Kiwi PyCon 2016, Pt I
Written by Barry Warsaw in technology on Mon 19 September 2016. Tags: python, travel,
In early September 2016 I traveled to New Zealand to give a keynote speech for Kiwi PyCon 2016. I was very honored to be invited, and glad that after 4 years of valiant resistance, I finally gave in to my thankfully diligent colleague Thomi Richards. My wife Jane and I made the 25+ hour journey, and had a wonderful little vacation after the conference.
Here in part I, I'll talk a bit about the conference and my keynote. Later in part II, I'll talk about the vacation part of the trip. I might sprinkle little impressions of New Zealand throughout both articles.
Getting there
In some ways, it's a good thing that New Zealand is so far from the USA, with an additional transcontinental trip away from the east coast. During our summer, it's their winter and they are 16 hours ahead of UTC-4. Meaning that at noon New York time, it's 4am the next day in New Zealand. Or, to put it another way, 8am New Zealand time is 4pm New York time the previous day. I never got tired of the joke with family back home that we were living in the future over there.
So it's definitely a commitment to get there, which makes it all the more breathtaking I think. In a way, New Zealand feels exotic because the first thing that most Americans probably think of when they hear "New Zealand" is the "Lord of the Rings" movies. But New Zealand is a high-tech country, with a low population (under 5 million people in total) concentrated in four major cities (Auckland, Christchurch, Dunedin, and Wellington), lots of sheep and some of the nicest people you'll meet in the English speaking world. They have a real sense of stewardship for their land and environment, as getting …