Europython, Evening of Day One 09 Jul, 2007
Simon Willison’s talk on OpenID was pretty well done if you haven’t seen video of his previous talks (they all have pretty much the same content). Half the room had used OpenID and about three of them still do to this day. I didn’t even remember that AOL had done those for AIM accounts. I guess that makes me a user.
After Simon’s talk Guido announced that we’d all get free beer on Google’s tab tonight at a pub called Cili (natives were saying it chili) where they would have room for a hundred. Of course the Guido room (full of shields, axes, and other “D&D paraphanelia” according to one of the other attendees) filled up quickly, so Trac was relegated to one of the overflow tables. But on the plus side we got to sit with some very interesting people — a Vilnius resident, one guy (whose name escapes me) from Chicago, a dude from Ukraine and another from Serbia. All had (in some capacity) used Trac, even the guy whose boss makes him use Bugzilla.
The guy from Vilnius (I’m a bit awful with names, and forgot to carry a pen with me) helped us pick traditional foods, so I had the beet soup with some sort of water chestnuts (maybe just potato balls?). Very delicious.
I left a bit early and managed to find a Guido on the way back, somewhat errant and curious whether he was headed the correct way back (it’s a 30 minute walk back to the conference hotel). We chatted about various topics, including “Is Trac produced commercially?” to which the answer was a pretty resounding “no” given that we’d just discussed it earlier over dinner. “I’d use the churches as landmarks if only they didn’t all look the same” (his words) pretty much sum up the landmark situation here. There are at least three big ones I’ve seen (plus the one with the choir which I have yet to look for) and unless you can see down to the doors they all pretty much look the same.
I finally figured out that the street signs are on the buildings themselves, that saved me a bit of trouble getting around. I’ve been told that there’s a theme park somewhere outside of town where all the Soviet statues ended up, with a soviet-themed bar and everything.
I already mentioned this in the previous post, but today’s photos are up in the photos section.