Go Michael!
Our friend Michael Everson was on a panel in Vancouver about international top level domain names. The session was being streamed live, so we got to watch some of it before going to sleep. (It started at 1pm there, which is 9pm in Ireland.)
The chair of the meeting wasn’t there, so fellow panel member Vint Cerf said he was going to cover for him for a moment. And then it happened:
Vint “father of the Internet” Cerf referred to Michael for his comment, and in doing so did it solely by Michael’s first name.
Holy cow! Major major geek points for being able to say you were on a panel with Vint Cerf, who called attention to you using your first name in a familiar fashion.
And he did it more than once! “I just want to queue up a question for Michael…” Later, he asked, “I have a question for Michael…” and mentioned three languages (my guess is Udu, Farzee, and Arabic) having similar scripts. If you take the union of those scripts, and set up a domain using that subset of scripts, would it help to divide by script? (We’re trying to find a good transcript of this exchange.)
But then the best was saved for later. At the last session, Michael queued up to offer a comment at the microphone. As can happen, he turned out to be the last person, in the last session, on the last day of meetings. He made his criticism of something proposed by a panel member, and when he finished he turned to go. Vint called out to Michael to please come back—he’d like to discuss the issue some more while still in session.
<beam>
Mondo-points!
