Blog entries from November, 2014

Last week I was up in Surfers Paradise for Open Source Developers’ Conference 2014. Numbers were lower than in some of the previous years, but the biggest change for me was that for the first time since 2007 I didn’t pay my own way, my new employer generously funded my (and two others) attendance.

What I took away from the conference this time was a number of ideas relating to home automation and monitoring, internet of things and embedded systems.

The presentations that covered those topics included:

• Linux-based monitoring and control in a sustainable house
• Open Source and Data Centres: The next Internet of Things Frontier
• BeagleBone Black, Arduino, and robotics from a software perspective
• Open Source with Opengear
• Libre ARM toolchains laid bare
• Building a 300+ seat inflight entertainment system controller in twisted
• 3D Printers and Printing: lots of magic you didn’t yet know, in less than 30 minutes
• Wireless Arduino workshop

Of course the two overall highlights were not part of the program. The first being pulling apart a printer in the unconference workshop session… I just love the story behind the scanning lens in a laser printer as that is a key part of what made them both accurate and reasonably priced. Where would technology be if we never had laser printer and desktop publishing?

The other highlight was after the conference close when a few of us went to a nearby pub where it turned out there was an ongoing raffle, you got a ticket for each drink and every few minutes they called out a number. It was just as we were getting ready to leave that one of our numbers came up, Hugh won a meat tray, but he was flying back to New Zealand the next morning. Then one of my numbers came up and – after a mad scramble to extract it from the empty can where I had put it – I end up with a bottle of bourbon.

It was time for me to meet up with my coworkers for our flight and I briefly considered taking it with me, but it would be a squeeze in my bag and it was nothing special, so I donated it to the group who were off to find a BBQ to deal with the meat tray. Later on I did get a photo of the aftermath.