atomicbird

Twitter has kind of sucked away my blogging energy for a while, but I had to come back tonight. I'm at WWDC 2009 and tonight was Stump the Experts, one of my personal WWDC highlights. For the past couple of years I've been unable to walk away with any prizes. This year that changed, while I had fun I'm not sure it would be fair to say that I "won". It's kind of a long story.

Two years ago I wrote up a long review of stump the experts 2007. Nearly a year after posting it someone left a cryptic, anonymous comment saying that I should go up to the mike at stump 2008 and say something. The comment's there but I edited it slightly so that nobody else would know what it was I was supposed to be saying.

So I did. Or tried to, but they ran out of time before I got the chance. After the event I went up to Fred Huxham (one of the event hosts) and asked him about it. He referred me to Mark Harlan (the other host), who laughed about it but didn't explain, and told me to try again the following year.

Mark and Fred in 2007That was tonight, and this time I made sure to get up to the front of the line in time. After some minor dispute about whether I was a year late, Mark called me aside to discuss things. He remembered leaving the message but not why. It came down to a picture I had taken in 2007 and included in my writeup. After looking at it I added "Now tell me: Is Mark secretly the PC in the "I'm a Mac" ads? I'm just sayin...".

Mark took exception and ranted a little, but that was OK. Then he offered me a stump T-shirt if I'd admit that I had actually said that, and wanted to win a shirt that way. I did! But click the picture to zoom in and see what you think.

Random other highlights:

• The first speed question. Someone had posted on Twitter that they had the perfect question for the experts, but they'd probably get it in two seconds anyway. So it was decided that the experts would have two seconds to answer. They did answer, but not in two seconds, scoring a point for the audience.
• One question from the audience was "What was the worst Mac?" I thought they might argue the question for being too subjective or something. Instead many of the experts got into a long discussion of the question among themselves, to the point that many didn't notice new questions being asked. Mark described the question as a social denial of service attack, effectively neutralizing the experts for a while. The agreed-upon answer was the Mac IIvi for, among other things, drawing blood when attempting to upgrade RAM.
• Someone from the audience asked "how is babby formed?", spelled just like it is here. I don't know what the deal is with this question, but Google's currently showing close to 80,000 pages containing the phrase. The answer, according to Wolfram Alpha is that a stork delivers them.

Mark and FredDespite much bravado about Stump the Experts, last night my winning streak ended. At WWDC 2007, experts stump YOU! Well me anyway. I paid extra close attention to all the songs but couldn't identify any of them. That means I can only wear three Stump hats at a time, and can't add a T-shirt to the ensemble.

Incidentally, take a look at that picture of Mark and Fred. Study it for a minute and then come back.

Back? Now tell me: Is Mark secretly the PC in the "I'm a Mac" ads? I'm just sayin...

Questions from the ExpertsIt was the usual fun event though. This year the usual Mac trivia questions were supplemented by videos of Stump the Experts dating from the mid-1990s. Those who could tell what year a video was from won prizes. Incidentally for those who might wonder, the questions the experts posed are shown in the adjacent picture. In addition, one of Fred's kids posed the question "What word starts with an 'f' and ends with an 'uck'?" (answer: "firetruck").

Some highlights included:
Experts Gallery

• Mark getting into a dispute with the audience over where, exactly, Hello Kitty lives. Someone guessed Tokyo and Mark corrected him, saying "London". A third person disputed that (apparently Ms. Kitty lives 20km from London). Mark considered that since this was within atomic bomb or zombie radius of London it was close enough.
• A Swiss developer whose name I unfortunately don't know has earned a reputation at Stump for giving long answers that confuse Fred and Mark. this year they pressed him into service as the scorekeeper in the hopes of keeping him mostly quiet. It didn't work, though.
• Mark presented a small can of pork brains in gravy and offered special prizes to anyone who would eat it, but only if they had a spork to eat with. Mostly Mark wondered if anyone would eat something where one serving has over 1000% of the recommended daily limit on cholesterol intake. Incidentally he promised to bring it back next year, so if you go and you can stomach the possibility, fame and fortune could be yours for the rest of your no-doubt-short life.
• When one audience member shouted that a question was too easy, he was brought on stage and made to give his answer just before the experts' answer. He was not correct.
• One developer had in a previous Stump admitted to having lost $3000 playing online poker, and was given a copy of Mark's how-to book on the subject. This year he returned to tell Mark that the book had kind of sucked and to ask for a copy of the latest edition.

Tonight's big event for me is the CocoaHeads meeting at the nearby Apple Store. I've also got a ticket to the Delicious Generation party ("I've got a golden ticket...") but won't be able to make it until after CocoaHeads ends.

Buzz AndersenWhat with the Keynote review I completely forgot to mention Buzz Andersen's annual WWDC party last night. Buzz described it as a last-minute effort but that only goes to show he knows how to get things together quickly. As with the SFMacIndie event this was at 111 Minna Gallery. A grand time seemed to be had by all.

Some of us showed up way too early but for some reason time confusion was the order of the day. Apple's published schedules directly contradicted each other, leading to people leaving one session early to make a different one that they didn't know wasn't starting yet.

Tacos SantanaFood was provided by Tacos Santana, and paid for by the party sponsors. How cool is that?

Today I went to the session on developing web sites for the iPhone. But of course I can't really talk about that here.

Speaking of food, the follies continue. Today I wanted to find a decent Mexican restaurant nearby, and after some searching decided on La Laguna Taqueria (formerly El Balazo). Several of us went over. I should have taken the formerly part of that as a hint, because as of today at least it's formerly La Laguna, and now a boarded up empty building. Between this and last year's failed trip to Zeitgeist I think my WWDC restaurant-picking privileges may have been revoked. Fortunately Mel's Drive-In is also nearby so we had burgers instead.

So anyway, if you happen to know a decent Mexican restaurant near the Moscone center in San Francisco, and if you're reading this on or before June 15 2007, leave a comment or send me an email about it, OK? I do know about Maya but something a little less expensive would be nice.

Stump the Experts hat 2005This afternoon, more technical sessions, the Apple Design Awards, and Stump the Experts. STUMP THE EXPERTS! I've won hats and assorted other prizes there three years in a row now, owing not so much to my mastery of Mac trivia as to what Jon Wight calls my rainman-like memory for music (at least the kind that Fred Huxham plays). Stay tuned and see if I continue my streak.