OMG how did the conference go so fast?!! :'(

It's meeeeee! (pic: @chrisjrn)

Tridge and Linux-powered coffee roaster. Fuck yes.

For some reason we got given rubber duckies at the conference.... que hordes of geeks squeezing them to make sounds

I know too many people.... mention dinner and this what I end up with... too many people to fit onto the screen

Nom nom nom nom

As usual, I’ve had no time to update my blog and so I’ll post more technical stuff later. Meanwhile, here are the pics from day 04 of the conference.

As can be expected of LCA, the day starts like any other – sleep deprived ;-)

Please tell me there's coffee *dying* (pic: @chrisjrn)

And of course, the early morning email reading/hacking session whilst waiting for the keynote:

I'm deep in thought whilst optimising corporate synergy (pic: @chrisjrn)

All the cool kids. (pic: @chrisjrn)

Tasty tasty breakfast from some hole-in-the-wall cafe off Grey St – kind of a weird way of serving scrambled eggs….. but was very tasty. :-)

Delicious, yet interesting method of serving breakfast. (at a random hole-in-the-wall cafe on Gray St)

Some dodgy twitter person. Think maybe @chrisjrn

Went along to lunch with a bunch of like-minded geeks:

Ewwwwww giant steak next to me! #militantvegetarian

Resturant is putting @LGnome on a diet or something.

Mmmmmm delicious vegetarian pizza.

Ended up catching public transport back to Urbanest to take a shower before the penguin dinner:

Wow! If only Wellington busses were this good!

And of course, the penguin dinner – although I didn’t stay as late as I would have normally, on account of me being insanely tired and needing to do washing or having to go commando the next day:

Conference dinner - note the vegetarian option isn't listed

Dinner buddies!

More LCA dinner buddies!

Nommy curry thingy

mmmmmmmm desert :-)

And of course, washing:

Finished the day with washing. Much excite!

As an amusing side story, I discovered one of the vending machines at Urbanest will convert change coins (eg 10c, 20c, 50c) into $1 coins by using the coin reject function. LIFE HACK WINS! ;-)

Till tomorrow’s post! :-)

Monday (yesterday) was the first day of the conference, so much great content and stuff on I’m only just catching up with blogging about it now.

I was one of the afternoon presenters, with my Indefero Source Code and Project Management presentation. The videos are still getting processed, but my slides are now available as a PDF downloaded.

There’s some pictures taken of me doing my talk by @chrisjrn which make me look like a bossy dictator. Which is probably accurate. ;-)

Me looking excited at the conference introduction, whilst @LGnome works hard on his slides like a good boy. (pic: @chrisjrn)

I look a bit old, but I think that's the sunburn/dry skin :-/ (pic: @chrisjrn)

I am Jethro, hear me roar! (pic: @chrisjrn)

If you don't use this software, I will come to your workplace and hurt you. (pic: @chrisjrn)

Chris is taking  a large number of pictures during the conference, you can see them all on his flicker feed here.

Also, here’s some blurry camera phone pictures by me from the conference:

Some of the LCA crowd waiting for the conference to start.

South Bank busway, with train line in the background.

Geeks hit the town - lookout Brisbane!

OMG! It's taller than 2 stories!

It's a bridge!

Brisbane looks awesome at night. Especially when standing in the middle of the river.

Maybe I don't have enough chargers already..... there's also a laptop and another cellphone not yet pictured O_o

Technically today isn’t an LCA day, but rather a “travel to LCA” day – figured since I won’t be tweeting as much, I should at least try to blog post every day on the events. If I’m really good, I may even upload my conference notes O_o

My trip started off with my first international flight via the new international terminal at Wellington – have to say, I really do like the architecture, although I think the lack of viewing spaces to look out onto the runway is a little sad. :-(

New Wellington international terminal

Sadly my flight wasn’t the best, it seems that during the process to move my flights from Thursday to Sunday 23rd, AirNZ had managed to completely forget that I was vegetarian.

I think it’s a pretty silly flaw in their system – seeing as I book all my flights with my AirNZ Airpoints ID, my basic preferences (such as diet) should really be set there.

The hostesses where pretty good and managed to find me some cheese and crackers, but they don’t carry additional extra vegetarian meals so couldn’t help me too much.

Other than that, the flight was uneventful and even the kids on the plane were reasonably well behaved.

Me crusing along on the AirTrain with a poorly adjusted camera. Note the Linux t-shirt to attract other fellow geeks at the airport.

After getting to Brisbane, I took the AirTrain from the Airport to South Bank Station for just $15 return using a special conference discount.

I’m actually extremly impressed with Brisbane’s public transport system! It’s how Wellington’s *should* be.

AirTrain:

• The wait between trains is 25-30mins, I only had to wait a couple before it came.
• It’s very smooth, fast and modern.
• At $15 conference rate, it’s pretty affordable too, certainly beats taking a taxi.

Regulars Trains/Buses

• Very, Very Cool.
• Excellent use of RFID technologies – the “go cards” in use are plentiful and can be brought at vending machines around the place. Once purchased, you swipe on and off trains AND buses.
• Brisbane has dedicated roads for buses, often running under ground which it runs natural gas powered buses along – almost like a bus-powered subway system.
• Modern, fast, accurate timing and bus order displays.

And other stuff from today:

• Caught up with a whole bunch of awesome friends again.
• Had a bit of a scare that my 3G SIM was flawed, but after correcting the APN settings, the 3G on my laptop is now working with dodo.com.au :-D

Over all, a good start. :-)