Rupert Goodwins' IDF Diary

Monday 22/08/2005 — Part III

There were all the right things said about standards (perhaps Intel has learned something from UWB, but then again it always says the right thing), some good technical stuff about multiple radios, and we were back on course. My initial misjudgement of the man was further underlined afterwards when I had a quick chat with him — he started off as a kid by building a ZX81 from a kit and saved up all summer for the 16k RAM pack. Only the best people do that.

But by now, my neurotransmitters were almost completely depleted and my concentration was as shaky as anything Sinclair Research built on a Friday afternoon. I won't say anything about the last speaker, who concentrated on sensor networks, except to say that at the moment he chose to illustrate a point with a picture of a sewerage system — "The brown thing is the pipe. The shiny thing is the sensor" — I finally lost it and typed "blibble, blibble, blibble" into the IM session I was having with a sympathetic friend back in London.

They responded with a tale they'd heard from a friend recently returned from abroad. As the plane took off, something shifted in the overhead locker and a bottle of gin broke. The friend and their three year old daughter were showered in the stuff, and couldn't move for the five minutes it took for the seatbelt signs to go off. Friendly passengers handed them a change of clothes, and a lemon…

As we staggered out of the briefing, I made a mental promise to emulate that hapless traveller just as soon as I could find a bar that offered such a service.