That the original one I bought has lasted this long is not only a testament to how well these things were built, but also a fortunate thing for me: in 1999, Microsoft changed the design such that the keys were smaller and the feel was very mushy.  I had been hoping to upgrade, but just 30 seconds on the new one and I took an instant dislike to it.

One of the three stopped working some time ago, and this one is showing signs of wear: some of the keys are just sitting loose after several disassembles for cleaning, and some keys aren’t contacting as well as they should be (a well-used and worn shift key chief among them), so I’m finally taking the plunge.  This is fuelled by a couple of things: first, I’m starting to find other keyboards that I like (despite what it looks like, the new thin Apple Mac keyboard is quite nice), and switching back and forth is a still a little jarring. Second, the connector is still the PS/2-style and computers with those ports are getting rarer to find; I’d rather adjust now before being forced into it. I’m not going too far though: I’ve chosen the Logitech Desktop Wave. Even though the two halves of the keyboard aren’t physically separate, the keyboard is still curved, which I think (hope) is the main reason I like the Natural (I’m a little fearful that part of the reason for my affinity to the Natural *was* the physical split, but like all things, it’s probably just a matter of getting used to it).

One last note: the upper right-hand side of my Natural has an interesting feature: a “linux inside” “sticker” (ok, not a sticker, it’s stuck on there with 16-year-old scotch tape).  Around the same time I got the keyboard, my friend and mentor PJ had come across a postscript file with nice renderings of “linux inside” done in the style of Intel’s “intel inside” logo that they were using.  The keyboard had, of course, the Microsoft name stencilled in the upper corner, and we couldn’t have *that*, so I seized the opportunity.  I think I might miss that as much as the actual keyboard!  Oh, one other thing I will miss: the look on most people’s faces when they come to my office to change their passwords, look down at my keyboard, and realize they’re going to have to try to type on this thing! I’ve had several comments over the years although everyone seems to manage ok.

I’ll probably follow this post up at some point with an update on how things are going, especially as the new keyboard has a bunch of special keys and controls on it, so it might be interesting trying to get this to work on Linux, but I’m thinking I may be pleasantly surprised…we’ll see.

The (from what I can tell, substantiated) rumour from the first Ironman movie was that they didn’t really have a script; they made it up as they went along, and that worked out very well for them. Too well, because it appeared that they attempted to do the same again, and in the absence of a compelling origin story, just didn’t have enough plot to sustain the movie.

I do have to say that I enjoyed the movie overall – I don’t think I had any expectations beyond the shiny technological eye-candy and big summer-movie explosions, so I went in with my brain turned off. This was apparently the correct approach, because I looked over at my wife while the credits were rolling and we were waiting for the end scene (we are those few that actually stay and read the credits anyway, but if you’re in the other camp, you’ll want to hang out until the credits are done (remember the after-the-credits scene from the first one? (hmmm, is this review getting too parenthetical?))) and she had a slight frown on her face and she shook her head slightly…a clear indication of too much thinking during the movie – not always a bad thing, except in summer popcorn movies, and especially in sequels of said movies.

The main problem with the movie was that the plot complications were too easily solved – you never felt that there was anything big at stake – and the obligatory scenes of Tony Stark building something just didn’t come close to the original building of the suit in the first movie. I did feel that the ending of the first movie lacked something with the whole the-weakened-hero-wins-anyway, so I was glad to see they didn’t fall into any traps of repeating themselves here, but it did seem a little too easy. Oh, and three words: “convenient unmentioned upgrades”.

A quick word too about the tech: there was some seriously cool stuff in here (Tony’s PDA during the senate hearing scene), but in the first movie, JARVIS and the UI he had in his house for R&D, etc seemed believable: you could see some of that becoming reality sometime soon. The interface he used where his motions manipulated a 3D projection was pretty fantastical, but stuff like that is coming, and they helped it to be believable by limiting it to a particular work area. In this one, the projections filled the room but were still easily manipulated. And for me it wasn’t that something like that couldn’t ever exist, or that my suspension of disbelief just couldn’t deal, it was more as if they didn’t really put any thought beforehand into how the system worked. It was as though the director said what he wanted, the CG team came up with something cool, and then they told the actor what to do so it didn’t look completely silly (oh so close!).

Overall a fun ride, but definitely summer popcorn movie: turn your brain off and just go for the eye-candy. With that trip to the theater now costing $21 for two tickets, this was one for which I could have happily waited for the DVD.

Anyway, I wish I could claim that big life events from the past 6 months or so were being expressed in those chunks of 140 characters or less, but things have been pretty quiet. Oh, not to say *nothing* has happened, but nothing I’d bore the couple of people who might have forgotten to remove this blog’s feed from their RSS reader with.

Don’t despair, however: as is wont to happen, I occasionally have something to say, and I’ve got a few things running around in my head. I’ll do my best to expand those beyond 140 character chunks and attempt to make them resemble English (with real sentence structure, and everything!). At least to the point where both of you will reconsider removing that RSS feed…

All you bloggers/tweeters out there who can post everything from significant events to the ingredients list of your last (current?) meal, my hat’s off to you. I’m just not that kind of person, I guess.

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The day started with the traditional welcome and keynotes, which were given by good speakers, but speaker or group agendas seemed to be in the forefront. Tim O’Reilly, who I always like to hear speak, introduced “Open Source for America”, a group wanting to raise awareness of open source in the U.S. federal government, and Dirk Hohndel from Intel spoke about netbooks in the context of Moblin becoming the OS of choice. This was interesting to me, because I first heard of Moblin last year at OSCON, but haven’t seen much about it in the intervening year, but just have this gut feeling that when ChromeOS is released, it will be everywhere. Why is that?

The highlight of the keynotes was Michael Lopp opening a sealed box of Borland’s Paradox for Windows that he’s had for 15+ years as part of his “A Brief History of Software” talk. Fun Stuff.

The day’s sessions were punctuated with the Expo Hall, which is where the break was after the keynotes. Although it feels like there’s more here this year, things seemed very crowded and close-quartered, and after the completion of the “Passport Contest” (an annual event where you get stickers from all the major booths, completing a card that you hand in for a drawing for some good prizes – I won a secondary prize last year: a stack of 15 or so O’Reilly books – so worth doing!), you were left with the feeling that you hadn’t really seen much. I hope to make the rounds again and prove that wrong (oh, and don’t get me wrong, I talked to some people about some cool-sounding things I’m going to try out!).

The sessions I chose for the day included 2 on web design aspects (interesting, but hard to have absorbed everything – hopefully the speakers post the slides), 2 on the open source stats package “R”, and a couple on the future of storage and “The Genius Programmer Myth”, a fun talk given by a couple of Google guys on team programming and the mechanics of that.

Lunch, provided by Google, was a combination of an excellent selection of seafood and other things, and some light conversation with people we didn’t know, which can be interesting.

The day concluded with an Expo Hall reception (does all convention center catering offer the same menu? Good though!), and a couple of parties thrown by Sun and LinuxFund.

In all, the consensus seems to be that we miss Portland, the conference center, while adequate, seems spread out and a little run-down, and in the end, there doesn’t seem to be as many people here (perhaps a result of the economy), and a large group of those that are seem to be locals and first-timers. On the positive side, the people here are always interesting, there’s always gems of things you find, at random most of the time, in the speakers, the talks, the expo hall and overheard conversations, that make OSCON enjoyable and worth coming out for.

The conference proper kicked off in the evening with a couple of events: the “OSCON Ignite” quick-talks (each of the 10 speakers got 5 minutes with 20 slides that advanced “automatically” every 15 seconds), which was great fun, and the Google/O’Reilly Open Source Awards.

In all, the first two days of tutorials where very good this year, with some good speakers, and some good, applicable information. Now we can concentrate on the rest of the week, which is looking fantastic: from the sessions to the exhibit hall to the parties in the evenings, it’s looking like it’s going to be a great conference!