JavaOne madness begins

The madness of preparing for JavaOne has been getting into high gear. Despite the economy, so many fascinating things are happening in the Java world that it's not really possible to fit them all in.

One of the traditions has been the t-shirt toss. The hard question this year is how to toss them. I've done it a bunch of different ways, including a high-tech compressed air cannon. Oddly enough, the most effective has consistantly been a very simple three person slingshot made with surgical rubber tubing. It has awesome range. I've got an idea for this year that should be fun, if I can make it work. The hard part is getting the engineering right so that it has both reasonable range and it doesn't hit anything on the ceiling. Knocking off big stage lights and sending them plummeting into the audience wouldn't go over too well. But it's a surprise...

June 17, 2005