Back from FOSDEM in Brussels. In their own words on the information booklet: "4000+ geeks, 200+ lectures, 2 days, 0 EURO". I had two motivations to go there: Brussels is close to my home in Amsterdam and always nice to visit; and I could sit and listen a whole day to Drupal presentations, and get the opportunity to check out some other projects too.
As the FOSDEM booklet says, it's a gathering focused on lectures, so I got my portion of sitting still and getting powerpoint-poisened in over-crowded and under-ventilated rooms. A lot of people breaking the "show me, don't tell me" rule. But Brussels was nice, and some of the presentations on Drupal and Thunderbird were useful for me:
Mon 25 February 2008, 18:10 +0200.jpg "Klooster Dolphia")
We've got our first Nivocer office space this month! My business partner Jaap-André is based close to Enschede, in the east of The Netherlands, and found this lovely former seminary-now shared office building not too far from his home, where we now have our first room and access to facilities in an inspiring setting. A building completed in 1937, but having a pretty rich history of use already. Far away from my Amsterdam home for Dutch standards, so I will continue looking for something closer by. Canadian friends remind me that a two-and-a-half-hour commute to work is not even really rare within the Toronto area, but my 1-minute journey to my home office is quite precious to me still. Meanwhile, Jaap-Andre is connecting his now truly separated business and private life with his recumbent bicycle.
Today, I received an action alert from you, through my membership of Care2. It's great to hear your contributing to the fight against Japanese whaling, but I was somewhat taken back by your approach. You're asking me to "Help Humane Society International lead the opposition on Japan’s Whale Hunt!". Pardon?
Having worked at a desk next to the international anti-whaling campaign team of 2006-2007 of "another organisation", your name wasn't at the top of my list of anti-whaling campaigns. Frankly, it wasn't at my list at all, and I'm sorry to say, I didn't even know Humane Society International existed.
So I wanted to find out a bit more about your campaign. But...
As I am not from the US, I have no vote in the elections there. But as a world citizen, I am experiencing the choices made. I'm ambivalent about each trip I make to the US: going through the crazy bureaucracy at the border is a perfect way of demonstrating how much the US government likes to invade into my life.
The contrast with the people I meet once inside the country could not be bigger: many of them are passionate about making the world a better place, and equally feel their own government as the main obstacle in realising that. So with their elections this year, I'm trying to make sense of the candidates.
Sun 10 February 2008, 00:06 +0200drostan.org - online collaboration
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