Two computer-related dreams

Suprisingly, I don’t often have computer-related dreams, but last night I had two.

I held some post in a computer-related organization (similar to Usenix), which involved being responsible for maintaining an API. At the meetings and events, other members started acting strangely around me, even some of my friends. I couldn’t get anyone to tell me what was going on. Finally I cornered an acquaintance. He reluctantly explained that everyone thought that a some other API was better. Apparently they thought that they would hurt my feelings if they told me that. I was much more unhappy that everyone was discussing and working on this behind my back, and would have preferred that they just tell me outright. I resigned the position.

I was on a road trip with a bunch of friends; all of us were members of the 6502 Group. We were passing through Oklahoma one evening, and some of my friends wanted to stop at a university and use some kind of laser scanner they had in one of the classrooms in the CS department, which was housed in the Peter J.R. Boyle CS building, named after the late Peter Boyle who was a 6502 Group member and invented the XPL0 programinng language.

There was a class lecture in progress, so we waited until it broke up at around 9:30 PM. As the students left, we entered and started to set up to use the scanner. I was taking some photographs of the building. Someone from campus security asked us whether we had a permit, and since we didn’t, I tried to find a CS professor who might be willing to vouch for us. We didn’t actually know anyone there. There were a few CS department staff members still around, but all of the professors had left for the day.