Jonathan Oxer
[Blog]
>> Innovation award, oh yeah :-)
Tue, Oct 17th 6:20pm 2006 >> Bad People
It seems the "i" word has been popping up everywhere in my life recently. I've been on the board of Swinburne University's "Center for Collaborative Business Innovation" for a while now, I did a talk at AUUG2006 last week about the impact of widespread FOSS deployment on national innovation, and now IVT has won the "Excellence in Innovation" category of the Maroondah Business Awards for our work on the SiteBuilder web application suite! Woot!
So we get a piece of nicely sculpted glass, some press coverage and some bragging rights, but no holiday to Tahiti or anything.
Damn.
More blurb: IVT wins Excellence in Innovation category of Maroondah Business Awards
It seems the "i" word has been popping up everywhere in my life recently. I've been on the board of Swinburne University's "Center for Collaborative Business Innovation" for a while now, I did a talk at AUUG2006 last week about the impact of widespread FOSS deployment on national innovation, and now IVT has won the "Excellence in Innovation" category of the Maroondah Business Awards for our work on the SiteBuilder web application suite! Woot!
So we get a piece of nicely sculpted glass, some press coverage and some bragging rights, but no holiday to Tahiti or anything.
Damn.
More blurb: IVT wins Excellence in Innovation category of Maroondah Business Awards
>> LCA, here I come
Tue, Oct 17th 5:08pm 2006 >> Misc
Woot! I just got the much-hoped-for-but-not-really-expected "Congratulations! We are pleased to invite you to present at linux.conf.au 2007" email!
/me rubs hands in glee and starts planning new things to demo during the talk
Remember folks, registrations will open soon so pay close attention to the LCA2007 site
Woot! I just got the much-hoped-for-but-not-really-expected "Congratulations! We are pleased to invite you to present at linux.conf.au 2007" email!
/me rubs hands in glee and starts planning new things to demo during the talk
Remember folks, registrations will open soon so pay close attention to the LCA2007 site
>> What do 1,327 (+/-3) smarties look like?
Fri, Oct 13th 8:58pm 2006 >> Tech Toys
Well, now you know!
At the AUUG conf dinner we submitted guesses for how many smarties were in the jar, and the winner got to keep not just the smarties (yay!) but also the funky little Yawarra net4801 Soekris-based computer that was running the wireless network at the conference!
Paul McGowan, the Yawarra head honcho, is a really interesting guy with some cool ideas about using data collected from in-car devices for a whole bunch of different purposes: lowering insurance premiums, providing detailed traffic flow analysis, reporting crash data, and lots of fun things like that.
Personally I can think of a thousand things to use that little box for!
Well, now you know!At the AUUG conf dinner we submitted guesses for how many smarties were in the jar, and the winner got to keep not just the smarties (yay!) but also the funky little Yawarra net4801 Soekris-based computer that was running the wireless network at the conference!
Paul McGowan, the Yawarra head honcho, is a really interesting guy with some cool ideas about using data collected from in-car devices for a whole bunch of different purposes: lowering insurance premiums, providing detailed traffic flow analysis, reporting crash data, and lots of fun things like that.
Personally I can think of a thousand things to use that little box for!
>> AUUG conf: Google Maps
Thu, Oct 12th 5:42pm 2006 >> Conferences
The opening keynote by Lars Rasmussen (head of the Google Maps team) was very interesting. He answered a couple of questions that have been bugging me for a while.
For example, how they manage to get square tiles out of the surface of a sphere, and no matter how far you move the tiles are still perfectly square.
Imagine you're looking down at a square km of the Earth's surface, then you move your view in 1km square steps for 1000km to the East. Each adjacent tile still has 1km edges, and if you then went another 1000km North, then 1000km West, then 1000km South, you'd end up back at your point of origin. But when you're in the North-East corner of your trip the Earth has theoretically curved away from you, right? Unless the plane of the tile was changing each time, but then the edges wouldn't be perfectly square. So the tile should be suffering severe distortion after 1000km displacement.
Hmm, how to get around the problem?
Easy, approximate the shape of the Earth as a cube!
Well, it's not actually that simple of course but that's the starting point. Then bisect each face of the cube vertically and horizontally in a sort of double binary chop. Then bisect those, and so and. After about 20 iterations you can approximate any point on the planet down to about 1cm resolution.
Pretty obvious when it's pointed out, but I've always wondered how they did it.
Another point Lars made was the difficulty of datasource conflation. They obtain feature data from a bunch of different sources: for example, one company may provide data on lakes in a certain area, while another provides data on road locations. In some cases multiple data sources may even describe the same feature, so a decision has to be made about how to reconcile potentially contradictory data such as when the same feature is shown in different locations or when one feature (road) intersects another (lake)... (splash).
Datasource conflation can be a remarkably hard problem. I've been butting my head against it a bit recently in the very early stages of a still-secret project that will require multiple sources to be referenced for the same data. (hint: it involves modelling a complex system and generating projections based on changing input values, principally CO2).
Overall a very interesting talk. They've come up against interesting problems and solved them in equally interesting ways, which is always fun.
The opening keynote by Lars Rasmussen (head of the Google Maps team) was very interesting. He answered a couple of questions that have been bugging me for a while.
For example, how they manage to get square tiles out of the surface of a sphere, and no matter how far you move the tiles are still perfectly square.
Imagine you're looking down at a square km of the Earth's surface, then you move your view in 1km square steps for 1000km to the East. Each adjacent tile still has 1km edges, and if you then went another 1000km North, then 1000km West, then 1000km South, you'd end up back at your point of origin. But when you're in the North-East corner of your trip the Earth has theoretically curved away from you, right? Unless the plane of the tile was changing each time, but then the edges wouldn't be perfectly square. So the tile should be suffering severe distortion after 1000km displacement.
Hmm, how to get around the problem?
Easy, approximate the shape of the Earth as a cube!
Well, it's not actually that simple of course but that's the starting point. Then bisect each face of the cube vertically and horizontally in a sort of double binary chop. Then bisect those, and so and. After about 20 iterations you can approximate any point on the planet down to about 1cm resolution.
Pretty obvious when it's pointed out, but I've always wondered how they did it.
Another point Lars made was the difficulty of datasource conflation. They obtain feature data from a bunch of different sources: for example, one company may provide data on lakes in a certain area, while another provides data on road locations. In some cases multiple data sources may even describe the same feature, so a decision has to be made about how to reconcile potentially contradictory data such as when the same feature is shown in different locations or when one feature (road) intersects another (lake)... (splash).
Datasource conflation can be a remarkably hard problem. I've been butting my head against it a bit recently in the very early stages of a still-secret project that will require multiple sources to be referenced for the same data. (hint: it involves modelling a complex system and generating projections based on changing input values, principally CO2).
Overall a very interesting talk. They've come up against interesting problems and solved them in equally interesting ways, which is always fun.
>> Yet another happy coincidence
Wed, Oct 11th 8:25pm 2006 >> Bad People
A little while ago I came across a happy little coincidence where a story about a Microsoft product launch for an ID system was immediately followed by a story about major Microsoft security flaws: jon.oxer.com.au/blog/id/82.
Pretty long odds, right?
Seems not long enough!
A little while ago I came across a happy little coincidence where a story about a Microsoft product launch for an ID system was immediately followed by a story about major Microsoft security flaws: jon.oxer.com.au/blog/id/82.
Pretty long odds, right?
Seems not long enough!
>> AUUG 2006 hardware hacking talk
Wed, Oct 11th 8:12pm 2006 >> Conferences
I did the "Making Things Move: Finding Inappropriate Uses For Scripting Languages" talk at the AUUG 2006 annual conference today. The slides are up now at jon.oxer.com.au/talks/id/36.
I did the "Making Things Move: Finding Inappropriate Uses For Scripting Languages" talk at the AUUG 2006 annual conference today. The slides are up now at jon.oxer.com.au/talks/id/36.
>> Linux Australia President's Report: August / September 2006
Fri, Oct 6th 9:09pm 2006 >> Linux
[Pasted from email sent to linux-aus]
It's time to take a whirlwind tour around the country and see what cool
things you've all been up to over the last couple of months.
========================================
= Recent Events
========================================
* Software Freedom Day
...rocked! Australia definitely set the standard with by far the highest number of events of any country. There were 3 events in Melbourne alone: I spent the day at Melbourne Town Hall where Computerbank ran an info and demo day along with members of LUV, MLUG, Melbourne Wireless, phpMelb, Perl Mongers, and various other local groups, and did a talk titled "Software Freedom: Pragmatic Idealism?" which was followed by talks on FOSS in business; freedom of information and the media; an introduction to Computerbank; and a screening of the documentary "Code Breakers". Channel 31 filmed parts of the event for a documentary currently in production, thousands of FOSS CDs were handed out, and lots of people wandered by to see what all the fuss was about.
Elsewhere in Melbourne LUV ran a very successful installfest, and the Dutch class at the Victorian School of Languages ran a session on using FOSS for language learning.
And that's just one city: there were similar events all over Australia!
http://softwarefreedomday.org/teams/oceania/au
Our very own Pia Waugh was recently elected President of Software Freedom International, the non-profit association behind SFD, and with her incredible energy and enthusiasm behind it you just know that it's going to keep growing. Congratulations Pia!
The only thing I found a bit disappointing was that the media didn't pick up on it as much as I hoped. Maybe I just wasn't looking in the right places but the positive story of SFD really deserved to be given a better run in the mainstream press.
* AU-US FTA / DMCA
As has been reported elsewhere the Attorney General has released an exposure draft of the legislation. The result is both good and bad: Rusty reports that the proposed laws look better than the US laws, but that's probably not saying much! Rusty has written a response to the exposure draft but given the extremely tight timeframe (Australia is required to implement the legislation by January 1st 2007 in accordance with the AU-US FTA) it's not likely that anything significant is going to change, so the exposure draft we see today is probably going to end up being the law we have to live with. The following comment by Rusty sums it up well:
"The draft is an unclear, confusing and complicated addition
to Australian Copyright law. Despite our pleas that
legitimate, non-infringing activities be allowed, the text
offers no such reassurance. On the other hand, it is
uncertain that all such activities will be banned. It
guarantees that we will see legal battles fought in this
area in the coming years."
Not a very satisfactory outcome.
Thanks to everyone who provided submissions to the Attorney General, collected signatures for the petition, and generally did what they could to raise awareness of the issue. It looks like the course is now pretty much set and we're just going to have to learn to live with it.
And a special thanks to LA's IP Policy Advisor and all-round good guy Rusty Russell for putting in the hard yards on this issue.
========================================
= Project Sub-Committees
========================================
* linux.conf.au 2007
Can't wait! Can't wait! Can't wait! Bring on January 15th!
The CFP generated a huge response: something like 270 submissions for talks, tutorials and miniconfs, which I'm pretty sure is a record by a decent margin. Working through so many submissions is obviously sending Rusty and the Papers Committee around the twist (http://ozlabs.org/~rusty/index.cgi/2006/10/04#2006-10-04) but the end result will undoubtedly be a top-rate lineup of excellent presentations and we can compensate the Papers Committee with lots of $BEVERAGE in January. Early-bird rego is just around the corner so keep your eye on the LCA site for the latest info:
http://lca2007.linux.org.au/
* Education
Nothing to report.
* Advocacy
Nothing to report.
* Media
Nothing to report.
========================================
= Administrative Sub-Committees
========================================
* Mirror
If you have any other ideas for content to be placed on the mirror please drop the mirror admins a line at requests@mirror.linux.org.au.
http://mirror.linux.org.au/
* Admin Team
I finally (!) collected the second disk for our HP-donated DL385 server last week and installed it in the box. The new machine now has a basic OS installed and Andrew Pollock is applying his magic touch to get it ready to start deploying services.
With the various boxes around the place (mirror, digital, LCA, and the new DL385 that I've been calling "analog" for lack of a better name) and increased disk requirements for the mirror box there has been discussion among the admin team about rethinking hardware allocations. The current mirror is a 1U box with no room for more internal disk, while analog is a 2U box with 8 hot-swap caddies and dual RAID controllers so it may be better suited to providing mirror duties. All that's yet to be decided though so we'll see what the admin and mirror teams decide to do.
* Press
Nothing to report, but general information is available at:
http://wiki.linux.org.au/Press
========================================
= Grants
========================================
* GPLv3 Forum
There's a live Grant Request right now for $2000 funding for a forum to be run in Sydney by the Cyberlaw Centre to discuss the proposed GPLv3 and provide feedback to the Software Freedom Legal Centre prior to the GPL3 finalisation:
http://lists.linux.org.au/archives/linux-aus/2006-October/msg00012.html
* Ubertweak Computer Camp
The original grant request for Ubertweak generated some spirited discussion on linux-aus regarding the Christian aspects of the event, but the general concensus seems to be that the event itself sounds like a fantastic opportunity for young people to learn about FOSS and even a few non-Christians spoke up and said they wished they'd had an opportunity to attend something like it. Based on the feedback received Elspeth redrafted the grant request to focus specifically on a FOSS-related aspect of the camp.
http://lists.linux.org.au/archives/linux-aus/2006-September/msg00235.html
http://ubertweak.org.au
========================================
= Upcoming Events
========================================
* AUUG Annual Conference
The annual Australian Unix User Group conference is only a few days away, so it's time to get your skates on and register if you haven't done so already. Presenters include Lars Rasmussen from the Google Maps team, Peter Gutmann of PGP fame, and quite a few Linux Australia stalwarts including Michael Still, Arjen Lentz, and Stewart Smith. Oh, and me.
http://new.auug.org.au/events_store/auug2006/welcome
* Thinking Linux 06
Following hard on the heels of the AUUG conference will be an interesting one-day event called Thinking Linux 06. This is the first time it's been run and it will have separate business and technical tracks, with first-class speakers including Tridge, John Ferlito, Richard Keech, Graeme Wood, and Craig Wiley. They've even been tricked into giving me the mic for a while, but don't let that put you off. I'll be really interested to see how this goes because it looks like it could reach further up the org chart than a typical Linux event, so there should be a good concentration of decision-makers present:
http://www.thinkinglinux.com.au/ThinkingLinux/
* Open Source Developers Conference
With the third OSDC coming up in Melbourne in December it's turning into a real institution. OSDC complements linux.conf.au very well, providing a focus on scripting languages and a forum for discussion of use of FOSS tools or proprietary development, topics which are not normally well represented at LCA. Registrations are open now and the list of sessions has been published. This is the first time tutorials have been integrated into the program: I'll be doing both a tutorial and a regular talk so come along and heckle. Damian Conway will be doing his ROTFLMAO-funny "The Da Vinci Codebase", and Randal L. Schwartz and Richard Farnsworth will keynote.
http://www.osdc.com.au/
========================================
= Miscellaneous
========================================
A general note: I'd love to hear about various FOSS projects that Linux Australia members have been working on. If you've had a significant milestone please let me know and maybe it'll get a mention in the next report.
* APhPLIX
A recent Grant was for the APhPLIX Development Studio by Jared "Flame" Herbohn, which was also entered in the VMware Ultimate Virtual Appliance Challenge. Although it didn't end up taking out any of the major cash prizes it was awarded an Honorable Mention. Congratulations Flame!
http://www.aphplix.org/
http://www.vmware.com/vmtn/appliances/challenge/winners.html
* Merchant Account
As part of the process of setting up the infrastructure for linux.conf.au 2007 registrations our merchant account facilities are being moved over to Westpac. This also has implications for...
* Fundraising
As has been mentioned previously one issue that Linux Australia needs to be very careful about is our reliance on linux.conf.au for income. We currently make miniscule amounts of income from other sources such as T-shirt sales but even that is hard because of a lack of infrastructure to process payments other than by cheque or cash. Something that AJ has been looking into recently is how to set up a way to handle small donations and sales of items for fundraising purposes. This will probably require a second merchant account separate from the LCA merchant account because the funds need to be routed to different bank accounts.
* Wiki
In the last report I talked about our plans to start using the Wiki more extensively as a way for various LA projects to provide updated public information. This has started, but I'd still like to see it used a lot more. We're a community organisation and wikis are based on the concept of community participation, so feel free to get in and start using it.
http://wiki.linux.org.au/
* John Lions Chair in Operating Systems
As I outlined recently Linux Australia is helping fund the establishment of the John Lions Chair in Operating Systems at UNSW. There'll be an official announcement about this soon, but in the meantime there's background info in an email I sent to linux-aus:
http://lists.linux.org.au/archives/linux-aus/2006-September/msg00340.html
* USENIX Membership
As part of the process of submitting funding for the establishment of the John Lions Chair in Operating Systems we're now signed up as a corporate member of USENIX:
http://www.usenix.org/
* linux.conf.au 2008
You probably know this already but since the last President's Report the team to host linux.conf.au 2008 has been selected with Mel8ourne getting the nod. Donna's team has already had their first "post victory" meeting and are firming up their plans for running a kick-arse LCA2008. The Tasmanian bid was also top quality but unfortunately only one team could be chosen, and I strongly encourage the Tassie team come back with a bid next time around.
http://www.mel8ourne.org/
This is the first time we've gone with the early decision process whereby the winning team is selected 18 months prior to the event rather than 12 months prior and we're still feeling our way with it: there are potential downsides and we'll discuss this again at the next face-to-face meeting. The obvious potential problems seem to be 1) confusion over where the next event will be, and 2) people deciding not to attend LCA2007 in Sydney because they plan to come to LCA2008 in Melbourne instead. I don't know how real this problem is so I'd love to hear feedback on it. I'd particularly like to hear from people who have decided not to go to Sydney because they knew about Melbourne getting 2008: would it have made any difference if you didn't know where the 2008 event was going to be?
Oh, and in case there's any doubt: the next LCA is in Sydney, starting January 15th 2007. You *need* to be there, even if you live in Melbourne.
http://lca2007.linux.org.au/
* Upcoming Committee Meeting
The LA Committee will be having our next face to face meeting in Melbourne on October 21, so if you have items for discussion now is the time to bring them up. We'll have a list of the usual topics to go over of course but if there is something specific you would like raised please speak up now.
Posts to the linux-aus@linux.org.au list are fine, or if you'd prefer to keep things confidential you can email committee@linux.org.au.
Did I miss anything? If so, please let me know.
Rock on Linux Australia :-)
[Pasted from email sent to linux-aus]
It's time to take a whirlwind tour around the country and see what cool
things you've all been up to over the last couple of months.
========================================
= Recent Events
========================================
* Software Freedom Day
...rocked! Australia definitely set the standard with by far the highest number of events of any country. There were 3 events in Melbourne alone: I spent the day at Melbourne Town Hall where Computerbank ran an info and demo day along with members of LUV, MLUG, Melbourne Wireless, phpMelb, Perl Mongers, and various other local groups, and did a talk titled "Software Freedom: Pragmatic Idealism?" which was followed by talks on FOSS in business; freedom of information and the media; an introduction to Computerbank; and a screening of the documentary "Code Breakers". Channel 31 filmed parts of the event for a documentary currently in production, thousands of FOSS CDs were handed out, and lots of people wandered by to see what all the fuss was about.
Elsewhere in Melbourne LUV ran a very successful installfest, and the Dutch class at the Victorian School of Languages ran a session on using FOSS for language learning.
And that's just one city: there were similar events all over Australia!
http://softwarefreedomday.org/teams/oceania/au
Our very own Pia Waugh was recently elected President of Software Freedom International, the non-profit association behind SFD, and with her incredible energy and enthusiasm behind it you just know that it's going to keep growing. Congratulations Pia!
The only thing I found a bit disappointing was that the media didn't pick up on it as much as I hoped. Maybe I just wasn't looking in the right places but the positive story of SFD really deserved to be given a better run in the mainstream press.
* AU-US FTA / DMCA
As has been reported elsewhere the Attorney General has released an exposure draft of the legislation. The result is both good and bad: Rusty reports that the proposed laws look better than the US laws, but that's probably not saying much! Rusty has written a response to the exposure draft but given the extremely tight timeframe (Australia is required to implement the legislation by January 1st 2007 in accordance with the AU-US FTA) it's not likely that anything significant is going to change, so the exposure draft we see today is probably going to end up being the law we have to live with. The following comment by Rusty sums it up well:
"The draft is an unclear, confusing and complicated addition
to Australian Copyright law. Despite our pleas that
legitimate, non-infringing activities be allowed, the text
offers no such reassurance. On the other hand, it is
uncertain that all such activities will be banned. It
guarantees that we will see legal battles fought in this
area in the coming years."
Not a very satisfactory outcome.
Thanks to everyone who provided submissions to the Attorney General, collected signatures for the petition, and generally did what they could to raise awareness of the issue. It looks like the course is now pretty much set and we're just going to have to learn to live with it.
And a special thanks to LA's IP Policy Advisor and all-round good guy Rusty Russell for putting in the hard yards on this issue.
========================================
= Project Sub-Committees
========================================
* linux.conf.au 2007
Can't wait! Can't wait! Can't wait! Bring on January 15th!
The CFP generated a huge response: something like 270 submissions for talks, tutorials and miniconfs, which I'm pretty sure is a record by a decent margin. Working through so many submissions is obviously sending Rusty and the Papers Committee around the twist (http://ozlabs.org/~rusty/index.cgi/2006/10/04#2006-10-04) but the end result will undoubtedly be a top-rate lineup of excellent presentations and we can compensate the Papers Committee with lots of $BEVERAGE in January. Early-bird rego is just around the corner so keep your eye on the LCA site for the latest info:
http://lca2007.linux.org.au/
* Education
Nothing to report.
* Advocacy
Nothing to report.
* Media
Nothing to report.
========================================
= Administrative Sub-Committees
========================================
* Mirror
If you have any other ideas for content to be placed on the mirror please drop the mirror admins a line at requests@mirror.linux.org.au.
http://mirror.linux.org.au/
* Admin Team
I finally (!) collected the second disk for our HP-donated DL385 server last week and installed it in the box. The new machine now has a basic OS installed and Andrew Pollock is applying his magic touch to get it ready to start deploying services.
With the various boxes around the place (mirror, digital, LCA, and the new DL385 that I've been calling "analog" for lack of a better name) and increased disk requirements for the mirror box there has been discussion among the admin team about rethinking hardware allocations. The current mirror is a 1U box with no room for more internal disk, while analog is a 2U box with 8 hot-swap caddies and dual RAID controllers so it may be better suited to providing mirror duties. All that's yet to be decided though so we'll see what the admin and mirror teams decide to do.
* Press
Nothing to report, but general information is available at:
http://wiki.linux.org.au/Press
========================================
= Grants
========================================
* GPLv3 Forum
There's a live Grant Request right now for $2000 funding for a forum to be run in Sydney by the Cyberlaw Centre to discuss the proposed GPLv3 and provide feedback to the Software Freedom Legal Centre prior to the GPL3 finalisation:
http://lists.linux.org.au/archives/linux-aus/2006-October/msg00012.html
* Ubertweak Computer Camp
The original grant request for Ubertweak generated some spirited discussion on linux-aus regarding the Christian aspects of the event, but the general concensus seems to be that the event itself sounds like a fantastic opportunity for young people to learn about FOSS and even a few non-Christians spoke up and said they wished they'd had an opportunity to attend something like it. Based on the feedback received Elspeth redrafted the grant request to focus specifically on a FOSS-related aspect of the camp.
http://lists.linux.org.au/archives/linux-aus/2006-September/msg00235.html
http://ubertweak.org.au
========================================
= Upcoming Events
========================================
* AUUG Annual Conference
The annual Australian Unix User Group conference is only a few days away, so it's time to get your skates on and register if you haven't done so already. Presenters include Lars Rasmussen from the Google Maps team, Peter Gutmann of PGP fame, and quite a few Linux Australia stalwarts including Michael Still, Arjen Lentz, and Stewart Smith. Oh, and me.
http://new.auug.org.au/events_store/auug2006/welcome
* Thinking Linux 06
Following hard on the heels of the AUUG conference will be an interesting one-day event called Thinking Linux 06. This is the first time it's been run and it will have separate business and technical tracks, with first-class speakers including Tridge, John Ferlito, Richard Keech, Graeme Wood, and Craig Wiley. They've even been tricked into giving me the mic for a while, but don't let that put you off. I'll be really interested to see how this goes because it looks like it could reach further up the org chart than a typical Linux event, so there should be a good concentration of decision-makers present:
http://www.thinkinglinux.com.au/ThinkingLinux/
* Open Source Developers Conference
With the third OSDC coming up in Melbourne in December it's turning into a real institution. OSDC complements linux.conf.au very well, providing a focus on scripting languages and a forum for discussion of use of FOSS tools or proprietary development, topics which are not normally well represented at LCA. Registrations are open now and the list of sessions has been published. This is the first time tutorials have been integrated into the program: I'll be doing both a tutorial and a regular talk so come along and heckle. Damian Conway will be doing his ROTFLMAO-funny "The Da Vinci Codebase", and Randal L. Schwartz and Richard Farnsworth will keynote.
http://www.osdc.com.au/
========================================
= Miscellaneous
========================================
A general note: I'd love to hear about various FOSS projects that Linux Australia members have been working on. If you've had a significant milestone please let me know and maybe it'll get a mention in the next report.
* APhPLIX
A recent Grant was for the APhPLIX Development Studio by Jared "Flame" Herbohn, which was also entered in the VMware Ultimate Virtual Appliance Challenge. Although it didn't end up taking out any of the major cash prizes it was awarded an Honorable Mention. Congratulations Flame!
http://www.aphplix.org/
http://www.vmware.com/vmtn/appliances/challenge/winners.html
* Merchant Account
As part of the process of setting up the infrastructure for linux.conf.au 2007 registrations our merchant account facilities are being moved over to Westpac. This also has implications for...
* Fundraising
As has been mentioned previously one issue that Linux Australia needs to be very careful about is our reliance on linux.conf.au for income. We currently make miniscule amounts of income from other sources such as T-shirt sales but even that is hard because of a lack of infrastructure to process payments other than by cheque or cash. Something that AJ has been looking into recently is how to set up a way to handle small donations and sales of items for fundraising purposes. This will probably require a second merchant account separate from the LCA merchant account because the funds need to be routed to different bank accounts.
* Wiki
In the last report I talked about our plans to start using the Wiki more extensively as a way for various LA projects to provide updated public information. This has started, but I'd still like to see it used a lot more. We're a community organisation and wikis are based on the concept of community participation, so feel free to get in and start using it.
http://wiki.linux.org.au/
* John Lions Chair in Operating Systems
As I outlined recently Linux Australia is helping fund the establishment of the John Lions Chair in Operating Systems at UNSW. There'll be an official announcement about this soon, but in the meantime there's background info in an email I sent to linux-aus:
http://lists.linux.org.au/archives/linux-aus/2006-September/msg00340.html
* USENIX Membership
As part of the process of submitting funding for the establishment of the John Lions Chair in Operating Systems we're now signed up as a corporate member of USENIX:
http://www.usenix.org/
* linux.conf.au 2008
You probably know this already but since the last President's Report the team to host linux.conf.au 2008 has been selected with Mel8ourne getting the nod. Donna's team has already had their first "post victory" meeting and are firming up their plans for running a kick-arse LCA2008. The Tasmanian bid was also top quality but unfortunately only one team could be chosen, and I strongly encourage the Tassie team come back with a bid next time around.
http://www.mel8ourne.org/
This is the first time we've gone with the early decision process whereby the winning team is selected 18 months prior to the event rather than 12 months prior and we're still feeling our way with it: there are potential downsides and we'll discuss this again at the next face-to-face meeting. The obvious potential problems seem to be 1) confusion over where the next event will be, and 2) people deciding not to attend LCA2007 in Sydney because they plan to come to LCA2008 in Melbourne instead. I don't know how real this problem is so I'd love to hear feedback on it. I'd particularly like to hear from people who have decided not to go to Sydney because they knew about Melbourne getting 2008: would it have made any difference if you didn't know where the 2008 event was going to be?
Oh, and in case there's any doubt: the next LCA is in Sydney, starting January 15th 2007. You *need* to be there, even if you live in Melbourne.
http://lca2007.linux.org.au/
* Upcoming Committee Meeting
The LA Committee will be having our next face to face meeting in Melbourne on October 21, so if you have items for discussion now is the time to bring them up. We'll have a list of the usual topics to go over of course but if there is something specific you would like raised please speak up now.
Posts to the linux-aus@linux.org.au list are fine, or if you'd prefer to keep things confidential you can email committee@linux.org.au.
Did I miss anything? If so, please let me know.
Rock on Linux Australia :-)
>> No, anti-static bags don't block RFID
Thu, Oct 5th 5:53pm 2006 >> Tech Toys
Chris pointed me to a post by his friend Alec about RFID-blocking wallets to prevent remote snooping on proximity cards. Alec asks whether anti-static bags would do the same thing, so in the spirit of the empirical method I gave it a try. Result: no signal attenuation at all. The photo shows a home-made RFID reader getting a successful read off the tag in my arm through 4 layers of anti-static bag.
Chris pointed me to a post by his friend Alec about RFID-blocking wallets to prevent remote snooping on proximity cards. Alec asks whether anti-static bags would do the same thing, so in the spirit of the empirical method I gave it a try. Result: no signal attenuation at all. The photo shows a home-made RFID reader getting a successful read off the tag in my arm through 4 layers of anti-static bag.
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