Before I forget - the other cool thing about the LPI exam event was that I got to see a print copy of the preview of the Tectonic magazine. A thing of beauty, in terms of layout and in terms of potential, and I can only wish Alastair and Philip well with their opening edition coming soon.

While I was in Johannesburg, Jaco took me to Cilantro, which is in 4th Avenue Parkhurst, having heard that the vegetarian options are wonderful (how considerate of him). Truly, I don't think I've eaten so well out in years. I had their mezzeteranian, which included aubergine, sweet peppers, haloumi, cous-cous, and other vegetarian delicacies prepared and served just right. And I hate to admit that Jaco's steak looked heavenly. A bit on the expensive side - the equally-heavenly traditional tiramisu was R40, my main was quite decent at R60, but Jaco's was closer to R100. But I guess this is Johannesburg, eh?

Well, I was one of the 200 or so people writing LPI exams today in Johannesburg. Between those 200 people, over 300 exams were written. My contribution was originally to be two exams, but the organiser convinced me to try three.

Jeremy's department needed an online lecture and tutorial registration system, so I pseudo-volunteered by suggesting Tomcat and Java were a bit overkill. Anyway, I discovered a rather sickening SQL trick...

Might as well try to start up again. My absence is not entirely unrelated to new work environment. I'm having quite a time learning, relearning, or updating my knowledge of libraries and methodologies. Trying to normalise my sleeping patterns; my eyes are acting up, and I'm hoping it's not the start of me needing glasses. Oh well, another reason to go into facilitation and management...

Woo, after five public release candidates, KnowledgeTree 2.0.0 is out. It's been a great experience over the past three months working with the community, integrating patches and new functionality, and working on bug reports and feature requests. It's really fun! I wish it were what I'll be doing for the next three months, but I'll be focusing on other aspects of KnowledgeTree at Jam.

I noticed the early-bird period for PyCon pass, and wondered whether $75 would change the chances of my being able to attend. So I figured out how much it would cost...

International travel flights are always a killer, I suppose. Especially when you live in one of the farthest-away-from-the-developed-world countries. To the point where it often outweighs hotel bills to stay extra long for weird air flight bonuses.

23rd-25th March would optimally have me arrive sometime in the afternoon on the 22nd in DC, and leaving sometime after 10am on the 26th. That would cost R12000 ($1950 or so).

Accomodation is from $22 (hostel) to about $100 (single room at a hotel) a night. Four nights - $88 (R545) to $400 (R2480).

Travel on the metro, $32.50 (R200).

Conference fee: $250 (R1550).

So, excluding dinners and so forth, R14295 ($2300) to R16230 ($2620) for going just for the conference. If I try go for the sprints, it's R14800 ($2387) to R18090 ($2920). Definitely worth it to stay for the extra days if you're staying in the hostel...

$75 in $2387 is hardly worth worrying about. Even less so in $2920...

It's ridiculous for a South African to go to one of these conferences - well, at least a South African that earns what I do. Not the conference's fault at all - just the relative earning power and airfares. That's more than half a year's scrounging! I'm sure it's worth it, though. Makes me wonder at how much BSDi was going to end up paying to bring me over for FreeBSDCon.

Oh yes, I suppose there's the fact I have this "Entry denied" from the US consulate in Cape Town when I was going to talk at FreeBSDCon (4 years ago, was it?). I doubt they'll just gloss over that...

I miss Quixote's object-publisher feel in Webware. I'm beginning to dislike the amount of work I need to do to discover the path that was used to get to my page/servlet. Anyway, since I found Rails' entity URL interface better than mine, I decided I'd steal it.