I spent the weekend at the FOSDEM conference, an impressively chaotic meeting of diverse software developers. At any one time, there were three talks that I’d like to have seen, and there were so many great people there that I usually got waylaid on the way to talks. All of these people really need to move to Munich.

The GNOME room was a well-organized safe haven. Thanks to Christophe Fergeau and Vincent Untz and GNOME.fr friends. As a GNOME Foundation member, I was entitled to a free T-shirt. It’s the best yet, and actually fits me. It’s a tasteful shade of gray with a small logo, so it can be worn in real life. Conferences normally discriminate against Mediums. For instance, XL was the smallest FOSDEM T-shirt available.

I did a little introductory talk on Glom, which was just an update of my GUADEC talk, and I suspect was very dull. Glom’s a lot more interesting than a bunch of bullet points. Some time I should dedicate a few days to doing some screencasts. Preceding me was the Bling talk by Mirco Müller. When talks are too successful at FOSDEM, the vibrations from the applause trigger the fire alarm. So I had to delay for a few minutes to let people get back into the room. We should maybe alert the authorities before Mirco’s next talk.

I caught some kind of cold on the early morning flight to Brussels, and my voice was almost completely gone by Sunday night. I had planned to spend Monday looking around the town, but instead I went to the airport early in the hope of an early flight back to a warm bed. That didn’t work out, so I shivered on an airport bench for 8 hours. Not being able to speak above a whisper is a really odd experience. It turns out that speaking is really useful.

The are various important things that I need to do, but I’m knocked out for a day or two.