Finally it has happened! Casio has brought out a digital camera with more than 1 MP, the
QV-5000 SX! And
somewhere across town they had one, for something like $600. Took time off at lunch time to
go and pick one up, returning significantly too late. They claim that it's “1.3 MP”, but in
fact it's only 1280x960 pixels, or 1.288 MP if you think in decimal, or 1.17 MP if you think
in binary. Still, that's a good 1 MP.
What resolution do I choose? It has only 8 MB memory, and a full size image takes up 350
kB:
The USENIX annual technical conference started
this week, so I arranged to take Friday off and get the last day. Off
to New Orleans in the evening,
changing at Houston airport, where an ATM
swallowed my only US ATM card. Called
up Wells Fargo, who weren't very
sympathetic (“you should carry a spare from another account”). Maybe I need a different
bank, not a different card.
Arrived in New Orleans and tried to contact Mike Smith, who was expecting me. Or maybe. He
seemed to have forgotten. Walked around the venue a bit and found a big crowd in a little
room with two old greybeards talking in the front. They proved to
be Ken Thompson
and Dennis Ritchie. Dennis was
doing the talking, and I was amazed how old they look. But then, they're in their mid-50s,
and after all I'm nearly 50 myself.
Tried to buy a day pass at the USENIX, but it
seems they don't do that sort of thing. By the time I showed up at the stand, they were
packing up, and they effectively suggested that I just stay there.
Did that, and then off to listen to some presentations, linking up with Julian Elischer (a
member of the FreeBSD core team) on the way.
Later on I was accosted by Poul-Henning Kamp, another core team member, who wanted to know
about Vinum. Off to some empty room with John Polstra and Jonathan Bresler, still more core
team members. And when we got there, Poul-Henning kicked Julian out! I was more than a
little surprised.
Nothing much came of the discussion. Poul-Henning is also working in the area of storage,
and he wanted to ensure that we didn't tread on each others' toes. It seems that he has big
changes planned, and warned me that they could influence Vinum in the not-too-distant
future.
Later we had lunch, then up to yet another empty room, where I took less-than-stellar photos
of the other attendees:
From recollection (June 2018), left to right: Ollivier Robert, John Polstra,
Poul-Henning-Kamp, Jonathan Bresler, Jordan Hubbard, Mike Smith, Justin Gibbs, Guido van
Rooij. And yes, the image is really only 640x480. It's been a while since I made that
mistake.
Somehow we didn't see much of the conference. In the evening, out together to TGIF, where I got a chance to take more photos:
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