Tuesday 5 December 2017

My first time to FOSDM 2017:

This was written earlier on Feb. however, I never had the time to finish it. lots have happened since then, and soon FOSDEM 2018 will be around. so here it is raw incomplete:

I have made it.  I have attended most of what I wanted to attend today, even though I came late, tired and was worried that I will catch a cold/flu that my fellow passenger had. My first flight to Dubai was delayed due to adverse weather conditions, heavy rains. Caused me lose my flight to Brussels, demanded that I need to be there as it was a crucial event for me. A moment to cherish in my life of open source fan.

So First I used the city mapper app for Brussels, and it recommends or uses ecab. ecab is useless, could not find me a suitable Taxi on time. So, switched to Uber, and voila, my ride was ready in a couple of minutes, dropped me near the info desk where I bought my FOSDEM 2017 shirt, not a hoodie, I had to go to another info desk, but there was no time the keynote is already starting on J


Lessons Learned:

Get Familiar with the university campus rooms, especially talks you want to attend if they are not in the same room.

Be in the room as early if possible, if the talk is really important, attend one talk earlier. I was so disappointed to miss the HPC talk, even though I was 30 mins earlier, there was already a queue, and the room was full. if I came to a talk earlier, I would have made it.

The general guest wifi connection is not that reliable, and my roaming restricting me to one telecom network, ensure that you have your favourite talks printed hardcopy, and which room. there was something about not buying a Belgium sim card unless you buy it 1 working day in advance as its data package will not be active straight away if you are thinking using a local data package.

Food as in snacks and drinks are almost everywhere.