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It's conference time once again. In two weeks, I'll be attending PyCon, a conference that no Pythonistas should miss, then one week later, I will be at ConFoo, a conference that we are organizing at Montréal-Python along with other local user groups.

If you've been to a multi-track conference, you know the drill. As the speaker wraps up for his conclusion, instead of paying attention, you rush to unplug your laptop and to reach for your annotated program. Indeed, you've got only a moment to find out in what room the next talk that you planned to see is.

But this year is different.

One week ago, PyCon unveiled a very nice track selector application. It's very nice because it allows you to select in advance the tracks that you don't want to miss, to add them to you calendar application or to share your schedule with friends. That way, no more last minute rush to find where you go next.

I was really happy to see that so I shared the word with the ConFoo team, mentioning that it's the kind of things that we should develop for ConFoo 2011 next year. Well, it turned out that Anna, the ConFoo webmaster, really liked the idea and she came up with a schedule builder for ConFoo after only 48 hours. Both selectors have their own strengths and weaknesses but at least they get the job done. Hopefully more conferences will follow the trend of implementing track selectors; this is the kind of simple features that really improve the user experience.

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I just released mini-fract 0.6, the mostly standalone version of fract. This is a minor update to make it use ZPNG, the supported successor to salza-png that I was previously using. Adam Majewski wrote some introductory notes on how to get started for someone with very little experience with the Common Lisp programming environment. Enjoy!

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Since I'm coordinator of the Python track at ConFoo.ca, I like to keep track of what's going on at other Python conferences. PyCon recently published the list of selected talks so I decided to summarize it into a few high level stats:

• 96 sessions, that's 32 per day;
• 69 presenters, 1 for 3 sessions, 8 for 2 sessions, 60 for a single session (there are panels and sessions with more than one presenters);
• 75 sessions of 30 mins, 20 of 45 mins, and one that my scraper missed somehow;
• 27 'beginner' sessions, 60 'intermetiate', and 8 'advanced'.

How does that compare with PyCon 2009? Honestly, I don't know. Quick like that I can say that it's going to be a larger PyCon and that the level of the talks is increasing but that's about it.

How does it compare to ConFoo? Hard to say since we have not selected the talks yet but it's sure to influence us on the number of talks per speaker and on the level of the sessions. By the way, the ConFoo call for speakers was extended by a few days so it's not too late to submit something over the weekend.

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A friend of mine just started a series of blog posts on the anatomy of a failed software project. He has an interesting opinion that contrasts the value of technical design to the importance human factor and the way team dynamics can make or break a project.

Some of you might be able to recognize the company but please respect the author's choice to leave it unnamed.

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Today I had an extremely busy day with the end of the ConFoo.ca call for speakers looming. It's now that everyone asks questions and that we notice all these great people that have yet to be solicited. Also this evening was the ConFoo.ca weekly status meeting so I went back home with very long TODO list. Having painstakingly crossed a few items of my list, I headed toward my fridge for a well deserved glass of homebrew.

Horror! I opened the fridge only to be greeted by the sight of a see of malted beverage. One of my keg leaked and spilled around three liters of beer at the bottom of my fridge and around it. After all the mopping and the cleaning, I consider what is left in that keg to be some of the tastiest beer that I had in years.

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Something is brewing it the developers community of Montréal. More specifically, ConFooBBQ spawned a renewed interest in home brewing among developers. Yesterday, I was at the ConFoo.ca organization meeting and I learned that Francis Bégin just bought his ingredients to start a new batch after several years of idleness, and that he is looking at buying kegs, Mathieu Chartier confirmed that he is willing to team up with me so can brew a W3Québec beer together for the next ConFooBrew, and that two Ruby developers want to come to my place next time that I brew so they can get a feel for what's involved and get started on their own.

I'm all for coaching people but if you are just going to watch some other guy brew, you might as well watch it on you tube. Brewing, like cooking, is nice in itself because it fills your kitchen with the aroma of fresh ingredients being transformed but the real motivation come from the end-product that you are looking forward to taste. For that reason, I'm going to invite these brewers to my place but what we are going to brew will be their Ruby Red with the explicit condition that they have to serve it at their next Montreal.rb monthly meeting. That, dear readers, is how you tie strong bonds between communities.

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Since many of you are still sending me news of very interesting Python projects, it's time for me to do a status update. I've met many persons in the last few weeks and beyond the fiery passion of everyone working on solving hard problems, I was deeply inspired be the aspiration of owners and founders. One thing leading to another, I got in touch with great cofounders who were looking for a partner with some experience in technical lead so I decided to team up with them.

The exact details of what we are working on will start to transpire in the coming weeks but suffice to say for now that we are working on a Python-powered Internet application that will considerably help the non-profit sector. Stay tuned.

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I just recieved some very sexy business cards for Montréal-Python. Design was done by Sylvain Paré.

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I saw this bad-ass claw in front of UQAM on my way home. I'm not sure what it's used for but I really like it's you-won't-escape style.

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I've been brewing a lot since I got back to beer making. Last weekend, I started my eighth batch since my amber ale. I brewed a blonde, two stouts, an IPA, a Belgian Brown, an Orval clone, a wit, and the latest, an American Pale Ale inspired by Sierra Nevada.

Brewing beer is easy. It takes some elbow grease to scrub and sanitize all your equipment but if you can bake a cake, you most certainly can brew beer. That's what I've been telling my friends and I'm glad that a few of them have started brewing on their own.

Since brewing beer is easy, there are no reasons not to do special brews for special events, just as one would bake a cake for a birthday. You only need to plan a bit to take into account fermentation time and your good to go.

It's Yann Larrivée of PHP-Québec who first pitched the idea of having homebrews from members of the developers community at an informal BBQ. So I brought a buckwheat Belgian brown at the latest PHP-BBQ and it was a huge success. Beside the unexpected party suitcase keeping the keg and CO2 cylinder out of sight, people really appreciated the fact that they were drinking a brew that was prepared just for them. That got me fired up.

As there are many thirsty developers in Montréal, got my stove into high gear and started brewing seriously. As I write this, I have three batches in various stages of preparation. From left to right on the above picture, we can see:

• an Orval clone that is currently maturing with Brettanomyces yeasts;
• an American Pale Ale that I plan to bring to the next Montréal-Python;
• a Belgian wit that I plan to bring to ConFooBBQ, the BBQ for developers.

I like how the wit is clearing up. It started extremely hazy, something that is to be expected when you brew with wheat, but after five days in the secondary fermenter, it's cleared up a nicely with only the bottom third exhibiting intense fogginess. I followed a recipe that called for Irish moss, which help to clear up a beer. The trick is that you want a wit to be served somewhat hazy so you have to balance the amount to Irish moss so you don't end up with a crystal clear drink. Let's see how it turns out at ConFooBBQ.

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Today was my last day as lead-developer at Pivotal Payments. As the company decided to phase out in-house development, a good chunk of the dev-team got "down-sized", as they say in this economy. I still don't know what I'm going to do; I will probably take it easy for a few weeks then I'll start looking for interesting consulting opportunities.

If you're working on some interesting Python project, let me know now, before I get involved with something else.

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There is a Debian Meetup tomorrow at pub Ste-Elizabeth. I'll be there and I hope to meet other GNU/Linuxers.

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Me and Antoine are now certified lead climbers. W00t!

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Finally back into Montréal; Las Vegas was exhausting, thats the least that I can say. Presentations at Defcon were very interesting but I was particularly impressed by what was available as side activities.

First, there was the hardware hacking village where people were working on the badge hacking contest. It's true, the Defcon 17 badge is hackable; it features a Freescale microprocessor, an RGB LED, a microphone, and a bunch of IO ports. To help the contestants, the full schematic of the board and the source code of the flashable chip was included in the conference kit. There was also the lockpicking village where people could learn about this fine skill and practice with a very wide variety of locks. I have to say that with proper coaching and with good tools, picking locks is seriously not that hard and that I am now be a bit scared to leave anything of value protected by a padlock that a novice like me can pick in 30 seconds. There was a Capture the Flag competition where opposing teams would hack into each other's servers, there was a hacker oriented Jeopardy, there were DJs, many contests, many smaller villages, and there was beer. A lot of beer.

Defcon is in Sin City and in Sin City, you can drink pretty muck where ever you want. People walk down the streets past police officers with beer cans in their hans, you get offered free booze at the casinos, you can buy drinks at the many watering holes that are scattered on the hotel floors, and if that's not enough, you can buy bigger cans at the several liquor stores. You just happen to have a drink in your hand when you're in Vegas; there is no wrong time or wrong place to enjoy a drink, here and now is good for many and so you see hackers sipping their huge cans while lining up for the 10 AM talk.

There's a lot more to mention but that will be it for now since after being a sinner for so many days in a row, my body is calling for a well deserved rest.

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I'm taking the plane for Vegas in just a few hours from now. I will be attending Defcon 17 but I won't be blogging live for that one. I will have laptop with me but I don't want to have any kind of connectivity because I'm told that the network there is simply brutal.

As a responsible Free Software advocate, I will be volunteering at FSF table on Sunday with Pascal. Expect a good recap after the event but it will likely be complete silence until then. Now I need to find out what I want to do in Vegas; so many sins and so little time...

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I took my first lead climbing course on Monday. It's hard.

I was with a few friends and we all climb 5-9 or 5-10 when doing top rope. Even though the course was only on a 5-5, we were all completely dead once after reaching the top.

Compared to top rope, lead climbing is sure to give you a healthy dose of fear. You don't really fall when climbing top-rope, you just stretch the rope a bit. When doing lead climbing, you take at bare minimum a one meter fall before you even start to stretch the rope. Just knowing that makes you grip the holds so hard that you tire up in no time. Then you add the technique factor.

You have to clip your rope on the way up when lead climbing. That may seem obvious but clipping means that you have to let one hand go, reach down, pull on a heavy rope very far sideway, reach up, secure the quickdraw with a single finger, then manage to pass that slippery rope through the gate. When you couple that with the facts that you take the rope from the wrong side every other time and that your buddy is still an inexperienced belayer who does not give you the slack fast enough when you are trying to clip, you soon notice that you burn nearly half of your energy hanging from one hand while trying to clip.

Next course will be on taking falls with lots of practical exercises, which is sure to spice up the evening with a pleasant wave a adrenaline. Lead climbing is hard but it's also extremely rewarding. I look forward to my first real lead climbs.

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Don't forget, Montréal Python 8 is this Wednesday.

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I'm giving Gnome a try. I switched from Gnome to KDE around Mandrake 7.0, which is a long time ago. I always preferred how everything was working well together in KDE; with dcop to automate tasks and Konqueror's web-shortcuts, I had a very efficient desktop. Then came KDE 4.

KDE 4.0 lacked so many features that I switched back to KDE 3 instantly. KDE 4.1 had essentially most of that I needed but it was still kind of buggy and slow, but KDE 4.2 promised to fix all of that.

I don't know if it's KDE or Ubuntu who screwed up but Kubuntu 9.04 is simply unusable. It's way too slow for my EEE 1000HE and, the new KNetwork manager won't recall passwords and won't even tell you what access point it's trying to connect to when it prompts you out of nowhere for a new key. KDed randomly crash, I can't type a full path when I save-as in both Konqueror and KMail and worst of all, all applications are fill with garbage when you flip them with alt-tab.

Oh, and Amarok 2 sucks. Ok, that last one is easy to fix but I'm switching anyway.

I want to try something new and I want a fresh view of the other desktop environment. First contact is not smooth so far. As an example, gnome-terminal and metacity have many keyboard shortcuts that clash with Emacs basic navigation. Emacs come with bindings for a lot of shortcuts so it's expected that the desktop will clash on some obscure functionality that is not used too often, like kill-sexp, but clashing on forward-word is sure to break my pace. Jean helped me get started. Let's see how it goes.

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It's been a while since I last brewed beer but I'm finally at it again. As I write this, my apartment is filled with the aroma of fresh hops and barley. That smells always makes me incredibly thirsty; I can't drink any of it for a few weeks but I can write on the pleasure of brewing in the mean time.

Back when I did my last batch, I was a caffeine addicted young programmer, running on Penguin Mints and on dark chocolate. I was looking for something extravagant, something with a kick. I made two batch that summer: a coffee flavored stout and an green tea flavored red. When I say flavored, I really mean it: the stout contained one kilo of really dark and oily espresso coffee and the red was just as excessive but I unfortunately can't find the original recipe anymore. I'm certainly not the first to think of making a coffee flavored stout. Dieu du Ciel was serving one at the time, a 9% monster that was extremely strong on all senses of the term.

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A few months ago I acquired a pair of Beyerdynamics DT770 headphones. Since then I used them everyday at work to isolate myself into my little private bubble of serenity. Sure, I missed many episodes of office entertainment. People who wear headphones with less isolation remove then when people start screaming at each other so then can enjoy the show; with the DT770, I don't even notice that something is going on.

After a few months of using high quality headphones, I started to wonder how much of an upgrade I would get by switching to a more expensive pair. There is virtually no limit to the amount of money that one can spend on a pair of headphones. Either there is something to gain at every price bracket or it's just a status symbol. Considering that Skull Candy produces headphones that are a lot more sexy and a lot more affordable than DT-48, it seems safe to assume that the status symbol is not that important, though I will not pretend that it's not what many are looking for.

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