OSS Watch held the first Community Workshop for JISC projects in St Hugh’s College. The main focus was on open communities, how to build them and what benefits they provide.
Archive for the ‘dignifying man’ Category
OSS Impact International Workshop in Brussels
Tuesday, November 28th, 2006The OSS Impact International Workshop presented the results of the OSS Impact Study (yet to be published). This study addresses several issues related to Public Administrations developing and releasing open source software, specially in the context of the EU and the yet to be released European Union Public Licence (EUPL).
I was taking notes at the conference, and carrying my camera. Suddenly a guy said with a knowing smile:
Guy: I have noticed that you are a journalist…
Me: Um, sorry, I’m not.
G: [Disappointed.] Why?
After the conference I had a couple of hours to roam the city and have moules marinière, pommes frites and house beer at Chez Léon. Great service, good quality and cheap, and right next to the Grand Place.
First day at OSS Watch
Monday, October 16th, 2006As of today I have started working part-time for OSS Watch as Development Officer. The goal of OSS Watch is to
[promote] awareness and understanding of the legal, social, technical and economic issues that arise when educational institutions engage with free and open source software. It does this by providing unbiased advice and guidance to UK higher and further education.
Poster session and farewell to Mengxing
Friday, September 22nd, 2006DPhil students now have to present a poster in the Department at the end of their second year. Posters are placed in the atrium of the IEB, and it’s a quite popular event. Cynics may note that having free food in a grad student setting doesn’t hurt attendance, but in fact it’s interesting to see what other people are doing too.
For example, Alistair Hann, who lives in the same building but in a different lab, is doing research in how to combine different physiological variables that are monitored in intensive care for early detection of cardiac deterioration.
I have also been working on how to combine clinical variables to assess cardiac viability, but in a completely different way. (By this I mean that his seems to work).
WMVL people then proceeded to the Royal Oak to say farewell to Mengxing, who is going to work in London. If there’s something that this University doesn’t tolerate, that’s window smashing. 
Outdoor activities
Tuesday, September 19th, 2006Second day at the UK GRAD school. Team Q is being consolidated. We spent the morning being skeptical about the Myers Briggs Personality test, and the afternoon doing teamwork stuff outdoors.
We had to cross an electrified field, transfer nuclear material in a diaster area (1st photo), cross a river using planks (2nd photo), repair a teleport system (3rd photo) and build a catapult.
As somebody said, ‘You can only be young once but you can be immature forever’.
Developing my skills
Monday, September 18th, 2006A requirement for EPSRC funded students is to attend a UK Grad School. I signed up for the Oxford Local GRADschool, that runs from 18th to 20th September.
I am going to spend 3 days (3!) away from the lab learning about Personal Effectiveness, Communication Skills, Networking and Teamworking and Career Management.
Our “Facilitator of the Experience” (not Team Manager) gave us our first task:
Facilitator: You have 35 minutes to design, build and market a product using the contents of this plastic bag. Be creative, find a gap in the market, and keep it simple.
We started brainstorming.
Lady: I know! We could make a car, but that drives into space.
Ramón: [looking at plastic bag, looking at her] Do you want to build a space shuttle?
Lady: [confused] Er, no, I mean, not in space-space, it’s like a car that drives in the air.
Ramón: An airplane?
In the end we made a stick with a plastic cup at the end and a lid to catch spiders.