[plug] Installfests

[Gregory Orange]

Hi Harry et al,

On 26/12/24 12:41, Harry McNally wrote:
> There hasn't been any ideas in response to my earlier post and I can explain later why this matters for our 2025 programme.

Apologies. I typed something, hit send, and discovered that I had broken
my email setup while hurriedly fixing it after missing a critical
invoice while travelling. Today I am starting to feel post-chaos, or at
least the current bout of it...

Anyway, I'm interested in home automation, the HA software,
electrification, efficiency, etc. I let my Renew+Sanctuary subscription
drop a few years ago, but a couple of Facebook have been keeping me a
bit informed about a few things.


> During one of those installfests I borrowed a Philips driver briefly off an enthusiastic schoolboy to whip the cover off someone's PC case (probably to examine the Bizarro brand label on the graphics card). This guy also knew a lot about computers and Linux and was happy to share knowledge in the scrum of ideas, flaky hardware, and borrowed tools on those days.
> 
> That schoolboy was Trent Lloyd, now a developer at Canonical and doing very good work (is the feedback I am hearing). People like Tony Breeds were there offering support and encouragement. They were fun days and the emphasis was just getting a machine to run Linux.
> 
> Trent today: https://ceph2024.sched.com/speaker/trent@lloyd.id.au

I love hearing these stories. I come across Trent semi-regularly,
firstly when he spoke at one of the fledgling Perth OpenStack meetups,
and most recently at Cephalocon in Geneva this month, where he gave me
the tip to rescue the failures between my laptop & the conference venue
hardware by using Google Slides.


> Fast-forward to what we would want to achieve with Installfests 2025.
-snip- RPi possibilities
> 
> We have a Raspberry Jam event scheduled for our March meeting. We may have advanced the PLUG on Pi project by then and the meet-up is an opportunity to demonstrate other public net facing projects.
> 
> In the spirit of Installfests, the evening may be organised to demonstrate applications for the Pi or helping someone with ideas to get a project running on the Pi.

I'd love to say I will come to the March event, because my 10yo NUC is
overpowered for what it does, and when it eventually dies I would like
to know what I can practically achieve with a Pi. I also want to run HA,
beyond the Docker container I started a year ago and promptly neglected.
In reality though, life has been a blur so I've learned not to make
certain promises even to myself.

>   https://events.humanitix.com/how-to-save-on-your-energy-bills-using-low-cost-home-automation

Cool! Thank you, tis now added to my calendar wishlist. I'm a little
surprised I didn't see in the MEEH & HA Facebook groups.

Greg.