Richard Stallman talk

Last Thursday, in an event organised with Manchester Free Software and sponsored by the BCS and the IET, we had Richard Stallman give a talk on free software at the University of Manchester.

Initially, we hadn’t expected many people to attend the talk, perhaps a hundred or so, and as a result a small room was booked for the event. However, my publicity spread both further and faster than I expected, with people from as far away as York and Birmingham saying that they were going to make the trip to listen to Stallman speak. Thankfully, a larger lecture theatre was booked in time, and even then there were people sitting on the stairs and standing at the back.

Stallman’s speech was generally informative and entertaining, and I particularly liked his Church of Emacs sketch (though as a vi(m) user, I naturally disagreed as to the One True Editor). There were lots of questions afterwards too, most of which Stallman answered very well, but in some places it was clear that he wasn’t aware of the area he was talking about (e.g. some of his comments about “intellectual property” were off the mark). The distinction he tried to draw between creative and technical works (you should be able to edit textbooks and software, but not novels, seemed to be the general point) was a bit flimsy, and fell apart completely when someone asked where computer games fitted into the picture. However, the discussion was interesting, if a little heated at points where Stallman clearly had missed the point of a question.

The only low point of the night was when I got up at the end of the speech to thank Stallman for his “enlightening” talk and ask if anyone had any questions, at which point he completely ignored me, and I ended up looking like a bit of a muppet in front of 300 people. I couldn’t believe he was so rude, but it seemed as if he genuinely wasn’t aware of the people around him—I got the same feeling when meeting him at the car and the fact that he didn’t say thank you at any point for the amount of work which had been put into organising the event.

Overall, I think the event was a success, and the people I spoke to afterwards seem to have enjoyed it, so it was probably worth all the hassle to get it happening. I don’t think I would invite Stallman again though, he’s great when he’s standing up and speaking but an absolute nightmare to accommodate with his huge list of requirements and lack of consideration for other people (e.g. only arriving five minutes before the speech was due to start due to changing his travel plans at the last minute).

A tip of the hat goes to Paul Robinson for putting Stallman up for the night (he will only stay in hotels as a “last resort”) and Dave Crossland for driving him up from Cambridge, plus all the people who forwarded on the publicity that I sent out which resulted in over 300 people turning up.

posted by Paul at 3:06pm on Monday 5th May 2008 | 7 Comments »

OpenVPN at ManLUG

I gave my “Adventures with OpenVPN” talk at ManLUG today, after a re-jigging of the timetable and several rewrites of my slides in S5. I’d been meaning to give a talk at some point because we haven’t had many speakers recently and I felt it was about time that I chipped in having been a member of the group for over four years, plus several people had expressed an interest in the topic.

I was a bit nervous initially as most people at ManLUG far more about most aspects of system administration than I do, but I think I managed to answer the majority of the questions without too much trouble. Thankfully no one asked about the low level details of VPN implementations, which is the one area where my knowledge is almost non-existent. Most impressively, I actually managed to run to time, which is unusual as I generally finish talks far too quickly. There was a good turnout, which was encouraging, and I got some positive feedback afterwards, plus I learnt quite a bit from the questions and points raised by the audience.

Elsewhere, things are moving along reasonably well. I’ve helped to organise and publicise a talk by Richard Stallman of Free Software Foundation fame at the University of Manchester on the 1st May. Full details at Manchester Free Software, where I have been nominated as “minute taker, for life” (I’m not sure this is a good thing). Provided the BCS manage to book a large enough lecture theatre, it should be a successful event, with people coming from Leeds, York and other areas outside of Manchester. Finding a place for Stallman to stay had been giving me some sleepless nights, but thankfully Paul Robinson stepped into the breach, for which I am eternally grateful. I’m now looking forward to the event, hopefully it should be an interesting evening as well as an opportunity to catch up with people I haven’t seen for a while.

posted by Paul at 10:47pm on Saturday 19th April 2008 | 1 Comment »

Busy, so very busy

As usual, I’ve been incredibly busy in the last few weeks, mostly working on ideas for my PhD and helping the run the various organisations which I’m involved in. My research seems to be slowly coming together, I have a vague idea of a framework which it should fit into and I’m reasonably confident that I have something which is both unique and useful. In fact, I’m thinking so far ahead that I’ve already written a page of the ‘future work’ section of my thesis!

I do wish there were more hours in the day though, so that I could actually do all the freelance work which people keep offering me (I get numerous calls and emails about this, even though I’ve yet to print a single business card or do any advertising beyond word-of-mouth and my business site). I find it really hard to turn down offers of work, but I’ve managed to keep my schedule reasonably free and not take on any additional contracts. In terms of the next couple of years though, I’ve heard something interesting things on the grapevine which, combined with potential positions opening in some of the groups I’m involved in, could swing things in my direction when I’m reaching the end of my PhD.

Thankfully I am now off for a short five day Easter break, although the chances of me actually relaxing and not doing any work are about as slim as my waistline. The next couple of weeks are incredibly busy, with the Classical Association AGM, followed by three days of UKUUG conference, an Manchester FoE planning meeting and #manlug’s monthly currybeer. I also need to finish my talk on OpenVPN which I’m due to give at ManLUG next month. So it’s back to the grindstone and chasing people about exciting things such as agenda items and planning meeting actions…

posted by Paul at 12:35am on Thursday 20th March 2008 | No Comments »

R.I.P. Arthur C Clarke

Writer Arthur C Clarke dies at 90

To my eternal shame, I have never read any of his books or seen 2001: A Space Odyssey. I shall have to rectify that at some point in the near future.

posted by Paul at 10:23pm on Wednesday 19th March 2008 | 2 Comments »

Darling the Killjoy

4p on a pint of beer, 14p on a bottle of wine and 55p on a bottle of spirits.

posted by Paul at 6:18pm on Wednesday 12th March 2008 | 1 Comment »

Just to prove that I’m still alive…

…because sometimes people think that I’m not if I don’t blog, appear on MSN or update my status for over a month, here is a brief update on what I’ve been up to as of late.

Friends of the Earth stuff is still taking up large chunks of my spare time, but I’m enjoying it and this seems to be my main social group at the moment too. I’m also not sure what’s happened recently, but all of a sudden national Friends of the Earth has started asking my opinion about things, which is cool—I think this means I’ve now been around long enough that people actually know who I am.

In terms of my PhD, things seem to be going quite well. My literature review is coming together, which means that I won’t have to write my entire transfer report at the last minute as this will form a part of it. My supervisor also commented that my writing is far better than what he usually sees at this stage, which I think is largely thanks to my MA. In fact, I think my Masters degree was far more useful in general than my undergraduate course, as the latter taught me things which I already knew or could find in a textbook, rather than teaching me how to think for myself.

I also got bored of wearing black all the time and being mistaken for various combinations of goth, assassin, hacker and bouncer, so I switched to some more colourful shirts from M&S about a week ago. This resulted in my supervisor nearly having a heart attack every day for a week, and he now believes that a woman is behind the change—i.e. that I’ve suddenly got a girlfriend. Alas, that’s not the case, although I did get several compliments on how I looked so it’s not too bad.

Finally, I’m looking forward to the UKUUG Spring 2008 conference, where I will be in attendance as a Council member and perhaps chairing a session. Oh, and you should all go and listen to Jennie sing and read poetry, and particularly check out the amusing logo next to ‘My Conservative Friend’.

posted by Paul at 11:22pm on Saturday 8th March 2008 | 2 Comments »

The Internet party

What Happens When Google’s Parents Leave Town for the Weekend? (via Jon)

Absolutely hilarious, if you’re geeky enough to understand all the references to the sites mentioned in the clip.

posted by Paul at 3:58pm on Thursday 17th January 2008 | 2 Comments »

Damn. Double Damn. Triple Damn.

I have just come across Finding and linking incidents in news, which appears to be a published paper on more or less exactly the topic that I’ve been working on for the last three months. Given that I have to make an original contribution to research in order to get a PhD, this really stuffs things up for me.

posted by Paul at 5:17pm on Friday 4th January 2008 | No Comments »

New Year’s resolutions

I think these probably count more as spring cleaning exercises than resolutions in most cases, but they are things which I definitely need to do this year.

1. Pass my transfer report: Some time in September/October (which isn’t that far off really), I have to justify myself to two examiners in my department in order to transfer from the first year of my MPhil to the second year of my PhD. If I can’t convince them, I’ll have wasted a year in academia without getting a qualification, which will be disappointing to say the least, and I’m not entirely confident about it at the moment.
2. Don’t buy any more domains: I own far too many already, and am letting lots of old ones expire until I have a small enough number to develop.
3. Cancel magazine subscriptions which I don’t read: There are several magazines which I’m subscribed to but never get round to reading, and therefore should be cut. I’ve already started on this, but should probably be a bit more ruthless than I have been so far.
4. Get the Warped Library off my hands: I failed miserably to do this last year, but I need to get shut of this mound of books for a society which I’m not really that involved with any more.
5. Reduce workload where possible: In other words, don’t volunteer for any more committee positions or take on too much freelance work.
6. Keep blogs up to date: I let Data Circle and Politics Watch go quiet from July onwards, but this year I’d like to keep them up to date with at least one post a week each.
7. Work on one site at a time: I’ve got a huge list of site ideas in a folder which just keeps getting bigger and bigger, and consequently I’ve never actually got round to turning most of them into reality. Working on one idea at a time and not thinking about the next until the current one is ready to be released is something I need to concentrate on this year.

There are a few other things as well, plus some financial goals, but I think that will do for the time being.

posted by Paul at 9:48pm on Thursday 3rd January 2008 | No Comments »

Responsible behaviour

The latest xkcd (work safe) cracked me up this morning when I saw it in my feed reader (edited so that it will fit into my blog – horizontally it’s too long otherwise).

N.B. For non-geeks, signing a public key of someone you don’t know is probably worse than sleeping with them, as everyone can tell that you did it

posted by Paul at 11:38am on Monday 31st December 2007 | 6 Comments »