Conference – Page 2 – Made by Mikal

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pyconau 2018 call for proposals now open

Post author:mikal
Post published:April 23, 2018
Post category:Conference

The pyconau call for proposals is now open, and runs until 28 May. I took my teenagers to pyconau last year and they greatly enjoyed it. I hadn't been to a pyconau in ages, and ended up really enjoying thinking about things from topic areas I don't normally need to think about. I think expanding one's horizons is generally a good idea. Should I propose something for this year? I am unsure. Some random ideas that immediately spring to mind: something about privsep: I think a generalised way to make privileged calls in unprivileged code is quite interesting, especially in a language which is often used for systems management and integration tasks. That said, perhaps its too OpenStacky given how disinterested in OpenStack talks most python people seem to be. nova-warts: for a long time my hobby has been cleaning up historical mistakes made in OpenStack Nova that wont ever rate as a major feature change. What lessons can other projects learn from a well funded and heavily staffed project that still thought that exec() was a great way to do important work? There's definitely an overlap with the privsep talk above, but this would be more general. a talk…

LCA2015 opens its Call for Proposals

Post author:mikal
Post published:June 11, 2014
Post category:Conference

LCA2015 will be in Auckland, New Zealand next year, and the Call for Proposals has just opened! The conference is one of the best venues in Australia and New Zealand to get word out about your Open Source project, as well as learning about the cool things that other people are doing. This is the third time the conference has been in New Zealand, and its looking to be an excellent event. This one call for proposals covers papers, tutorials, and mini conferences. For more information about the CFP, checkout http://lca2015.linux.org.au/cfp. Mini conference proposals should go to http://lca2015.linux.org.au/miniconf-cfp.

Call for presentations for the linux.conf.au 2014 OpenStack mini-conference

Post author:mikal
Post published:September 5, 2013
Post category:Conference

I've just emailed this out to the relevant lists, but I figured it can't hurt to post it here as well... linux.conf.au will be hosting the second OpenStack mini-conference to run in Australia. The first one was well attended, and this mini-conference will be the first OpenStack conference to be held on Australia's west coast. The mini-conference is a day long event focusing on OpenStack development and operations, and is available to attendees of linux.conf.au. The mini-conference is therefore calling for proposals for content. Speakers at the mini-conference must be registered for linux.conf.au 2014 as delegates, or discuss their needs with the mini-conference organizers if that isn't possible. Some examples of talks we're interested in are: talks from OpenStack developers about what features they are working on for IceHouse; talks from deployers of OpenStack about their experiences and how others can learn from them; talks covering the functionality of OpenStack and how it can be used in new and interesting ways. Some important details: linux.conf.au runs from 6 to 10 January 2014 in Perth, Australia at the University of Western Australia the mini-conference will be on Tuesday the 7th of January proposals are due to the mini-conference organizer no later…

We all know that the LCA2014 CFP is open, right?

Post author:mikal
Post published:June 18, 2013
Post category:Conference

I just want to make sure that everyone knows that the LCA2014 call for proposals is open. There are two calls this time around -- a call for proposals and a call for miniconfs. The call for proposals closes on 6 July, so you don't have heaps of time left to submit something. So, if you're interested in speaking at linux.conf.au 2014, in Perth between 6 and 10 January 2014 you should hit up those CFPs now!

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.…

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…

Call for papers opens soon

Post author:mikal
Post published:April 4, 2012
Post category:Conference

It's time to start thinking about your talk proposals, because the call for papers is only eight weeks away! For the 2013 conference, the papers committee are going to be focusing on deep technical content, and things we think are going to really matter in the future -- that might range from freedom and privacy, to open source cloud systems, or energy efficient server farms of the future. However, the conference is to a large extent what the speakers make it -- if we receive many excellent submissions on a topic, then its sure to be represented at the conference. The papers committee will be headed by the able combination of Michael Davies and Mary Gardiner, who have done an excellent job in previous years. They're currently working through the details of the call for papers announcement. I am telling you this now because I want speakers to have plenty of time to prepare for the submissions process, as I think that will produce the highest quality of submissions. I also wanted to let you know the organising for linux.conf.au 2013 is progressing well. We're currently in the process of locking in all of our venue arrangements, so we will…

It seems stickers are a gas

Post author:mikal
Post published:March 16, 2012
Post category:Conference

It seems that stickers are a gas -- they expand to occupy available space. We thought we'd ordered heaps of extra stickers to promote LCA 2013, but now we find ourselves running low. That's not a huge problem, but I do wonder if they are getting used or are just in the bottom of people's sock drawers. So here's the plan -- if you've got a LCA 2013 sticker and have stuck it somewhere, why not tweet a picture of it with the #lca2013 hashtag? If you don't use twitter, blog it or whatever and let us know at contact@lca2013.linux.org.au. The best picture will get a prize. I don't know what yet, because I just totally made this up. Perhaps a t-shirt. Perhaps a pet goat.

Announcement video

Post author:mikal
Post published:February 1, 2012
Post category:Conference

I imagine that most people saw this at the conference closing. However, for completeness and because I feel that if we're going to put videos of other speakers online then I should suffer the same fate, here is the LCA 2013 announcement from Ballarat:

Are you in a LUG? Do you want some promotional materials for LCA 2013?

Post author:mikal
Post published:January 26, 2012
Post category:Conference

Canberra was announced as the host for LCA 2013 at the close of LCA 2012. As part of that closing, we handed out postcards and laptop stickers to delegates. However, we deliberately had extra printed on the theory that groups like LUGs, university computer societies and so forth would be interested in having promotional materials for their groups. For those of you not lucky enough to attend the excellent LCA2012, the stickers looked like this: And the postcards look like this: All credit for the excellent art should go to the very capable Jenny Cox. So, if you're interested in having some stuff to hand out at your next LUG or computer society meeting, please drop us a line at contact@lca2013.linux.org.au. Don't forget to include the name of the group and a mailing address.