Skycon
by Tommy
Yesterday, I popped down to Skycon down in UL’s computer society yesterday (after going to reception and not being able to locate it). Met with Livies and also with Kla and Lexia. Chatted for a while and then went in to see Randall Munroe, of XKCD fame, give his keynote.
I caught the last bit of the talk before his, and the place was maybe 65% full. In the time between the end of the previous talk and the beginning of XKCD, the extra 35% got filled as people slowly filed in.
I have loads of pics, so they’re all small. Click on them for full sized versions
Described as ‘the only time that venn diagrams have ever been useful’, Randall showed us one of the British Isles
Randall is a great fan of both flow charts and Hulu, where he watches The Daily Show and The Colbert Report. However, Hulu is infamously only available in the USA
Showing us his robot game. He used to work with robots in NASA. When I learned where he worked, I asked him was it like in the Bond films where the space shuttle is about to be swallowed and they’re all in a big control room and the astronaut says “Hueston, we have a problem”. He laughed and replied, “nah, more like “Hueston, can you build us a robot that runs in walls?”
Talking about IPv6 address space
Very kindly, Randall agreed to make a stick version of the Skynet logo (Skynet is the computer society of UL, who organized the day)
Completed version
The cake we presented to Randall as thanks. Best of all, it didn’t have chocolate!
*
After the talk finished up, we mingled in the lobby area as Munroe signed stuff for people who waited in line. After that, buses arrived and we were ferried to the Kilmurrey Lodge Hotel for din dins. We started off in the bar* where the ‘Lightening Talks’ were meant to happen, but didn’t. I played on an iPod touch the whole time, almost. Tower Defence and Drumming apps FTW!
Dinner was cool. That was the nicest soup ever. Ever.
* I know what you’re thinking, and no, I didn’t drink any beer. I had one Sprite, but that’s it! It even got inspected by Liv to make sure no tomfoolery had occured. Never mind, I’ll get my Tiger Beer next Saturday at the Irish Blog Awards!! :P
Randall Munroe is a cartoonist from the USA who maintains a self-sufficient comic strip on the net called XKCD every Monday, Wednesday and Friday.
Alexia has some cool Qiks from the night too