Category: Government

Teaming up with Apple

So today and tomorrow I’m at the education au Global Summit as a “thought leader”. It is a great opportunity to talk to loads of people about how Open Source and Open Standards can help education.

Anyway, I was amused when the “thought leader” from Apple spoke to me just before the start and said “oh you’re the Open Source person, yeah I assumed you’d be more technical so lets team up to get our teams to do some more interesting stuff on the website”. 🙂 We will be logging what is happening live on a collaboration site, so it will be fun.

SLUG @ Moodle

Over this weekend is the inaugral Sydney Moodle conference. I gave a talk yesterday about “Open Source, Opening doors to education” and Lindsay Holmwood (President of SLUG) organised a booth for the weekend/ We’ve already spoken to a lot of people and have been heavily pimping both Open Day as a great holiday event for students and families, and the Education Miniconf which typically includes loads of teachers and school admins.

Sridhar and Andreas have been helping out and it is great to have FOSS represented at events like this because each of those teachers has a long-lasting impact on thousands of students and parents. I think we definitely need to focus more on education.

I spoke about the benefits of FOSS to education, the big picture when it comes to technology and why software freedom is important, first steps in playing with FOSS, and obviously about FOSS and the community. I’ve put the slides online for anyone interested.

Rock on FOSS in education!

2 more sleeps

Jeff gets home in only two more sleeps.

If I should die this very moment
I wouldn’t fear
For I’ve never known completeness
Like being here
Wrapped in the warmth of you
Loving every breath of you
Still my heart this moment
Or it might burst

Wanna stay right here
‘Til the end of time
‘Til the earth stops turning
Gonna love you until the seas run dry
I’ve found the one Ive waited for

Gorecki – by Lamb

FOSS & Software Freedom on Cybershack

I recently recorded an interview with Cybershack, a radio show for geeks/gamers. It was a difficult interview so I’m not completely happy with it. It was all in one take and they didn’t want to give me the questions in advance, but all in all it turned out ok I think. I’m hoping to get them more involved in FOSS and hopefully even get FOSS on the TV show someday 🙂

Check out the podcast of the interview here and it starts about 13 minutes 33 seconds.

65 bikes and another 25 km!

Today I rode home from Macquarie University to Surry Hills again, about 25 kms. I sheared about 20 mins off my first time, bring me down to 1 hour 40. A long way to go to getting fit! 🙂 I was really excited though because I counted another 65 bikes on the road! I feel like I’m in some sort of special club! I found the secret harbour bridge path for bikes (ok it isn’t secret, but I hadn’t known about it till then), and had one fellow rider try to hit on me, which was, well just plain weird. I’m bad at picking if a person if just being friendly or sleazy at the best of times, let alone when I’m trying to avoid traffic!

Anyway, I had a few friendly riders help me figure out where to go and I’m really enjoying the bike culture. Thanks Lindsay, Steve and Mike for inspiring me to start 🙂

GPL3 Seminar in Sydney – November

The University of NSW CyberLaw Centre will be running a GPL3 Seminar sometime in November. They are after input, speakers and feedback about what needs to be covered. Contact them to have your say to ensure the conference covers issues that affect developers and our community. The CyberLaw centre have been doing a bunch of great events and research about FOSS licensing, copyright and other legal issues. It should be a very interesting event 🙂

AWESOME! OpenSource WA to stay open!

I love it when community efforts can lead to tangible positive outcomes!

So now the Opensource WA resource centre is staying open.

Mr Grocott denied there was any threat to funding and said the Government recognised that greater investment in open-source software was needed for WA to stay competitive in a market of increasing importance to both business and consumers.

Rock!

Lets hear more from our local expert on Islam

Yes, I am frustrated at Eriks comments on Islam. But I have to say, he certainly does his research:

Now I am certainly not an expert on the Qur’an, but after 10 minutes research…

Wow Erik! Don’t go out of your way here. Your depth of understanding is certainly astounding.

So, according to this web page…

Seriously Erik. As we all know there is a lot of crazy crack out there on the internet. You need to cross reference. Have you ever actually spoken to a Muslim (on purpose)? Have you asked anyone who studies the religion about this? Considering your above attempts I would suggest no.

The website you quote also had the following:

www.submission.org is not owned, governed, maintained, managed or operated by any kind of legal organizations or organized groups.

Not a totally reputable source perhaps? I have to say, unless you can read Arabic and look at the original texts then you can’t be sure. Anyway, in just a few minutes of my own browsing:

Rape is an abhorrent crime and an abominable sin. This heinous crime is forbidden not only in Islam but in all religions, and all people of sound thinking and pure human nature reject it.

A raped woman is a victim that must be treated with honor and kindness. She is not required to produce four witnesses to prove the crime done against her, nor is she punished for the crime done against her.

Both from this article by an actual Sheikh.

So please stop talking about that which you don’t know. Stick to programming and your obviously hidden talent for web design 😉