Life, Open Source, and Everything Else (an update)
I can’t believe how long it took us to move. Since the Saturday before last, we’ve been taking a few boxes after work every night to the new place. Last Saturday we had movers help with all the furniture. The first dozen boxes were books and computer gear (even after donating half a ton of books and several old computers). There’s nothing like moving to get much needed spring cleaning done. To be fair, we have a house full of furniture etc., but I still have more “stuff” than I wish I had. Oh, and it is so awesome to have a balcony again.
So now that the network is back up and I have my electric kettle and tea box, I can get back to open source work. Between the sketchy ‘net connection, moving boxes, and abnormal buzziness with the Day Job, I haven’t had much time to pay attention to mailing lists or IRC (which reminds me, I think I owe a few people an email). I have three unfinished blog entries and need to continue working on KDE User Research Profiles. I know Okular has been working on their user profile the past few weeks and I want to put some cycles in to helping them out. Projects get ready, because I will resume calling out for completing user research profiles again next week. There were also those KGrubEditor wireframes I was working on for Artemis_Fowl…
Over the past month or so I’ve managed to get through the first two Hitchhiker’s books (Background: I had only ever read the Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, and am now working through the rest of the series), but I’m losing momentum near the end of Life, the Universe, and Everything. Sure, it’s still funny, but it doesn’t seem to have the same substance as the first two books. I have about 10 more pages before I move on to So Long and Thanks for All the Fish. We’ll see how it goes. (I also have some more Gaiman and Peake to read afterwards).
We also took a break last Friday to go celebrate the Hardy release with fellow Maryland LoCoers. After the UDS in May, I will be focusing on ways to get the LoCo community involved in usability testing (in more ways than just acting as participants in tests).
seele :: Apr.29.2008 :: Book List, General, Life, Open Source :: 4 Comments »
Don’t forget to read Young Zaphod Plays it Safe…oh, and look up the UK version of Life, the Universe, and Everything. Chapter 5 was omitted from the US version, and a few swear words were changed. For example, the Rory is an award for “most gratuitous use of the word fuck in a serious screenplay”…but the US version says the word is Belgium.
I’m sure you can get some DC LoCo people in on usability testing as well. I’m up for helping, though you already know I’m not a huge fan of KDE…I have reasons (er…or at least one), though, I swear!
I have Young Zaphod Plays it Safe so I will cover it all, and the most gratuitous use of the work “fuck” makes a lot more sense than “Belgium”.
Don’t forget to listen to the radio series! Not only the two original ones (Primary and Secondary phases) that predate the books, but also the three new series (Tertiary, Quandary, and Quintissencial phases) that were released a couple of years ago (based on the books).
Douglas Adams always expressed his dissatisfaction with the ending of the 5th book, and the radio series reflects his wish by expanding the ending. Oh, and they used his voice for one of the characters in the final series too, lifted from an old audiobook recording he made :)
I’d recommend Mostly Harmless the most. It’s hilarious.