Kevin's Weblog

Just completed registration for OSCON. Towards the end, the form sure gets nosy. Observations:

• Apparently “I just work here” isn’t in their conceived of job positions. I went with “Staff”.
• The list of industries is also a little odd, as there is nothing that screams “software shop” to me. I went with “Manufacturing/Design (IT/OEM)”.
• It’s kinda fun to click the “we are big, we spend lots of money” buttons
• I wonder if most companies are really comfortable just telling whoever what sort of software and hardware purchases they are planning. I went with “No planned purchases”, partly on the idea that maybe they mean me, personally.

Apparently there is some code reuse going on at O’Reilly, since you can enter a credit card expiration date of 2003.

I’m not really sure why we have travel agents. Because I’m staying a few extra days on each end, I edged over the limit for the conference rate on the hotel. However, our travel desk tried to tell me that the hotel was sold out. A quick call to the hotel set that straight, though. It just bugs me that I have to be the one to make that call and figure it out, given that I’m required by corporate policy to use the travel agency.

Just check out this exchange:

...

ASHCROFT: I'm not in a position to answer that question.

LEAHY: Does that mean because you don't know or you don't want to answer? I don't understand.

ASHCROFT: The answer to that question is yes.

Only a programmer could give that answer.

Or a big huge weasel of a lawyer.