Linux Conf Part II and Sunny New Zealand
Feb. 4th, 2006 09:11 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
tcpipReturned from New Zealand last night and have spent the last twenty hours or so getting my life back into a modicum of order. Holidays, conferences and travel do things like that.
Linux Conf continued at a high standard. Damian Conway explained why Perl 6 had taken so long to develop and why it was all worth it (Perl 6 is telepathic). John 'Maddog' Hall (the person responsible for introducing me to Linux) gave an amusing tale of open source projects in history (including the piano!). Van Jacobson really stole the show however; his modest proposal to speed up the Linux networking stack received an encore and a standing ovation. How often do you see that at a technical conference? For the technically inclined slides of his presentation are available. Also worthy of note was Mark Shuttleworth's presentation on collaboration in the open source world; a call for a more disciplined process and in particular attention to translations.
Whilst I was being an extremely deep nerd,![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
caseopaya was enjoying the excellent partner's programme, which included tours of Cadbury World, a trip to Lanarch Castle (a place full of Scottish tragedy!) and a rail journey along the Taieri Gorge. We stayed at the allegedly haunted (former private hospital) Chalet Backpackers and dined one evening at the delightfully deco Etrusco.
OK, so Dunedin was a magnificant place, the conference was excellent, the weather was constantly in the high twenties and even pushed the mid-thirties one day and I'm scouting real estate there. ;-)
Following Dunedin we made our way to central Otago and spent a couple of nights at Wanaka. Normally an Alpine ski resort, in these unusually warm conditions it became a sea-side (or rather lakeside) playground for water-skiers, paragliders and swimmers. One unusual discovery, which perhaps the biological scientists reading this could explain, is what sort of stupid fish eats a hedgehog whole? And what was a hedgehog doing swimming in the lake?
From Wanaka it was a journey to the West Coast, notorious for the rain and cold. We had blue skies for the entire journey. Even at the Franz Josef Glacier, tourists were seen in bikini tops and short shorts! Continuing up the coast it was up to Hokitika, the most famous location in New Zealand for greenstone and related carvings and then onwards to the beautifully complex Malborough Sounds. Then it was across the strait, to spend a day in Wellington and then back to cold and grey Melbourne ;-)
Other stuff has been happening in the world apparently. Including a wheat-for-guns scandal involving the Australian Wheat Board and the Hussein regime. I must do some reading up on this ironic tale. Oh, and Hamas was elected in Palestine; well that's an ironic tragedy.
Linux Conf continued at a high standard. Damian Conway explained why Perl 6 had taken so long to develop and why it was all worth it (Perl 6 is telepathic). John 'Maddog' Hall (the person responsible for introducing me to Linux) gave an amusing tale of open source projects in history (including the piano!). Van Jacobson really stole the show however; his modest proposal to speed up the Linux networking stack received an encore and a standing ovation. How often do you see that at a technical conference? For the technically inclined slides of his presentation are available. Also worthy of note was Mark Shuttleworth's presentation on collaboration in the open source world; a call for a more disciplined process and in particular attention to translations.
Whilst I was being an extremely deep nerd,
caseopaya was enjoying the excellent partner's programme, which included tours of Cadbury World, a trip to Lanarch Castle (a place full of Scottish tragedy!) and a rail journey along the Taieri Gorge. We stayed at the allegedly haunted (former private hospital) Chalet Backpackers and dined one evening at the delightfully deco Etrusco.OK, so Dunedin was a magnificant place, the conference was excellent, the weather was constantly in the high twenties and even pushed the mid-thirties one day and I'm scouting real estate there. ;-)
Following Dunedin we made our way to central Otago and spent a couple of nights at Wanaka. Normally an Alpine ski resort, in these unusually warm conditions it became a sea-side (or rather lakeside) playground for water-skiers, paragliders and swimmers. One unusual discovery, which perhaps the biological scientists reading this could explain, is what sort of stupid fish eats a hedgehog whole? And what was a hedgehog doing swimming in the lake?
From Wanaka it was a journey to the West Coast, notorious for the rain and cold. We had blue skies for the entire journey. Even at the Franz Josef Glacier, tourists were seen in bikini tops and short shorts! Continuing up the coast it was up to Hokitika, the most famous location in New Zealand for greenstone and related carvings and then onwards to the beautifully complex Malborough Sounds. Then it was across the strait, to spend a day in Wellington and then back to cold and grey Melbourne ;-)
Other stuff has been happening in the world apparently. Including a wheat-for-guns scandal involving the Australian Wheat Board and the Hussein regime. I must do some reading up on this ironic tale. Oh, and Hamas was elected in Palestine; well that's an ironic tragedy.
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no subject
Date: 2006-02-03 10:14 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-02-03 10:49 pm (UTC)I'm pretty slack when it comes to double-checking my own links. It should all work now; even the weird fish-hedgehog carcass.
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Date: 2006-02-04 12:54 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-02-04 01:32 am (UTC)I've noticed that these mid-80s style shirts with screen printed writing seem to back in fashion again.
Although it isn't clear from the image that particular one is a series of Mac Paint screen shots form a Mac128 (or maybe even a 512) which is really, truly, old. It discusses "the Fishy adventures of Mac-Errol".
Suitably enough it was printed in Bali.
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Date: 2006-02-03 11:34 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-02-04 12:12 am (UTC)Aha! I knew some biologically versed individual would know. Blowfish eh? Those things must have quite a gaping maw to swallow a hedgehog whole.
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Date: 2006-02-04 05:35 am (UTC);-)
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Date: 2006-02-04 07:40 am (UTC)If that fish was still moving I'd be scared. The Undead Blowfish of Lake Wanaka!
I mean really.... Is that a retro Peter Jackson film or not?
See you Sunday, right?
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Date: 2006-02-04 07:42 am (UTC)Sunday indeed! Look forward to it!
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Date: 2006-02-04 08:12 am (UTC)I'll be a bit late, having to do some gaming beforehand.. But I will be there!
Now, if only I can track down Peter Jackson's email addy..
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Date: 2006-02-04 12:53 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-02-04 01:34 am (UTC)Yep. That's exactly what it is. The local factory produces about 80% of the chocolate consumed in NZ...
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Date: 2006-02-04 01:02 am (UTC)Very swish. :->
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Date: 2006-02-04 01:35 am (UTC)Cheeky ;-)
See my response to
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Date: 2006-02-04 01:56 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-02-04 02:21 am (UTC)But who would possibly want to stare at my chest? ;-)
no subject
Date: 2006-02-04 02:38 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-02-04 03:01 am (UTC)um....
Date: 2006-02-04 03:29 am (UTC)Re: um....
Date: 2006-02-04 03:37 am (UTC)Hog fish.
Date: 2006-02-04 03:58 am (UTC)I'll be very happy for those shirts to come back into fashion, we've never really left the 80s here.
Re: Hog fish.
Date: 2006-02-04 06:23 am (UTC)I hate flashbacks.
Re: Hog fish.
Date: 2006-02-04 07:32 am (UTC)Hey, what's wrong with flashbacks? You wonder down a supermarket aisle on the most banal of days and a hobbit riding a unicorn charges past you? It's not so bad.
Oh, not that sort of flashback...
Re: Hog fish.
Date: 2006-02-04 07:53 am (UTC)That moral is sound advice. Doubly so if it is moving and covered in spikes. Still, being a fish it would probably forget.
no subject
Date: 2006-02-04 08:49 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-02-04 09:54 am (UTC)Yes, I heard that the can swim quite well if they must... So I can't work out what it was doing either.
Yikes
Date: 2006-02-04 09:37 am (UTC)Incidentally, the same kind of thing happened over here in the States, except it was with an alligator and a Burmese python:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/4313978.stm
Small brains + ability to swallow large prey items = disaster
Re: Yikes
Date: 2006-02-04 09:52 am (UTC)Ahh yes...
Re: Yikes
Date: 2006-02-05 08:16 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-02-04 09:00 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-02-04 09:40 pm (UTC)According to some (and I can't comment this was my first one) this was one of the best Linux Confs ever held.
Apparently the Conf organisers are putting together a DVD of the events... I let you know when information comes to hand.
Next time we'll catch up for sure!
no subject
Date: 2006-02-05 08:10 am (UTC)Enjoyed meeting MadDog though. Cool chap.
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Date: 2006-02-05 10:55 pm (UTC)This LinuxConf was thoroughly dominated by the developers. Apparently there's another conf in Sydney (LinuxWorld or something) which is more vendor related.
Maddog, yeah, I wish I had more time to chat to him. Maybe I'll send him an email.
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Date: 2006-02-05 12:40 am (UTC)I'll be in melbourne this may - hope to actually meet you and caseopaya! I'll be involved in birthday shenanigans at luna park st kilda on the 13th and there may be clubs on the 12th and 13th.
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Date: 2006-02-05 03:08 am (UTC)Dunedin is my favourite town from the reasonably good list I've been to....
It will be great to see you after all these years! Looking forward to it!
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Date: 2006-02-05 04:31 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-02-05 11:08 pm (UTC)Oh, I think that would be just dandy! We were just saying last week we should spend an afternoon there.. Now we have an excuse!
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Date: 2006-02-05 11:10 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-02-05 11:20 pm (UTC)Wow, this is turning out to be quite a gathering!