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Austin Python Users Group meeting tomorrow (May 14th) with guest speaker Greg Wilson

This month’s APUG meeting will feature guest speaker Greg Wilson, author of Beautiful Code, Data Crunching, Parallel Programming Using C++, Practical Parallel Programming, etc.

For more details, see: http://wiki.python.org/moin/AustinPythonUserGroup and http://python.meetup.com/188/.

Hope to see you there!

Tomatoes and peppers off to a good start

Last year was the first time I intentionally tried growing anything meant for eating, though it was limited to just a few herbs (oregano, mint, rosemary, etc.) This season, I thought I’d expand the gardening to include a small selection of more fruitful plants. I dropped by a neighborhood “community garden” plant sale and picked up a small variety of peppers and tomatoes.

After giving them a nice, sunny plot in the back yard (and a little water in the mornings), the whole batch has tripled in size and begun budding and/or flowering. Since I’m pretty much making up this “gardening” thing as I go, I’m assuming that this behavior is a good thing.

The shot below shows one of the Jalapeno plants that has started to bud:

Hazardous Waste Collection in Austin

This past Saturday, the City of Austin held a Hazardous Waste Collection Event at a north Austin high school. The demand was overwhelming — so much so, that hundreds of people (including myself) were stuck in traffic for several hours trying to drop-off old paint cans, automotive fluids, expired household chemicals, etc. The turnout was a great success — but the event was a planning disaster. Traffic backed-up for miles… cars sat idling for hours only to be eventually turned away at the 1pm cut-off time.

The only positive thing to come out of it (for me, at least), was learning about the Household Hazardous Waste Facility in South Austin:

Residents of the City of Austin and Travis County may bring up to 30 gallons of hazardous waste, generated in the home, to the Household Hazardous Waste Facility free of charge.

The facility is open Tuesdays and Wednesdays, 12 noon to 6 p.m, and the first Saturday of each month, 7 a.m. to 12 noon.

For more:

• Directions to Household Hazardous Waste Facility in South Austin
• http://www.austinrecycles.com (Austin Solid Waste Services)

[Update: 2008-05-07]
With my old paint cans still in boxes, I went down to the Household Hazardous Waste Facility this past Saturday morning. There were zero cars in line. It took no time at all.

2008 SXSW Wristband details up — it’s an online drawing this year

No mad rush to Waterloo this year at the whim of an SMS. This time around, SXSW Music Wristbands will be sold online via a drawing. See more details at http://wristbands.sxsw.com/

TechShop coming to Austin!

Just saw this last night, TechShop Austin is scheduled to open this summer (2008)! I haven’t had access to a decent shop in a few years. I can’t wait to play with all the toys a TechShop should have!

[Update: 2008-03-29]
Unfortunately, I just got word that TechShop Austin, and six other planned locations, have been delayed until 2009. It’s a bummer for Austin makers, but the schedule was a little too aggressive for the TechShop crew; instead, they’ll be focused on a new headquarters in Sunnyvale, and bringing up the Portland and Durham locations.

A sea of schwag-bags… (an early sight at SXSW 2007)

Snapped this today while picking up my registration badge for SXSW 2007 Interactive:

That’s a lot of bags! Might be a tad more crowded this year…

BarCamp Austin, Mar. 9th - 10th 2007

Just a reminder — BarCamp Austin 2007 is coming up, March 9th - 10th (during SXSW Interactive.) The event is currently planned to happen at Bourbon Rocks (Neches and 6th), but you’ll want to check the wiki the day before in case something changes.

The 2007 SXSW Music sampler torrent is up

For the past few years, the organizers of the SXSW Conference have posted large mp3 collections online to showcase the bands playing the event. The first batch of 2007 tracks went live this past weekend. It contains 739 mp3’s (weighing 3.1 GB.) You can find the torrent here: SXSW Toolbox.