Bobulate

In spring I tend to write sentimental bits, like this one. I’ve spent the past two weeks mostly in the vegetable garden, fostering new life — potatoes, carrots and beans — and tearing out unwanted plants — stinging nettles and crab grass. There must be a metaphor for software development there somewhere. It’s a matter of out with the old and in with the new.

This spring brings renewed determination to do something with the garden; that’s both on my part and on the part of the other people with whom I keep it. I think there’s a realization that the discipline of maintaining the vegetable plots does us (nerd, philosopher, teachers of dutch and mathematics) all good. It gets me away from the computer, anyway, and hoeing is one way of cleansing the spirit.

Related, I am happy to see that Henrik Sandklef has regained his footing: Restarting life sounds pretty drastic. Catching up on the todo list is sometimes good — and sometimes you have to throw out the list and start over. I’m glad FSCONS is still on Henrik’s list, because that was probably the event that made the biggest impression on me last year, for being eclectic and social and technical and drunken and excellent all at once.

So, stay balanced. Create Free Software.

[ Maybe I really mean Talk Like a Pirate Day ] This year’s Software Freedom Day saw me weeding the garden, pulling up spent corn stalks and cursing the stinging nettles. So I hope they had fun in Barcelona and Amsterdam; I see Jos was a speaker at the latter, so let’s assume (KDE bias here) that it was so. There are some pictures from Irina linked, looks like a nice broad selection of Free Software people from the Netherlands. Checking out the interactive map, I see that there were even four SFD events in the Netherlands. Whodathunk. Better put it in my calendar for next year — and deal with the weeds in the garden earlier.