jcole’s weblog

Yesterday, Adrienne, Renato Golin from Yahoo! Brazil, and I went to Dream Machines in Half Moon Bay, and then drove down the coast a bit to Pebble Beach and on for lunch at San Gregorio Beach.

Last night, Adrienne and I went to see Whose Line Is It Anyway: An Evening with Colin Mochrie and Brad Sherwood at the Flint Center in Cupertino.

At the end, they did a thing where they walked around, blindfolded and barefoot with one hundred live mousetraps on the stage. Funny stuff.

Excellent show!

I snapped this picture of Kaliya Hamlin from SpikeSource at the MySQL User Conference. I don’t think I’ve seen quite so many stickers on a single laptop… she obviously loves Open Source.

That’s one of the things I like about Open Source… many people involved in it don’t just use it, they love it.

I noticed recently on Gmail that the login page has changed ever-so-slightly. They are now officially calling the Gmail login a “Google Account”, and it works for more than just Gmail. There is currently a small list of services usable with a Google Account.

We live in interesting times…

Yesterday, at the MySQL User Conference 2005, I hosted a Birds of a Feather session on MySQL and GIS. I spoke with a couple of guys from Trakm8, a company from Dorset, England. They have a very fascinating system built on top of MySQL’s GIS support and some of their custom tracking devices. They showed me their software and we discussed their platform. I gave them some (hopefully useful) tips regarding MySQL.

Their system includes an embedded PC, a GPS, and a GPRS modem (cell phone), and given some power is able to track a vehicle (or anything else) anywhere within coverage of the cell network. This is exactly the kind of people and projects/products I was hoping to get at my BoF session. As an aside, there’s a funny BBC story on Trakm8 that’s definitely worth a read and a chuckle. Awesome work guys, and good luck!

Today we drove up Mt. Hamilton to Lick Observatory, which was incredibly cool. There are around 10 telescopes at the top of the mountain, the largest of which is a 120-inch reflecting telescope. They have a bunch of summer programs and concerts and such at the observatory, which Adrienne and I will definitely attend.

After visiting the telescope, we drove over the Diablo Range mountains out to Interstate 5 and back home through Gilroy. Through the Diablo Range there are some incredible hills and rocks and valleys. There were quite a few places for sale, and Adrienne and I spotted one that was 314 acres for $444,000 … amazing. (No, we didn’t really buy it… yet, mwaahaha!)

It seems like India’s entire tourism business is aimed towards what I’ll call “checklist tourists” — people that go places and are only interested in “seeing” the place and taking one picture to prove they were there. I am not one of those people.

When I visit a place, I want to feel the place, to explore it at my own pace, to see the locals and their customs. I want to take pictures of the soul of the place. Whether that’s random pictures of monkeys, macros of flowers, pictures of a road… it doesn’t matter. I am not that interested in taking the same picture you can buy on a two cent postcard. I want to be original.

Normally when I go to a country, I try not to look like a tourist. I try to blend in, to feel the culture, to be part of the culture. It’s (obviously) a bit harder in India than in Europe, but I try anyway. India’s tourism business is tailored towards pushing as many Americans as possible through the checklist. “Come here, see this.”, “Come come..”, they are always rushing you, always leading you, not going with you. That is not my style.

I am not a checklist tourist.

I went to Mysore and Hassan over the weekend. Very cool stuff. Indians drive completely insane.

Many many many people try to sell you things if you look like a tourist in India. I’ve lost track of the number of times I’ve said “No Thanks”. I’ll put the pictures online when I get home.

On another note, paper cups in India tend to be leaky. I’ve had two today that drip from the bottom seal. Ramesh had one at lunch that squirted.