Monthly Archives: January 2008

Running for President (of Linux Australia)

Posted on by
Reply

The other day, I accepted the nomination for President of Linux Australia in the upcoming election. The following, is the spiel I’ve put up to help make my case for electing me:

Hi, I’m Stewart Smith and I want to be the president of Linux Australia in 2008.

I have previously served on the Linux Australia committee both as Vice President and as an Ordinary Committee Member.

This year, I’m running on the following platform:
– Keep the organisation solvent (if we loose money, we go broke and don’t have an organisation any more… which likely means no LCA, which would be a disaster).
– Ensure an awesome LCA is organised for 2009
– Improve processes, especially in finances and book keeping
– Use LA’s resources for more things directly benefiting members (including investigating member services, talking to government to ensure Australian law is friendly to the needs of our members, supporting LUGs)
– Be inclusive and in touch with members, and what’s holding back other people becoming members.

In addition to being on the LA committee previously, I’ve also been on the LUV committee, am currently helping with LCA08 things and was rather active back in the (not too distant) past at my university. I’ve co-authored two books related to free software (Practical MythTV and the MySQL 5.1 Cluster Certification Study Guide), currently work for MySQL as a Senior Software Engineer on MySQL Cluster and live in Melbourne.

I’m also the author of this membership and voting software, MemberDB – and no, it’s not rigged but yes, it is free software.

A few weeks with new stereo system

Posted on by
Reply

Just before Christmas, I bought myself a new stereo. This is something I’ve been thinking about for a while and one of those things that takes some care in looking at because it’s a non-trivial amount of cash.

I’ve ended up with B&W 683 speakers, an Arcam amplifier and CD player (Tivoli HiFi had a special on saving about $800+ on the amp and CD when bought with speakers).

The basic summary is that this sounds awesome. Tool especially sounds awesome. The only real downside is that i’m starting to get really used to this as the standard of audio I listen to.

Even better, no complaints from neighbours (yet).