Toys, Cells & JAVA

Last day. Thanks. Not that these talks aren't good (well there were some sleepers) but I want some time to digress and try out some of the cool stuff we've seen. And I miss home.

So, we shuffled along the 5 blocks from the hotel to Moscone this morning to see the "Toy Show" by daddy James Gosling. Let's see, what were the toys:

• Dtrace: dive into the inner, inner workings of your code at runtime. Right through the stack trace of Java class calls and down into the interrupts. Cool, but only works on Solaris right now.
• Some cool, but really lame virtual reality stuff. All out remote employees hooking up in this 'Wonderland'. Okay, it is cool, but it was cool back in the 'virtual reality' days, and we all know how that really took off.... anyway, hope I will eat my words on this b/c it would be cool... imagine stepping through your code, no not with +F6, with your feet man. Nice.
• They had some Java mini-robots, I guess they we're supposed to be the roadies from the mini-KISS band from the night before. Yeah, mini-KISS :)
• Some other Java 3-D remote controlled helicopter, a group of college students and their robot submarine. Neat, and kudos to them. I was yawning...

So we split, and finally got out of the 4^2 block JAVA infested area we'd been trapped in since Sunday and grabbed a cab down to Pier 33. That's where you catch the ferry to, yeah, Alcatraz. Go there. You get hooked with this sweet audio tour of the prison block. And it's not just some stiff 60's National geographic dude, this is a real production by an actual prison guard, complete with special effects and all. But, I won't spill any beans. If you have the chance, go there.

And then, keep walkin' down the road to Fisherman's Warf. Fairly touristy, but we lucked out on a nice crab place for lunch.

We walked those crabs off, heading back into town up Columbus Ave. And within a few blocks stumbled upon Lombard street. Had to see this, the crazy curvy street I'd seen a million times on tv. Three blocks away, or so my map said. (Hey map dudes, how about giving us some topo!) I stopped to get out our grappling hooks and spikes to tackle the mount... worth the elevational trek.

Back down to Columbus, we rolled that to around Grant and headed into Chinatown. Picked up some great stuff for the good ones back home, and hoofed it back to the Nikko.

Even though we took a breather this afternoon, JavaOne is great. First hand input to the entire scene. I will be posting ~30 presentations on the QD network asap.

Night.