tcpip: (Default)
Diary of a B+ Grade Polymath ([personal profile] tcpip) wrote2004-08-22 06:29 pm

Brisvegas, SAGE Conference, Adeiux to a cat...

Visiting Brisbane with [livejournal.com profile] caseopaya (finally) brings to completion my visitation of states and territories of Australia. Whilst most of it was taken up with the SAGE-AU Conference (at the very pleasant Bardon Centre), the opportunity did arise to visit the arts and museum centre where for the second time in the past several months I saw the Chinese dinosaur fossil collection (the other time was in Wellington). The art centre had a highly notable collection of contemporary indigenous art, a lot of which packed quite a political punch.

After the conference itself, Saturday was spent on a pleasant visit to Stradbroke Island. Which a popular and naturally beautiful place, the local cemetary bears witness to the fairly grim history of the place.

Time was also taken to catch up with [livejournal.com profile] artbroken, [livejournal.com profile] bodgirl, [livejournal.com profile] greenglowgirl, and [livejournal.com profile] doomydoombear. Truly wonderful to finally meet you all in real life.

The SAGE-AU Conference was an excellent affair. My paper was quite modest on a technical level (after all, there were people there who look after some of the largest and most powerful clusters in the world), but it was well-received. One person described it as "systems administration on the edge". Arjen Lentz's presentation increased the appeal of MySQL, Geoff Huston's keynote speech on the quantity of spam, probes and virus' was realistic (and pessimistic), and Simon Hackett spoke well on the evils (read anti-competitive practises) of Telstra.

There was an election for the two unfilled committee positions as well. With a promise to provide political lobbying I was elected along with a sysadmin journalist. Hmmm.... I see a pattern here.

Finally, I wish to bid a heartfelt fare well to a little old cat of enormous personality named Balbi, previously owned by [livejournal.com profile] severina_242. At the ripe old age of 15.5 Balbi's kidneys packed it in, which is always the end of the line. [livejournal.com profile] severina_242 misses the grumpysweet old thing, but is also being stoically rational about the intrinsic instability of biological life.

I've slipped a little in my CCNA studies because of the conference (although I did read and test myself with TCP/IP for Windows 2000. Currently wading my way through semester three (intermediate routing and switching) and may have to force myself to complete semester three and four this coming seven days. To continue the madness I start an additional full-time course tomorrow (Certificate in Small Business Management). Hmmm... Better do something about that publishing cooperative sson as well..

[identity profile] greg.livejournal.com 2004-08-22 09:19 am (UTC)(link)
Sounds like an interesting trip. The link to your paper is unfortunately locked due to it being a members only message. I would be interesting in Geoff Huston's keynote as well, might SAGE-AU make it available via mp3 or streaming video at some point?

[identity profile] tcpip.livejournal.com 2004-08-22 09:39 pm (UTC)(link)

I've discovered a copy of the paper here. I have no idea where tpollack of Sweden is...

http://www.algonet.se/~tpollak/OTK/div/SysAdm4thWorld.txt

WRT to Geoff Huston's paper I'll let you know when/if it is being posted. I want a copy myself.

[identity profile] maxxxie2.livejournal.com 2004-08-23 01:59 am (UTC)(link)
Hey, I really liked your paper! Very interesting. I guess we take things for granted.. things like electricity... flat land to build on... network infrastructure etc etc. It sounds like you had some fantastic experiences over there :)

[identity profile] tcpip.livejournal.com 2004-08-23 04:08 pm (UTC)(link)
Thanks for the kind words about my paper. I still have a lot of interesting things to do with regards to ET and IT infrastructure. I'd love to go back there for another stint, but AVI seems to having a few problems these days.

[identity profile] caseopaya.livejournal.com 2004-08-23 06:31 pm (UTC)(link)
but AVI seems to having a few problems these days.

Just a few problems???!!! I think that is a MAJOR understatement!

[identity profile] tcpip.livejournal.com 2004-08-23 10:22 pm (UTC)(link)

Heh. Major understandments are my forte.

Apart from some matters of administrative competence, having every single one of their state offices and 2/3 of their staff sacked evidently has caused some issues.

[identity profile] caseopaya.livejournal.com 2004-08-23 11:08 pm (UTC)(link)
Not to mention their seeming lack of communication within said office.... not that I have had any experience with that part of their incompetantce.......