DeeKnow's Grotto

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Wednesday, 28 July 2004

How to confuse a Geek

Had a couple of classic geek experiences today. First was the swarm of new arrivals this morning as its the 1st day of the conference proper now that the tutorial days are over. There are now 1500 of the nerdiest folk on the planet all stumbling around congested corridors doing all they can to avoid running into one-another. Its kinda like what it would be like to put 10 robot mice into a maze that they cant solve. Scary !!!

Another funny thing is that every 2nd person here seems to be packing a laptop. That in itself isnt funny, more the way they walk around the hotel with the laptop going, lid up, reading and using stuff as they go. Havent seen a dropped one yet but its only a matter of time (think mice in maze again)

Oh and I've coined a new term too (better check to see if any1 else has already). The term is Lap-Tan and relates to the tan a nerd gets from sitting in front of a glowing laptop screen all day, as they seem to do here. Actually, the light from an LCD is probably too passive to burn your skin, but Lap-Tan sounds kinda funny anyway.

Another humorous episode a few minutes ago was when we all came out of the last tutorial for a coffee break. After about 20mins the stragglers were still coming out and by that time the coffee had run out. Its in big stainless warmer things so you dont know how much is in there till you tip the handle. So now theres loads of folks going round all the 20 or so containers trying each one and looking more and more confused all the time as they start to realise (slowly) that theyre gonna have to go without their fix for this hour. Jeeze, I hope theres not a riot !!!

Update: Just overheard (eaves-dropping) a classic comment from a geek beside me. The whole room has been anoyed by him for the last 20mins talking to his mate about how cool southern-california is. Eventually someone took exception to what he said and he comes out with....