Space Adventurers and Linux Conference

Recently went to the Star Voyager exhibition at ACMI, which was immediately followed by the science-fiction classic Solaris. The former was a great historical exhibit from wild-eyed science fiction afficiandos to sober physicists (apparently there are some), the outright speculative to the eerily accurate. The latter was the 1972 Russian adaption of Lem's novel of the same name was true the period; a psychological thriller descending into madness, an existential exploration of consciousness and as elaborately detailed and as long as an early Yes concert.

The past week I've been on holiday and therefore working as a volunteer at Linux Conference Au, which officially finished today (LUV BBQ tomorrow). Whilst a more complete write-up will have to wait for a couple of days, in brief it can mentioned that as usual it attracted a good five hundred or so people with a fair number of international visitors. The talks that I attended were of a high quality, and was especially impressed by Bruce Perren's keynote highlighting the successful audacity of the free software movement and Jacob Appelbaum concerns on surveillance. There was an excellent mix of the technical and the social, along with an undercurrent of the "next big thing" being open hardware. Quite a honour to be the person responsible to introduce luminaries such as Jonathan Corbet, Matthew Garrett, Avi Miller and Dave Chinner etc.

Oh yes, and I'm 44 today. Huzzah.