I just heard the pleasesendustolinuxconfau have hit $5000 and mostly from the contributions of Aussies and hackers around the world. It is pretty amazing to see who is donating, and it shows just how much people want to come to the “best technical FOSS conference in the world”!
Yesterday Jeff and I got a Wii. When Jeff was convincing me (and I needed convincing as we already have computers and a gaming console), he tried saying that it could help us get fit. I thought this was laughable, but, as I love gaming I relented and we got one (by pre-ordering the day before, we got it cheaper too! 
Anyway, holy crap!!! It is seriously the best gaming platform ever! The controllers are completely intuitive, and come wireless with rumble and sound. Boxing is actually like boxing! The games that come by default are awesome. You create a Mii, or an avator for yourself with _loads_ of tweaking options, and then your avatar can be used in all the Wii enabled games, so you end up building a profile through whichever games you are playing. It takes only a few minutes to get used to it, and it is really, really fun. Totally recommended!
Oh, and Jeff was right. The fitness training and sports games really do make you work up a serious sweat! Who knew a gaming console could finally get to the point of being better for your fitness rather than completely detrimental 
Rodney Gedda from IDG did a short 3 minute video report of the GPL3 event last week. Find it on the Computerworld website in their video player (needs flash). Good work Rodney! The full video of the event will be available soon from the Cyberspace Law and Policy Centre folk.
AMEX wasn’t initially set up for the lca payment gateway, however we’re in the process of getting this done now. So for all the AMEX card holders coming to lca, this should be done in the next 2-3 days, hopefully just in time for earlybirds with AMEX to pay. I suggest anyone in this boat (earlybird AMEX holders) should organise alternative payment plans as a backup for if we can’t get this in time for the 8th.
So the GPL3 forum happened yesterday in Sydney hosted by the UNSW Cyberspace Law and Policy Centre and supported by Linux Australia.
It was an interesting event, and a full recording will be made available in the coming week. It got an article from Computerworld which was great, and there were about 50 participants. Tridge was, as usual, utterly brilliant. Articulate, talking out the issues and benefits, and generally being very generous with his time and knowledge. There was good discussion between the panelists (although there could have been more crowd participation, I think Roger Clarke who chaired it was probably a little exclusive), and finally Eben Moglen joined us for a 45 minute phone call where he answered loads of questions. I asked him about the Novell/MS agreement and he had some very interesting things to say I won’t try to paraphrase however when the video is available you’ll see yet another brilliant idea from Eben that works to avoid the kind of patents lock-out inherent in such deals.
Many thanks to Professor Graham Greenleaf, David Vaile and his team, in particular to Abi who pulled it all together! Also thanks to Linux Australia who with a small sponsorship ensured the event was free for anyone to participate.
All the earlybird registrations for linux.conf.au have till the 8th December to pay. You should have received reminders by now about this, and if you have any issues or haven’t received your invoice by email, please simply log into the website (using “forgotten my password” if necessary) and then confirm your profile (you’ll be able to change details) and then proceed with payment to lock in the earlybird rate for you.
450 people registered! Places are limited so if you haven’t yet signed up for the best technical FOSS conference in the world, get to it! Remember, students get a very special price to encourage their participation!
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