One thing is for sure.  I am not a conference person.  I generally don't go to conferences unless I am a speaker.  While I like visiting exhibits to see what people think they are doing, I prefer reading online to sitting in a room full of people and listening to canned speeches and staring at pretty slides.  I also don't like debates where arguments are mostly rehash of what has already been talked to death on mailing lists.  I do enjoy meeting old pals and new people in person but, most of the time, there is just no time to talk with them extensively at conferences.

Before Internet, I went to conferences get information and software not generally available.  But now, material given out at conferences are usually made available online.  There are even live transcripts of sessions.  At large conferences, I can't possibly sit in on all the tracks.  Online, I can scan through it all.  Furthermore, most conferences are non-conclusive.  What was the result of last Digital Identity conference other than a short flood of digital identify discussions and news online?  What about the last Supernova conference (sorry, Kevin)?  JavaOne?  XML conferences?

I obviously have a huge blindspot when it comes to conferences because people are still going to conferences, even those that costs thousands of dollars in registration, hotel, and airfare.  Reality can't be argued with.  Still, I need someone to tell me "For THIS and THAT, I am willing to pay $2000 and three days of my time because I can't get it elsewhere."  I can then smack my forehead and say "Ah Ha!"

Is it the magic of F2F or solid handshakes?  Is it the parties afterward and the Marilyn Monroe impersonator?  Is it the joy of hobnobbing on company's expense?   What ever it is, it must be something that current crop of social software, blogging, IM, ICQ, IRC, discussion forums, and mailing lists fails to address.

Well? 

Using Technorati, I found Adam Vandenberg linking to my Lotsa Strings post.  Interestingly enough, he confused me with Don Box.  Amused, I looked at his resume and found Crass, a 6502 cross assembler written in Python.  Boy, looking at those 6502 code sure brings back memories.  After 6502, working with 8088 was like wearing Dockers Mobile Pants: pockets everywhere.

Good insults are as memorable as good poems, definitely more entertaining, and arguably good for relieving stress.  In Korea, there was an old lady who improved her restaurant business by insulting her customers.  The customers like being insulted so much, they came from far away just to get insulted by her.

Here is a particularly nice string of insults from Tim Bray.  Say them out loud to enjoy it fully:

"They are the offspring of dogs without genitals and maggots fed only on the excreta of diseased lizards."

"May Bolivian drug lords seize their only daughter as hostages in a tense geopolitical drama."

"May their next cruise-ship vacation remembered for the simultaneous outbreak of Norwalk Virus, an crunching encounter with an uncharted reef, and a record-breaking series of Nor’wester gales."

"May ruthless investment bankers place their retirement savings in airline shares."

"A green, crapulent, morbid, fulminating, metastasizing pox upon them!"

Bravo, Tim, Bravo!  I wish newspapers would print good insults like they do cartoons.  We are ignoring a large chunk of culture and history here you know.  If you have good insults, send them my way.  I'll try to print a collection of them once a week as Sunday Insults.

Yup.  It's not a joke.  orbiTouch is a new kinds of keyboard and it has no keys, just two orbs that you move independently in eight directions.  You can read the full review at ExtremeTech or watch a short video clip showing it in action (use the demo button on the orbiTouch home page).

I think I'll wait until there is a Pamela Anderson model because, if I have to pay $695 for a keyboard, I want one that will make me grin like a Cheshire Cat as I type.