seafood

How my talk went

Hey all.

Just thought I'd tell you the score on how my talk went. Bloody well. In my first practice with Mark I stumbled over my words, forgot vitally important background knowledge and even had to go back and look at my source code to see how I'd actually done things.

Then I improved the slides. I added some pictures of the effects that PanTHeon can produce along with the code required to display them. I showed how by composing very simple building blocks complex visual effects could be developed. I knew that would get their attention.

Today I woke up feeling excited. I was nervous, but in a good way. Back at my flat I put some loud music on to get myself into the mood for the talk. Later, as I strode to the front of the room I felt myself warming nicely to the task. Everything went as it should have. I answered all the questions that were asked and even added a question to myself that I expected people would ask.

This research gig is an interesting one. Half the time I'm stunned that people actually find this stuff interesting. And in general they seem to find it more interesting than I do. At the end of each day of talks I'm itching to get out of my seat and go get a beer somewhere. I find that talking to people during the coffee breaks is much more satisfying, and from what I've heard some of the big names only attend about half the talks at a conference and spend the rest of their time chatting in the hallway.

I really haven't got that much more to say about the people here. Some of them are highly entertaining, others are more shy. It's pretty hard to write a human interest story about them though. They're all interested in a tiny splinter of a splinter, just like me. The rest of the world wouldn't really be interested in them, just the amazing stuff they do with their minds.

Trends in Functional Programming finished today. My mind is buzzing with information but it is also completely fried. Thinking hard drains the brain. For the last few hours we've been chilling in our flat drinking beer and watching Futarama episodes on my laptop.

Nothing much has changed since I was last in Edinburgh. It's still beautiful, the Australian dollar is still worth a pittance in relation to the pound, and the girls, as always, are very pretty. Think I'll grab some dinner soon and try yet another local beer.

I'm heading to London on Sunday. I'll be back on Saturday, 20 September. See ya then.