MediaShelf

I’ve posted my last videos to the Code4Lib & Dev8D 2010 channel on Vimeo. (NB: the Dev8D responses are all on YouTube, not Vimeo).  We only had a half day on Thursday but I managed to run around and gather enough video for one montage of hello messages and three mini-interviews. I convinced Thursday’s emcee [...]

Among the highlights of dev8D are the developer challenges. Last year, List8D took home the £5,000 first prize at the Developer Decathlon. This year, there are ten different challenges, or bounties. Mahendra Mahey explained that last year’s single grand prize format left a number of otherwise deserving innovation efforts unrecognized. As a result, this year’s [...]

Adrian Bowyer, from the University of Bath, visited us today at dev8D to demonstrate RepRap. RepRap is a 3D printer that uses plastic as raw material (the ink, or toner, if you will) to produce three-dimensional objects. Aside from the pure geek-appeal of a self-replicating, 3D printer that accepts designs from Art of Illusion or [...]

Keynote #2: catfish, cthulhu, code, clouds and Levenshtein distance The final half-day of Code4Lib 2010 began with a roving, sublimely geeky keynote address by Paul Jones, Director of ibiblio.org (you know – host of project Gutenberg, etc.).  His opening challenge: “What is the levenshtein distance between Paul Jones and Cathy Marshall?” Little did he know that zoia the [...]

It’s extremely gratifying to attend a conference where super smart presenters don’t shy away from showing real code.  It’s even better to be at a conference where the presenters manage to show complex code while making it understandable even to people who don’t use the related systems.  Every presenter today has managed to do that [...]

In acknowledgment of Hello to Dev8D from Code4Lib, Dev8D prepared a warm greeting for Code4Lib from otherwise cold and wet London:

JISC Developer Days (aka dev8D) kicked off today at the University of London Union with an estimated 500 attendees. I don’t remember the number of attendees last year, but it feels much bigger this year. Spanning five rooms, I counted at least 27 different sessions, talks and workshops over the space of a single afternoon. [...]

Media, Blacklight, and Viewers Like You Chris Beer from WGBH (Boston’s Public Television; producers of Nova, Julia Child, etc.) walked us through the inner workings of the new WGBH website that runs on Blacklight, Fedora, and LightHTTPD.  Without getting bogged down in the details, he touched on many of the technical and organizational challenges they [...]

We had intended to do live streaming chats on ustream, but as it turns out, that is too much of a strain on the wifi here in Asheville.  As a result, I’ve set up a channel on vimeo titled Code4Lib & Dev8D 2010.  Our first video is up there now. Hello to Dev8D from Code4Lib from [...]

The first day of Code4Lib has drawn to a close.  The irc channel was flooded with raucous banter and twitter was very active as well.  In the evening, one person who had only followed the tweets commented to me that “people at this conference are very polite”.  I jokingly assured her that all of the [...]