Published by jon at July 24, 2005
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So much change going on right now!
I’m still trying to get more on top of my tasks for the Open Clip Art Library Roadmap. I pushed the items from the last release back slightly…
Ok, I’m moving now to San Francisco and plugging in. I’m heading to SD and Siggraph next WED and am kind of conferenced out to be honest, but am plugging on anyway.
I think NASA waited until this week to launch the space shuttle so that the NASA budget could go through last week. There would have been some changes if something had gone wrong with the shuttle pre-that budget passing, no doubt!
Published by jon at July 22, 2005
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Desktopcon/OLS really wore me out I guess. I just slept 11 hours straight.
I see Kees has posted about Groklaw mentioning Dvorak’s article and our response. I emailed my contacts at CC, but have also joined the CC lists. I think this has a paid off. 
Also, I have been tracking in my RSS reader the mentioning of Open Clip Art Library, Inkscape, and Jon Phillips through Technorati. It is quite useful for peeking into the current state of general discussion about these topics on blogs.
Published by jon at July 22, 2005
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Honestly, look at this image of the new Supreme Court Nominee and his family:
Check out how the wife and kids are wearing nostalgic clothes with this weird vibe of good ole values. Also, check out the wife wearing the pink church lady costume. Do people still dress like this? Also, when is the last time you saw the family being almost more of the focus, out front of the President’s podium! Rove and company rock this kind of thing, honestly.
I just got back from Ottawa and am exhausted!!! DDC ruled! Great to finally meet cworth, keithp, Jim Gettys, etc and meet new interesting folks like Dave Schleef. More tomorrow after I rest…
Published by jon at July 20, 2005
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Really, Canada is great! I really like Ottawa. The people have a great sense of humor. The girls and guys are dressed stylishly. I really can’t stand that whole bagging on Canadians that Americans do sometimes with jokes about “A” and “Sorry.”
Jim Gettys gave a nice high level overview of the problems with the “1″ problem in computers. For example, PC = personal computer, focusing on the individual user. His research at HP focuses on how to make computers more collaborative, etc.
Keith Packard’s talk also went quite well. He has a great presentaiton demeanor and tip my hat to him.
It would be cool if someone would setup a CafePress store for Inkscape and Open Clip Art Library like Keith Packard’s freedesktop.org one. What would be really cool is to get some shirts made so we could hand some out at conferences. I think better to give away rather than charge.
I want to write more papers!
Josh Andler from Inkscape has been studying ways that Inkscape can add better color selection inside Inkscape. By this I mean stylistic choices like:
I don’t like the music of Black Eyed Peas. I think its weak. But their lead singer is pretty but it appears as if she has had massive plastic surgery.
Published by jon at July 19, 2005
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Bryce and I are chilling at ols/ddc here in Ottawa. Bryce gave a great presentation on Inkscape and I gave one on the Open Clip Art Library. Afterwards we had dinner with Carl Worth, Keith Packard and other Cairo hackers.
It is cool to hang out with these guys. You develop some mythologies about well known hackers and then realize that they are normal guys that go down tangents just as bad as I do in conversation
Bryce and I talked about Aquatic Ape theory.
To all those people out there: you must speak at conferences. Inkscape and Open Clip Art Library are fairly well known these days, as Mental noted that Inkscape has been elevated to a bullet point on Novell’s new linux distro release!
If anyone wants help getting into writing, promoting, or getting published, hit me up!
Published by jon at July 17, 2005
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Well, seems that one avenue for funding for svgopen 2005 has just been denied! I dunno, I’m kind of discouraged from going. I’m going to shoot a barrage of emails trying to find some academic gigs and other things in the area to get me there, but if I can’t find anything by the end of the month, then maybe one of you OCAL’ers in the area could do the Introduction to the Open Clip Art Library presentation for me. Who lives closest? Tobias? Nicu?
I don’t think I’m going to focus on specific technical conferences like svgopen anymore. I think it is kind of like preaching to the choir. It would be a better use of time to go to places where SVG is a new concept and where people have not used Inkscape or the Open Clip Art Library. Also, it would probably be better to go to conferences that provide funding and focus on interesting ideas. Generally, the academic in me looks at anything one has to pay for as having to pay to get one’s work out there rather than earning a spot for discussing ideas because they are interesting. I’ve learned that many industry conferences charge a lot of money!!!
This has been a crazy week for me, so this time in Ottawa is going to be good to refocus and think about how excellent is Canada. I’m speaking at Desktop Developers’ Conference 2005 on Monday about the Open Clip Art Library. Molson time!
