Day 1 of the OFE Conference
I am not accustomed to turning left when I get on a plane and today was no exception. It is a nice white plane with orange trim, the orange OLPC XO would look right at home here, but as my XO is green and would clash with the plane I took the Asus EeePC out of the bag first (yes airport security were a bit surprised when I took three laptops out of my bag) first thing I notice is that the EeePC is totally at home on this plane and not just because it is Easy easy easy. This plane is the perfect size for me, if Stelios himself had come and measured my femur before deciding the seat positions he could not have made it a more snug fit. Even so, the EeePC still fits comfortably on my lap or on the tray with the screen tilted back so I can see it and the keyboard is forward enough that I can touch type.
I took a taxi to the hotel, which I later discovered was unneccessary. Public transport is free to visitors and there are buses from the airport to the hotels. When you get to the hotel you are given a bus pass which entitles you to free buses and apparently free yellow boats on Lake Geneva.
The OFE conference is being held at the CIGC conference centre, just down the road from the hotel, but before heading over there I took a stroll down to the lake to see the spectacular Jet d’eau, Geneva’s huge water feature. A lady from the Geneva tourist board gave us a little introduction to the area and she told us that Jet d’eau takes the water from the lake accelerates it to 200km/hour and it rises to a height of about 140m. The pumps draw about a megawatt of electricity so it isn’t the most green of displays, but it does look impressive.
The conference I am speaking at is the Open Forum Europe conference on “Standards and the Future of the Internet” but that isn’t the only thing going on here. The ISO/IEC Ballot Resolution Meeting is somewhere upstairs in the building and we met up with a bunch of the BRM delegates for a drinks reception after their day was over. They can’t talk about the details of the meeting, but they did seem to agree that the meeting was being conducted in a civilized and professional manner and Alex Brown the convener was doing a good job in difficult circumstances.
