m also studying Computer Science at university, as part of a cross-discipline degree (my other subjects are Linguistics & German).
First off, sexism: my experience has been that, with the exception of one of the organisations mentioned above, the majority of the people I interact with on a technical basis are not overtly sexist. Sure, you get morons who think that because I’m a geek, I clearly can’t get a boyfriend, and they’re only too willing to step up to the plate. Or worse, they presume that even though I have a boyfriend, and am clearly unavailable, I’m such a minority that really, they have some kind of bizarre right to harass me. But thankfully, they’re a minority.
In two of the groups I’m a member of – one male dominated, one female dominated, sexist behaviour, where it does occur, is absolutely not tolerated. I can’t think of any occasion where I’ve seen truly sexist behaviour in either of those groups, but I think that’s because it’s so clear that it won’t be tolerated. In the other group – also male dominated – sexism is, at best, ignored. This, frankly, is only minutely better than encouraging it, and thus it flourishes. This practice also leaves the group with a fairly sexist ‘feel’, even when there’s no active sexism ‘right now’.
A much bigger problem, however, is subconscious or covert sexism. This is a bigger problem because it’s more insidious, and less likely to be noticed by others – oftentimes, even those who are being sexist don’t notice it, or would describe their behaviour as something other than sexist. The FLOSSPOLS report shows again and again that women see and experience sexism that men just don’t believe is there. And certainly, it’s possible that the motivations of those perpetuating these problems are entirely innocent – but the net result is an environment that is hostile to women.
The idea of meritocracy comes in here. On the surface, it’s a completely fair, non-sexist, open concept. Anyone can get in, anyone can progress, as long as they’re good enough.
That’s very, very rarely true. Generally, at best, a meritocracy turns very quickly into a merit-and-confidence/pushiness-ocracy. Good work doesn’t win you influence – good work that’s pushed in others’ faces, or at the very least, good work of which others are regularly reminded – wins you influence. And that’s where women fall down. Women are every single bit as capable of good technical work as men. Sure, there are fewer women who have developed and practised their technical skills – but even that doesn’t account for the disparity that’s apparent in the open source world.
There’s no real way of excising the need for confidence – at the end of the day, a contribution has to be made public somehow for it ever to become part of an open source project. But this is definitely a bar that can be lowered, without lowering the standards of merit required by anyone. A meritocracy should be just that – influence earned by merit, decisions made by those who show merit, governance by quality, not confidence.
The final problem with meritocracy is that even after all the noises of “it’s all about the quality of contributions”, women very often aren’t judged on the same basis as men. This is one of the few areas that FLOSSPOLS have looked at where both men and women perceive there to be a problem. People listen or pay attention to women, or don’t, based on the fact that they’re female – not based on the merit or otherwise of their contributions. Call it what you want, that’s not meritocracy.
I think the FLOSSPOLS report is really well worth reading in its entirety, but my notes follow.
Women aren’t passively avoiding open source – they’re actively excluded from it, even if the actions aren’t intended to exclude women. Most open source projects have a “way” – there’s “the Debian way”, “the Apache way”, “the FSF way”, to name but a few. Some of these are formalised, some reside in the minds of the current members of any given community. Most of these “ways” set code above all – which is all very well, but results in software that frankly, is considerably less useful than it could be. It also indirectly disadvantages women, who typically tend to be involved in areas such as documentation. Note that this is often because documentation projects are less sexist – because they have more women anyway! – not because the women choose to document because they’re not capable of coding.
These “ways” also tend to value independent work and discovery – which is all very well, but women typically come to computers later in their careers, and are thus at a disadvantage from the start. Expecting them to catch up on their own, and yet regarding the playing field as level, is rather less than realistic. Fused Silicon and Free Software describes this in a little more detail. This another big problem with the practice (as opposed to the concept) of meritocracy – it’s often not about how good you are, it’s about how well you know the project that’s sitting in front of you. Which, of course, requires either the confidence to ask hundreds of questions, until you get the answers you need, or the perseverance to just keep poking at it – the latter of which is hard to maintain in a hostile environment.
Open source communities often see themselves as ‘apart’ from the rest of society – but they lump women in with ‘society’. Women are either assumed to be male (online), or the subject of intense scrutiny and attention (online & offline), both of which can be horrifically uncomfortable situations to be in. Interestingly, it’s thought that a high proportion of contributors to open source software are on the autistic spectrum – which itself has a disproportionately high number of males.
Aggressive behaviour, while less common amongst those “higher up” in any given community, is nonetheless relatively common in the open source community. This can result in women “failing” before they start, because of lack of knowledge of the true hierarchy, and lack of confidence in their technical abilities.
Women often have difficulties integrating into open source communities because they spend less time on this type of work. This is often not because of lack of interest, but simply because of increased time spent on other “responsibilities”. Men counter this with “that’s just social conditioning” – but neglect to mention that social conditioning is a powerful motivator, in both directions. Again interesting is the note that whilst consumer usage of technology is widening (and thus, more women are likely to be getting early access to technology), women’s involvement in technology in general – both commercial and academic – is decreasing. This is especially pronounced in open source software.
The most interesting recommendation I saw was to sponsor exchange programs or joint projects with parts of the world where coding is not a “male” activity. I think this could be useful for both men and women. Hell, if I could find somewhere where coding was an inherently female activity, I’d be most interested in seeing how some of the men I know would cope!
However, the most useful recommendation I saw was to encourage those in leadership positions to recognise that people are being actively put off, not just failing to participate – and that this is a problem for open source work – now and in the future.
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
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!
I’ve had plenty of time to kill in Dublin lately (can you tell I have an assignment due?), there’ll be folk over from the ASF in a couple of weeks, and this is something I’ve been planning on doing for ages, so here goes with the sequel to my Whistle-Stop Tour of Europe.
(Excuse me. Minor diversion while I go tweak the PHP. This template is pretty, but weirdly put together, full of MSDOS linebreaks, and weird coding decisions.)
Starting in the south city – if you’re lucky, in the summertime, you’ll see a barge navigating the Grand Canal – people often gather on Leeson St Bridge to stand and stare Off Earlsfort Terrace, at the top of Leeson St, lie the secret Iveagh gardens – you’d never believe how close you are to the city centre, in this little haven. It’s somewhat wilder than some of the other parks in Dublin, but as long as you mind the nettles, a very nice place indeed.
Mere minutes away in the other direction, Fitzwilliam Square is one of the newest (built in the 1820s), and smallest, of the city’s Georgian squares. It boasts a beautifully groomed park, tucked away and almost unknown – it’s the only garden of its kind that remains private, exclusively for the use of the square’s residents. At the end of Fitzwilliam St is the imposing facade of Holles St Hospital – the National Maternity Hospital.
Standing outside Holles St, both directions have something to offer – in one direction is St Stephen’s Church. Apparently. Ask anyone where that is, and you’ll almost certainly get blank stares. I’ve never known it as anything other than the Peppercanister. In the other direction lies one of the city’s worst kept secrets when it comes to a summer lunchtime picnic venue – Merrion Square. The National Gallery and Leinster House (where the parliaments sit, and the Government has its offices) are on the west side of the square.
Next up is Trinity College. The Museum Building is well worth a look, although apparently you have to be staff/student to be allowed upstairs in there – oh well, I’ve never seen many porters around it. Then of course, there’s the Book of Kells, and the absolutely fabulous Long Room library. Go. See them. Do check with me first though, because as a student, I can bring in a few guests for free – yay! The 1937 Reading Room is most photogenic, as is, of course, the Campanile. The Chapel isn’t the prettiest building on campus, and the Public Theatre just has too many stressful memories (It contains the Examinations Hall. ’nuff said.) And just so it’s clear – I’m a Buttery girl, and I’ll bring you for a drink there, any day
The National Museum on Kildare St houses many shiny things – it’s the museum of archaeology and history – and entry costs only your time. Well worth a brief nose around, on your way to St Stephen’s Green. There are sometimes interesting concerts on at the bandstand in the Green, but generally only on summer weekends.
Closer to the river, still on the south, is Temple Bar – Dublin’s trendy, urbane quarter, where goth-kids gather by day, and drunken stag parties from across the world congregate with the equally drunken hens at night. Best seen on a late Saturday morning – not too early, after the street cleaners have been through – when both the aforementioned are tucked up in their beds, and the wonderful food market reigns supreme
There are several choices for river crossings – O’Connell Bridge is probably the very centre of the city, and is the only bridge in the world that’s wider than it is long. The Ha’penny Bridge is a more recognisable Dublin icon – but you can take photos from O’Connell Bridge, so I’d still go with crossing that one The Millenium Spire is unmissable, however hard you try, and the only thing really worth seeing on O’Connell St (the GPO, or General Post Office, where the Proclamation of Independence was read in 1916) is currently swathed in scaffolding and sheets 
At the top of O’Connell St is the Garden of Remembrance – small, pretty, and a nice place to take a break from the city. The lesser-known but more beautiful War Memorial Gardens are, acccording to our national heritage organisation, one of the most famous memorial gardens in Europe – I’m not sure I agree, but they are very well worth a visit.
Other things to see and do in Dublin include the museum at Collins’ Barracks – which was the oldest working barracks in the world, before it became part of the National Museum of Ireland. Now, it’s the museum for decorative arts and history, and a very shiny place The Four Courts is a very pretty building, but I’m not sure whether it’s still open to the public or not. I understand it is, but with restrictions – but that could be completely off.
Dublin Castle is worth a wander, and has another very pretty garden, outside the new Chester Beatty Library (the original was turned into a hotel). I don’t find the new museum quite as atmospheric as the old one, but if it’s Oriental that floats your junk, it’s the place to see – and as with most of Dublin’s museums & libraries, admission is free
The Guinness brewery at St James’s Gate is so-so – rather touristy, and not as good a tour as it used to be – but worth it if you’re a Guinness drinker, and ends with the fairly spectacular views from the Gravity Bar. I haven’t done the Jameson tour since I was too young to remember, but reports are good.
Phoenix Park isn’t my favourite place on earth, but it does contain the only even-numbered postal code on the north side of the river, Áras an Uachtaráin – the President’s House – which is open to visitors on Saturdays. (Tickets are available on the day only, at the Phoenix Park Visitor Centre.) It’s also home to the Papal Cross, where the Pope said Mass to over a million people, during his 1979 visit to Ireland, as well as the US Ambassador to Ireland.
The Wellington Monument, also in the Park, is the second tallest obelisk in the world (only the Washinton one is taller), and the Park itself is famous for its size – it’s among the largest city/walled parks in the world (it is the largest city park, and the second largest walled park, in Europe, to the best of my knowledge). It’s also home to Dublin Zoo, of which I am a proud supporter.
More things to see and do in Dublin will follow, as I remember them
Happy International Women’s Day 2006.
Remember today, all the women who have made your life possible. The woman who brought you into the world. The woman who, in all likelihood, brought you up, cared for you, fed and clothed you as a child.
Take a moment to think about the women you work around, who make it possible for you to get on with your job. The women who probably work longer and harder than you do, for less reward, and with less job security. The women doing jobs you probably don’t even notice, unless they’re not done. The women who are probably just as well-educated as you, but who are doing less ‘qualified’ work.
Thank the women around you today, notice the things they do. Look out for them, help them, give them a hand up – the same as you would if they were men, doing an equivalent task. Don’t let their work go unnoticed. And yes – it really is work – just you try doing it some time.
So, I was thinking about this last night, and trying to figure out how many “open-source types” Ireland had. I define that as really just people who regularly contribute – committers, basically – to open source projects (ie, working with others – not just releasing their own code under a free license). I suspect if I included once-off/minor patches, there still wouldn’t be an increase in the order of magnitude… To that end, I’ve included the projects I think people to be involved with – if I’m wrong, let me know!
Please don’t get religious on my ass – I’m not worried about what license things are released under, or whether you use vi or emacs… My rough guess was twenty-ish – so here’s the names I have so far. Can you think of more? Only people currently resident in Ireland are here – plus me, cos it’s my blog (and my official residence is still in Dublin), and Justin, because he’ll be back in Ireland in just over a week.
Caroline Sheedy – OpenSSL
Noirin Plunkett – Apache
Colm MacCarthaigh – Apache, kernel, Debian, stuff
Baruch Even – Debian
Niall Sheridan – Ubuntu, Debian
Stephen Shirley – Ubuntu
Kenn Humborg – kernel
Padraig Brady – kernel
Mel Gorman – kernel
Ian Dowse – FreeBSD
Peter Edwards – FreeBSD
David Malone – FreeBSD
Niall O’Higgins – OpenBSD
Paul Jakma – Quagga
Justin Mason – Spamassassin
Donncha O’Caoimh – WordPress
Caolan McNamara – OpenOffice
Alan Maguire – Solaris OS/Net
Calum Benson – GNOME
Mark McLoughlin – GNOME
Alvaro Lopez Ortega – GNOME
Brian Cameron – GNOME
Andrew Manson – KDE-Marble
So, I got twelve at first count (that’s since risen) – Sun, RedHat and friends must have another few hiding away somewhere – who have I forgotten? Girls – I’m a bit worried that there’s only two of us on this list… Where are you all?! A bottle of Erdinger to anyone who suggests a girl who makes it onto the list
Update: Several people for one reason or another don’t fit in the list above. Either they only contribute occasionally/used to contribute etc, or I can’t confirm that they properly fit the description of “open source types”… These are they
Kae Verens – webby things, and bug-reporter for the best
Orly McGann – FreeBSD/ipfw
Conall O’Brien – FreeBSD patches
Niall Murphy – FreeBSD patches (suggested by Conall)
Niall Walsh – kanotix, stuff
Gary Coady – no known projects, but he seems like the type (suggested by Conall)
David McNamara – apparently, Mackers has a name. Not in the above list, because he’s the only ‘committer’ to things like o2sms, but still deserves a mention.
Edsko de Vries, Paul Biggar & John Gilbert – phc (no functional release yet available)
Alan Horkan – bug-reporter and general GNOME helper
Bill Hanneman – Sun employee, possibly GNOME, possibly also one of the ASF projects, haven’t been able to confirm either of these
Marcus Furlong – KDE advocacy type
The following are people who count as Irish, but aren’t currently based in the country. Given the tenuousness of some people’s claims to Irishness, however, only people who are bona fide Irish get listed here. What constitutes bona fide, I get to decide
Dave Airlie – kernel
Ian Clarke – Freenet
Glynn Foster – GNOME
Dave Neary – Gimp
Brian Summers – FreeBSD, OpenBSD
Colin Watson – Debian, Ubuntu
David Coallier – PHP
Martin F Krafft – Debian (Martin isn’t Irish at all – but he’s currently doing research in UL, and he definitely qualifies as “open source” )
In 1606, the trial in London of Guy Fawkes and his co-conspirators began, for their “Gunpowder Plot, the previous November 5th.
In 1756, Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart was born, in Salzburg, Austria.
In 1832, Lewis Carroll (Charles Lutwidge Dodgson) was born in Cheshire, England.
In 1880, Thomas Edison filed a patent for an electric incandescent lamp. Much as I love candles, I’m most grateful for this one!
In 1888, the National Geographic Society was founded in Washington DC.
In 1926, John Logie Baird demonstrated the first television broadcast, in Selfridges, in London.
In 1945, the Red Army liberated the Nazi camps at Auschwitz and Birkenau. In 2005, the UN declared January 27th as Holocaust Memorial Day.
In 1951, nuclear testing in Nevada began, with a 1 kiloton bomb, dropped on Frenchman Flats.
In 1967, the crew of Apollo I died, when it went on fire during a training exercise.
In 1973, the Vietnam War officially ended.
In 1985, I was born, on a Sunday afternoon, in Manchester.
And in 2006, Western Union ceased their telegraph service
As previously mentioned, I was over at Bari’s last night. Turns out, her parents are planning a trip to Europe during the semester break, and their itinerary seems a bit mad to me. It’s entirely possible that this is because I don’t know them, don’t know what they like doing or seeing, and am simply clueless. But it could also be that they simply don’t know what there is to see here. So, I’ve taken it on myself to come up with a list of the “must-see”s in Europe, along with how long I think should be devoted to each. I love doing this sort of thing! Europe is a fantastic place, and there’s loads to see and do! While it’s for Bari that I’m actually writing this down, planning and dreaming about travel is something I love doing anyway
I’m more or less ignoring transport options for the purposes of this itinerary – if I were doing it, I’d probably interrail again. I like trains Unfortunately, interrail only works for Europeans, so it’s no good to Bari’s folks. On top of that, they can drive, which I can’t, and which is frankly the method I’d suggest – some of these things probably need a car to get to. That said, once you get into the cities – just go for it, get a public-transport ticket, and use it to death. Public transport in most European cities is fantastic, and cars are just not worth it.
So, starting in Munich – go for a walk in the English Gardens. Go to Dachau too – horrific as they are, I’d recommend everyone visit a concentration camp once in their lives. (Ideally, a no-longer used one please.) World War II is a big part of modern history, and I certainly feel I couldn’t properly understand it – and appreciate its significance – without seeing what was going on. I’ve been to two – Sachsenhausen and the Auschwitz/Birkenau complex.
Next, I’d head up to Berlin. Allow at least two days here. Go to the Checkpoint Charlie museum – allow a couple of hours for that. See the Charlottenburg Palace too – this is one of the few things I’ll recommend that I haven’t actually been to before, but there’s a good reason for this.
Michelin publish, amongst other things, tourist guides to various countries. They rate the attractions with stars – * to ***. As a child, I spent many, many long hours, touring old castles and churches in the south of France, “collecting” Michelin stars (no, there’s nothing to collect). While I understand that these were almost certainly sites of great cultural or historic interest – I was a kid! I just wasn’t interested. Thus, as an adult, I have developed a minor allergy to castles and palaces.
Go on a bus tour of Berlin – there’s some fabulous buildings that really aren’t worth a walk just to see, but you’ll cover plenty of them on a tour, and the guide will be able to tell you much more about them than I can. See the Brandenburg Gate too. Other things to do, I can’t really remember – I spent a lot of my trip to Berlin dyeing my hair odd colours. Guess it went to the brain.
Next stop on our whistle is Amsterdam. I know some people worry about the scumbag density, but I really didn’t find it that bad. I can recommend the Rijksmuseum, and the Van Gogh museum (not necessarily in that order). Also highly recommended is the Anne Frank house. Just do it. Other things to do are a canal trip – forget Venice, this is the real city of pretty canals. On a hotel tip – and I haven’t stayed here, but know people who have, and fully intend to at some point – try Lloyd Hotel & Cultural Embassy. Allow at least one full day for Amsterdam, probably two. If there’s other things you want to see in the Netherlands, they’re pretty easy to get to from Amsterdam, so it might be worth just basing yourself there for a few days, rather than constantly moving around.
And then we reach gay Paris… (Ugh, that’s not what I meant! Paris has to be said the French way – and it’s ‘gay’ in the old meaning.) The Louvre is the big attraction here – you could easily spend a day in her, and still not see everything. But go, see the highlights anyway. Another classic is the Centre George Pompidou – the building built “inside-out”, and a modern art paradise. Even if you’re not into modern art, go have a portrait done by one of the street artists outside.
If you must do the Eiffel Tower – don’t overhype it. It’s a big steel-girder construction, and it’s really not as romantic in person as in the movies. Sometimes, things are better off left in your head. If you can do a tour on the Seine, do – it’s a good way to see the highlights of the city at its best. L’Arc de Triomphe is in the middle of a very busy road, so please don’t get killed – but please do visit, and don’t walk away without having had a stroll down the Champs Elysee
The cathedral of Notre Dame de Paris is another don’t-miss – but the ultimate of ultimates is slightly outside Paris. Whatever you see or don’t see on the entire trip, make sure you visit the Palace at Versaille. I can’t emphasise this enough – and I don’t generally like palaces. It’s the most amazingly lavish, sumptuous, romantic, wonderful place. Just go.
Onward to the south of France – if you’re not entirely fed up of driving by now, you could pop in to Barcelona. (At this point, you could also start taking flights – the distances get a bit bigger here, although they’re still eminently drivable for North Americans.) The Museu Picasso is worth a look if you’re a fan, and the famous Gaudi masterpice – La Sagrada Familia” – is definitely to be seen, although they’re still not quite finished!
Although a very pretty city in its own right, Nice is on my tour for another reason – it’s from Nice airport that you can get a helicopter to the playground of the rich and famous, the Principality of Monaco and Monte-Carlo. There’s not a huge amount to do here, unless casinos are your thing, and frankly, it’s an expensive place. But I know if I had the money to do a grand tour of Europe, all at once, I’d go, just for a few hours, and do a Holly Golightly on it
The next leg (ok, I’m sorry, but it had to be done) is Italy. Rome is beautiful, and has lots to offer, although comes complete with swarms of pigeons and tourists. Florence is the city of art and culture. Milan is fashion and more modern culture, while Naples is pure beautiful, and Pompeii is the forgotten city. Sicily is home of the Mafia, and Venice is sinking. Lots to see – I’d pick Rome, Florence or Pompeii, for religion, art or history, and just do it to death over a couple of days.
Back in central Europe, we’ve missed a few spots – I understand that I’ve probably gone way past the three weeks this was meant to take, but that’s how it goes… Vienna & Prague for music, culture and Charles’ Bridge, Budapest for the amazing baths, and Krakow cos it’s just Europe’s little gem, would all be on my list.
Not on my list, but worth considering, are Ireland and the UK. Spring break isn’t the best time to see the countryside, but Dublin and London are still worth visiting – there’s so much to do and see that it probably won’t all be possible though. The Nordic/Scandanavian countries, while pretty, never really captured my heart the way the rest of Europe does, so they’re not in this tour. If any of them were to make it, it’d be Copenhagen, and possibly the Norwegian fjords – although they’re more of a summer thing, I think.
And that’s my Grand Tour of Europe pretty much complete I love this place, and it’s wonderful to visit, even just virtually!
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