dial excitement to 11
One thing that Australia has gotten right (and Europe has still not) is banning smoking in enclosed spaces. It's been a long time since I've had to come home from somewhere and wash my hair and change my clothes because I smelt like a cigarette. I always forget just how anti-smoking Australia is (but I really do prefer it that way).

The closing party was good (the boat was better), but the beer cups were only half full.


Since the party was in Taksim, we figured we'd try and find one of the restaurants listed on HappyCow that were in the area. Murray had a desire for felafel, so we went to Felafel House. It was pretty tasty, but I'm not sure if Murray's Germans really knew what they were ordering.


who loves beer? luis loves beer!
It's good to see that bikeshedding and small-picture thinking is alive and well in the GNOME community. This was highlighted through Federico's keynote. Federico offered a very interesting big picture view of something he thought might work (they weren't new ideas, but they've certainly never appeared in a real desktop environment before) and then offered a few possible ideas for how this stuff might be implemented. It was interesting stuff. Although some people made some very valid points (many of which Federico agreed with) a lot of people seemed distracted with implementation details that hardly seem relevant at this point. Especially when they were things that could easily be changed. They were so hung up on details that had little bearing to the overarching idea or the majority of the code that would be required.


All in all, it's been a pretty awesome GUADEC. There has been a tiny language barrier, and the hotel and the university were a little further apart than one might plan for, but I (and it appears) have had a blast.