[Linux-aus] LCA: stuff you liked!

[Tim Ansell]

I have loved all the LCA's I've been too and they all had their
own unique flavor. Talks are always excellent but the people are the reason
I keep coming back. I have been to other conferences, but LCA is the only
one which has the real community spirit that is so awesome.

= LCA2004 --- Adelaide =

My first Linux.conf.au, I only ended up going because a company that I
worked for was contracting NetCraft. The conference was awesome (free
Golden Gaytimes for the win!). I was pretty much a noob about the community
so after chatting with someone I'd get told that he is Bdale Garbee,
Keith Packard or Rusty Russell. Will always have a special place in my
heart as my first LCA. I even won an "I BDale, owe you one HP iPaq" :)

= LCA2005 -- Canberra =

My first LCA which I spoke and and organised a miniconf. Running the
Embedded miniconf (back before Arduinos ;) was awesome and Bdale's talk on
Software Defined radio ended up as a best of. Giving a talk was a bit
daunting as I was scheduled against Keith and Shuttleworth (just after he
had gotten back from the space) but they really did treat you like a
king. Canberra also had some of the best keynotes with Eben and Tridge both
getting standing ovations! I came away mega enthused.


Sadly I missed LCA2006 because I was sailing down the Nile in Egypt at the
time. Apparently I missed the plague or something?


= LCA2007 - Sydney =

Who can forget the misspelling on the hats, bright green shoes or being
yelled at in the morning? (GOOD MORNING FREEDOM LOVERS!). Running the
Gaming miniconf and having Rusty strut his stuff in Stepmania on the Open
Day was awesome. It really started to feel like I was part of the FOSS
community in a way I had never before. Plus meeting people in person is
awesome.

= LCA2008 - Sydney =

Again I ran the Gaming miniconf and tried to make it bigger, better and
more awesome. Rusty packed a room with his talk about how his kernel
hacking days were over and he was now a games programmer, "Stand back, I'm
a kernel hacker!". Again it was awesome to see everyone again, I started
realising that even if the conference had no talks or events and was just
people standing around it still would be awesome.

= LCA2009 - Sydney =

The first year I didn't run a miniconf or do anything similar since 2004,
yet the Gaming Miniconf survived without me which was even more awesome.
'Twas nice to just relax and be an attendee, but man was that hike up the
hill to the apartments a killer.

= LCA2010 - Wellington =

A trip to New Zealand and getting to see everyone again, who could ask for
more? The U Stay common room was full of people doing all types of cool
stuff including giant chess. I foolishly agreed to run an Australian PyCon
at Chris's Open Programming Miniconf (I wasn't even intoxicated!) but poor
Richard didn't stand back fast enough to and I dragged him into it too. Got
my first ride in an ambulance but was back in time for the closing dinner
and see the performance.

= LCA2011 - Brisbane =

I have no idea how this conference ran perfectly with the last minute
change of venue! Rockets, rockets, rockets! Never did get mine back, but it
was awesome none the less. Another round of lively keynotes, including
quite a bit of controversy. Managed to stay out of hospital. The
talks were excellent, so many times I wanted to see multiple things at
once. I guess I was pretty much a fixture at LCA, having attended seven.

= LCA2012 - Ballarat =

Managed to get selected for a talk for the first time since 2005 - proof
that persistence eventually wears them down ;). My first time at attempting
to do live streaming of the conference (others had done various forms of
streaming at previous conferences), we managed to get over 100 people
on Tenenbaum's talk and it lead to what we did at PyCon US a short 3 months
later.


Anyway, there are my highlights.

Tim
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