WWDC, Day Three

Another day, another five sessions. Here’s some bullet point observations:

  • Seat Nazis: Each of the rooms where the sessions are held have a few room management personnel. This year they are very aggressive in urging you to sit in the front and move to the middle of the row. My co-worker, Dave, says, “I paid $1500 for these seats, bitch. I’ll sit where I want.”
  • Wireless access: This seems to be a problem every year, but you can always resort to the Ethernet hookup if you’re desperate for access. Mostly, though, I’ve been able to use wireless in sessions and during breaks.
  • Snacks: Cookies, brownies, candy bars, sodas, coffee, espresso, tea and Odwalla juice. No Krispy Kremes yet. Also, nothing healthy. (Update: Today it’s rice krispie treats and oranges.)
  • Snacks redux: The catering staff really sends the nerds into conniptions here with their inexplicable schedule. Yesterday we left a session after about halfway through and found the caterers putting out big trays of cookies. However, ten minutes before the session ended, they carted all these full trays of cookies away. When the rush of people came out after the session ended, no snacks remained. That kind of irregularity drives engineers crazy. Also, not having cookies drives them crazy.
  • Lunch: Today they had box lunches which was totally idiotic. I had to take two so I could get the maximum amount of salad and meat. That resulted in having to throw away two rolls, two carrot cakes and two fruit cups.
  • Lunch redux: They only provide Snapple Pink Lemonade and Brisk as lunch time beverages. This upsets the caffeine-hungry masses.
  • Women: There are more women here this year than I’ve ever seen at WWDC. Evidently, they let women be engineers now.
  • Outsourcing: Evidence of outsourcing is everywhere. There are many Indian and Asian attendees this year.

I’m taking the night off tonight to catch up on sleep.