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2.19.2005

Northern Voice Reflections

How annoying, I had to log in to Blogger because ecto is being silly :(

So, I actually went to that blogging conference today. I feel like such a geek. But while I was there, I actually felt quite low tech, because approximately half of the people there had brought laptops with them. And I realised that I had NO electronic devices with me at all... oh, except my camera. But no laptop, no cell phone, no music player... hell, no watch even! Hi, geeks. Meet the luddite!

Oh, and while I've quite definitively decided that multitasking is the root of all evil, there were a lot of people there doing it. And it actually pissed me off in some ways because they weren't giving their attention to whoever was speaking. There was a guy sitting in front of me who, while taking notes in TextEdit, was also checking his email, posting to his blog, looking at photos, and having a conversation on iChat with someone. Really, how much could he have been getting out of any of those things while also trying to do three other things at once?

This conference definitely increased my interest in blogging and I've got some better ideas now about where I want my blog to go, what I want my blog to do. Write about what you know, Tim Bray stressed that right at the beginning of the conference and it's so true. And what do I know? Geography and photography. And I do have some interesting insights because of that, so I will share them! Rawr!

Oh! and speaking of multitasking, there was also a lady sitting there knitting socks. Like, wtf?

Robert Scoble and a few others talked about RSS. I had heard of RSS, I had some clue what it did, but until today I really didn't know how useful it could be. Things like this are great for picking up techniques and tools and ideas.

In general the conference was quite well run. Julie Leung sounded very scripted and like she was on the verge of tears, but whether or not that was a bad thing is subjective, I guess. Most of the other speakers were great. As there always are at any kind of conference/talk/etc where the speakers ask if anyone has any questions, there were a few loud-mouthed, obnoxious, and annoying people who used the opportunity to make their own statements under the guise of questions... "Well, do you think that...?". Sorry dear, I'm here to listen to the speakers and so is everybody else, if you've got a real question, go for it, otherwise keep it on your blog and shut the fuck up. Oh, and I did feel bad for Julie because a couple people asked questions that were quite clearly designed to question some of her decisions regarding parenting. Don't they realise that it's (a) none of their business and (b) she doesn't give a shit if Mrs Jane Doe thinks that she's a bad mother?

It ended around 5:00 and the light was beautiful. I don't think I ever noticed the golden glow around sunset until I started learning about photography and heard people say it was a great time to take photos, but it was definitely there today. It has to be clear (at least in the line of the sun) for that golden light to happen, so Vancouver actually doesn't get that good light all that often. But wow. I walked from the conference to the water and then up to just past Burrard Street Bridge, then backtracked to Granville Street Bridge and took some pictures from there around dusk.

I subsititue a nice horizontal ledge for my tripod whenever I can because the tripod is a hassle and conspicuous, and Granville Street Bridge has a nice flat surface as part of its railing. Unfortunately some of my shots are blurry because the bridge shakes. But a bunch of them turned out well, and I'm even going to post one!



The railing that I put the camera on managed to sneak into the shot, but I like the lines it creates.

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