BarcampCHS 2015

Another Barcamp Charleston is over with. The seventh Barcamp Charleston was a lot of fun. Significantly smaller than previous barcamps, but still a good time. There were also fewer presentations pitched this year as a result, but there were some pretty good ones.

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After the pitch sessions, I started the morning off hanging out with people in a BoF (Birds of a Feather) session. After that was my first presentation that I called Charleston Area Amateur Radio. Had a fairly decent sized group come to my talk where I talked a bit about the ham radio clubs in the area and the repeater networks around here that are available for use.

My session ended a bit early, and I was able to catch the Palmetto Scholars Academy kids working on their high altitude balloon launch demonstration. Their balloon didn’t go all that high, but they did a good job of explaining and demonstrating the process and requirements behind launching high altitude balloons.

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After the group photo and lunch was a session on graphs and graph theory by Denise Gosnell, one of the data scientists at Pokitdoc. Neat stuff. Kudos to Pokitdoc for being BarcampCHS sponsors and sending a great group of people to give some great presentations.

My second presentation of the day was a simple Ask a Medical Physicist session. Much to my surprise, I actually had a few (3) people show up, so it was just a very informal Q&A session where I gave a brief description of some of the things medical physicists do and answered any questions they had. It turned out to be a pretty decent session from my perspective.

The last two sessions I went to were on JSON and Clojure. They were both good sessions and I learned enough to dig a little more into them.

The crowd at this year’s Barcamp Charleston was a lot smaller than previous years, but there were a lot of new faces there. Hopefully they’ll spread the word and bring friends next year.

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Dragoncon 2015

Made it back out to Dragoncon this year for another fun filled weekend of costumes, people and partying. Lots of people at Dragoncon this year, and it definitely felt like it too.

While Dragoncon was another great time, unfortunately this was also the first year I managed to pick up a cold (con-crud) while there, which was not so great. I missed out on the Saturday evening festivities but was feeling well enough to head back out on Sunday.

This year’s Dragoncon was (aside from getting sick) a different experience from the previous years. It was less about seeing the people in costumes and attending panels/sessions, and more about getting together with con-friends that I’d met previously and hanging out with them. The costumes were great, and watching them go by was pretty cool, but they weren’t the main focus for me this year as they were in the past.

Hung out with some old Dragoncon friends

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and met some new ones

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This was also the first year I got to stay in one of the host hotels (the Hyatt). Luckily, our room faced the street and offered a great view of the Saturday Dragoncon parade from the 12th floor.

Dragoncon parade view
Dragoncon parade view
Nichelle Nichols, Dragoncon parade star
Nichelle Nichols, Dragoncon parade star

After one of the Space track talks, I stopped by the solar astronomy setup at the Hilton to check things out. It was operated by the Charles Bates Solar Astronomy Project, and they had a pretty nice setup with 4 scopes each with a different filter. One of the things they do is bring solar viewing to schools, which I think is great.

Solar astronomy
Solar astronomy

Could be a while before I make it to another Dragoncon. The next year will be pretty busy, so I doubt I’ll make it to another Dragoncon until 2017 at the earliest. It will be good to get back when I do make it though.

SpaceX (CRS-7) launch

We were out in Orlando for the weekend (more about that later) and as luck would have it, were able to find a spot to watch the SpaceX Dragon launch (CRS-7) off US-528 a few miles from the launch site. This was the first rocket launch I’ve seen in person and “up close”, so I was pretty excited. There were a fair number of people gathered at the same spot to see the launch too, but it wasn’t super crowded fortunately. The mid-morning launch also meant the sun was hot, but not unbearably so. I even had a random eyeball QSO with another ham who spotted me tuning around on my HT listening for any launch related radio chatter.

Managed to get some pretty decent pictures of the launch and the rocket ascending with my SLR and 300mm lens. The images are cropped in from the original with some histogram enhancement applied.

Launch time!

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About 20 seconds or so after the launch, the loud rumbling sound of the rocket firing reached us.

This was the last photo I took of the rocket before it disappeared behind the cloud. Not long after this shot, Connie told me the rocket had blown up.

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The crowd starting to leave the observing site after the launch.

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It was a very exciting first launch experience, although hearing about the rocket failure was very disappointing. I’m glad Connie found us a good spot to catch the launch from.

Southeast Linxufest 2015 schedule is out!

The draft schedule and other SELF events was just released.

I’m not going to be able to make it this year, but it definitely looks like it will be another good time.

Ubucon, BSidesCLT, Chef training, and Zero to DBA are in the lineup along with a bunch of other interesting looking talks.

Some of the ones in the schedule that caught my eye:

  • Git: Just say “No!” – D. Richard Hipp
  • MariaDB 10.1 101 – Daniel Bartholomew
  • Keynote: Team Near Space: Computing at 80 000 ft – Francois Dion
  • Keynote: Net Neutrality: From One Non-Evil ISP’s Perspective – Zach Underwood
  • Amateur Radio at the Boston Marathon – David Cantrell

Once again, there will be an amateur radio licensing test being administered on Saturday. The Craft Beer Bottle Share is back again this year (last year proved to be pretty popular).

Friday night is something new, Geeks with Guns, tentatively scheduled to take place after the talks at a nearby indoor shooting range. That ought to be interesting and fun.

I hear hotel rooms in the SELF block are going pretty quick and the SELF room rate will be expiring soon so if you’re planning on going, better make your reservation pretty soon.