mikal – Page 41 – Made by Mikal

On conference t-shirts

Post author:mikal
Post published:September 22, 2012
Post category:Conference

Conference t-shirts can't be that hard, right? I certainly don't remember them being difficult when Canberra last hosted linux.conf.au in 2005. I was the person who arranged all the swag for that conference, so I should remember. Yet here I am having spent hours on the phone with vendors, and surrounded with discarded sample t-shirts, size charts and colour swatches. What changed? The difference between now and then is that in the intervening seven years the Australian Linux community has started to make real effort to be more inclusive. We have anti-harassment policies, we encourage new speakers, and we're making real efforts to encourage more women into the community. linux.conf.au 2013 is making real efforts to be as inclusive as possible -- one of the first roles we allocated was a diversity officer, who is someone active in the geek feminism community. We've had serious discussions about how we can make our event as friendly to all groups as possible, and have some interesting things along those lines to announce soon. We're working hard to make the conference a safe environment for everyone, and will have independent delegate advocates available at all social events, as well as during the conference.…

The Tuloriad

Post author:mikal
Post published:September 10, 2012
Post category:Book

This book's underlying premise isn't really my thing. The escape of the remnants of the Posleen works for me, and I think holds together. However, I'm unconvinced by a religious mission setting out after the Posleen to convert them to one of the Earth religions. That just seems a bit far fetched to me. However, this book is rescued by the insights into the Posleen's history that it offers. Its worth wading through the other stuff that isn't all that interesting just to find out a bit more about how the characters ended up in this state. [isbn: 9781439134092]

Yellow Eyes

Post author:mikal
Post published:August 24, 2012
Post category:Book

This book is pretty preachy (if you're not a republican your wrong and you're what's wrong with the universe), and long. The story also centers around haunted warships, which is a bit of a leap for this series. On the other hand, its a good read if you can put up with those bits. Overall ok, but not the best in the series. [isbn: 9781416555711]

Watch on the Rhine

Post author:mikal
Post published:August 5, 2012
Post category:Book

If you knew you were in deep trouble, had the technology to rejuvenate any soldier you wanted, and happened to be a late nineties Germany desperate for cannon fodder, would you return the SS to service? A harsh reality is that they're some of the only soldiers you have left with real combat experience, even if their politics is abhorrent. This book has an interesting underlying concept, but to a certain extent its ruined by the politics of the authors -- any concern for anything other that military strength is dismissed as another example of rampant nimbyism. However, the book tells a good story and made me think about some stuff I wouldn't have otherwise thought about, while being entertaining. So, overall a success I guess. [isbn: 9781416521204]

Bodyguard

Post author:mikal
Post published:July 30, 2012
Post category:Book

While it isn't immediately obvious, this book is quite similar to Johnny Mnemonic. The brain damage aspect is played up a bit, and gets repetitive, but the overall story is interesting and fun, even if the ending is a bit obvious from about half way through. [isbn: 044100105x]

A first pass at glance replication

Post author:mikal
Post published:July 11, 2012
Post category:OpenStack

A few weeks back I was tasked with turning up a new OpenStack region. This region couldn't share anything with existing regions because the plan was to test pre-release versions of OpenStack there, and if we shared something like glance then we would either have to endanger glance for all regions during testing, or not test glance. However, our users already have a favorite set of images uploaded to glance, and I really wanted to make it as easy as possible for them to use the new region -- I wanted all of their images to magically just appear there. What I needed was some form of glance replication. I'd sat in on the glance replication session at the Folsom OpenStack Design Summit. The NeCTAR use case at the bottom is exactly what I wanted, so its reassuring that other people wanted something like that too. However, no one was working on this feature. So I wrote it. In fact, because of the code review process I wrote it twice, but let's not dwell on that too much. So, as of change id I7dabbd6671ec75a0052db58312054f611707bdcf there is a very simple replicator script in glance/bin. Its not perfect, and I expect it…

Got Something to Say? The LCA 2013 CFP Opens Soon!

Post author:mikal
Post published:May 22, 2012
Post category:Conference

The call for presentations opens on 1 June, which is only 11 days away! So if you're thinking of speaking at the conference (a presentation, tutorial, or miniconference), now would be a good time to start thinking about what you're going to say. While you're thinking, please spare a thought for our web team, who are bringing up the entire zookeepr instance so that the CFP will work properly. We've been getting heaps of stuff done over the past few months. We've had a "ghosts" meeting (a meeting with former LCA directors), found conference and social venues, and are gearing up for the Call For Presentations. We've signed a contract for the keynote venue, which I think you will all really enjoy. We have also locked in our booking for the lecture theatres, which is now working its way through the ANU process. For social events, we've got a great venue for the penguin dinner, and have shortlisted venues for the speakers' dinner and the professional delegates' networking session. We're taking a bit of extra time here because we want venues that are special, and not just the ones which first came to mind. The ghosts meeting went really well…

Catching Fire

Post author:mikal
Post published:May 11, 2012
Post category:Book

This is the second book in the Hunger Games trilogy after the first book of the same name. This book is very similar to the first in terms of style, although I think the start is a lot slower. Once you plow through the first 150 pages or so the book rapidly improves though, and I was happy with where it went overall. Good teen fiction. [isbn: 9781407109367;1407109367]

Jupiter

Post author:mikal
Post published:April 23, 2012
Post category:Book

This is the first book of Ben Bova's that I've read. Before that I've only read "The Nonmetallic Isaac or It's a Wonderful Life" in Foundation's Friends. I bought this book randomly because I had run out of things to read on a business trip, and I don't regret it. The book is well paced, interesting and fun to read. It also explores alien life in a way which is particularly believable (unlike many other SF books I encounter). This book reminds me of Dragon's Egg without being so hard-SFy. A very good book. [isbn: 9780812579413;0812579410]

The Hunger Games

Post author:mikal
Post published:April 17, 2012
Post category:Book

I picked this up in the US really cheap because I had run out of books to read on this trip. This book is pretty heavily hyped at the moment, but that's also why I got the book for $6 at a book store, so I can't complain. The book is an easy read, and fun. Its obviously aimed at teenagers, but I don't mind teen fiction as a genre and I read this book in a little over a day. The story line is similar to The Survivor in Battlefields Beyond Tomorrow, but is distinct enough to not be plagiarism. I enjoyed this book. [isbn: 9780439023528]