NCSS Over and Out

NCSS
This year NCSS ran from Saturday 5th January to Sunday 13th January - and I was lucky enough to be invited back as a returner. Amongst the highlights were Crypto Challenge, the Programming Challenge (where I worked with a lady employed at Google), Google site visits and Atlassian site visits, amongst a million other things.

The most shocking thing is just how rapidly the days flew past. This year we were given an extra two days, yet of all things it felt shorter than that of last year's NCSS.

Other things needing notes...

The Final Countdown
The NLP Song ("He saw the girl on the hill with the telescope... Telescope, telescope, telescope! Time flies like an arrow, I may-aid her duck") - notice the emphasis on MADE? It's a MINIM people!
Random seeds from Microsoft
Excessive NDAs from Google
Game after game of Bartok and Zah Butsah

Towards the end we finally got our version of Youth Off The Streets up and going - a bit of a struggle due to a few issues which were sorted out only the night before the presentation. Sadly I didn't get a chance to implement my collocation based search suggestion due mainly to the fact I was in damage control mode for the website fighting just to get basic functionality up. Nonetheless, the result that came out looked quite impressive - here's a screenshot with my chat client in action.

Nonetheless, just as last year it was a stunning week - many close friends old and new. Thanks to all those who made it happen ^_^

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I was going to write more, but I realised it's nearly a month after I left NCSS - and that's time enough =]
Smerity