It uses PHP 5 for the little bit of backend processing it requires, but most of the heavy lifting is in Javascript. The only other dependency is the HTML_AJAX PEAR package — I developed against a test release of 0.5.1, but 0.5.0 should work as well.

The files I actually wrote (be warned, they’re messy and undocumented):

• index.php: The entry point for the user. It’s only in PHP so I can control the Content-Type header.
• server.php: The AJAX server which pulls in the Audioscrobber related artists information.
• audio.js: The Javascript that does the heavy lifting of getting the related artists information and spitting out SVG via the DOM to render it.

You can consider these files to be licensed under either the GPL (which was a condition of entering Hackfest) or the MIT License. HTML_AJAX is licensed under the LGPL.

I thought the programme this year was outstanding. Every talk I attended rocked in some way, whether from the point of view of cool hackery (Nouveau), usefulness (Eat My Data), or sometimes sheer chaotic entertainment (x86 Hypervisors). HackFest was also really, really good fun, and I ended up with a completely unexpected little toy to bring home, pictured below. (The LCA 2006 key ring/bottle opener is for scale.) Congratulations to Stephen Thorne, too, who really, really deserved to win after attempting five more of the problems than I did.

Plus, even Tux finds HackFest cool enough to attend!

Otherwise, the experience is really the key. While I could go a long time without hearing Good morning, freedom lovers! again, LCA’s such an insane, overwhelming experience that you can never really get much more than a taste. As with every other year, though, I’ve found myself coming home with lots of things to try, lots of things to work on, some new people to annoy talk to on IRC — and, ultimately, just having learned more in a week than I would have in 51 weeks at the office through attending talks and talking to people who are way, way smarter than I am.

Now I just have to look forward to Mel8ourne — only 373 days to go!

The link between the old and new parts of Shalom’s first floor.

The very popular couch area at the top of Shalom’s main staircase… now with wireless behind the bin!

The main common room in Shalom. Note the various groups of people interacting in ways other than IRC. (Yes, really.)

More people in the common room.

So, as you can see, LCA once again brings people together from across the hacking world into university accommodation. It’s like a slightly geeky “Big Brother” without cameras. That we know of.

Finally, I give you Steve without his super wireless powers:

In non-Shalom-wireless news, there was a party tonight. It was good, since it involves an open bar and free swag. Of course, said bar and swag led to… the Linux ninja!

Moving right along, the bar tab partway through the night can be seen below. I feel sorry for whomever’s Google corporate credit card is being used.

Still, I think everyone had a good time. Much networking (of the social variety) took place, which is always excellent. The dancing, however…

Anyway, in other news, the PostgreSQL talks I went to today (the ones before and after lunch) were terrific. I think you would have learned something from those sessions pretty much regardless of your experience with Postgres, which is the sign of a really good talk. Kudos to the organisers in general for shuffling the rooms allocated to each talk around after lunch, too — the Postgres talk, for one, really benefitted from the larger room.

Before I go to bed, a question. Can anyone explain how the fan seen below, which is in one of the Shalom common areas, is supposed to work? Note the length of the power cable attached to it and the location of the power point.

Truly, a mystery for the ages.

As I understand it, there’s just no way to get LCA network infrastructure into anywhere more useful in Shalom, and after talking to them, they (for understandable reasons) won’t let us run a cat 5 cable down to the first floor common room or somewhere equally useful. Therefore, it looks like we may be, as the technical term goes, SOL.

The overall setup. Note the iBurst card on the laptop at left.

The iBurst card in close-up. I think Steve’s very thankful he doesn’t pay per megabyte at the moment.

GKrellM on the laptop, showing the Internet usage — which, given it’s shaped to 64 kBps, is pretty hefty.

Courtesy of the organisers and the persistent Steve Walsh, we now have some wireless access for the evening in the first floor common room in Shalom College. Apparently something more permanent will be in place later, but for now, it’s working.

Of course, what that really means is that I went to Circular Quay, went over the Harbour Bridge, got a ferry across the harbour, walked around the Opera House, and got incredibly cheesed off at the price of going up Sydney Tower. I think that gives me the authentic Sydney tourist experience in three hours flat.

Now back at the Pavillion sucking up some sweet, sweet wireless. There was talk on the Shalom whiteboard of there being a New Zealanders dinner (with us West Islanders invited too), but I think it’ll end up just being a quiet dinner at one of the restaurants on Anzac Parade and an early night, because let’s face it, there’s not going to be too many more from here.

Tomorrow: Chris Blizzard, Jokosher and tonnes of Postgres.

So, what of the conference and Sydney? Hard to make a definitive call after less than eight hours, but first impressions are positive. The conference Internet access is yet to be enabled (It was enabled on Monday morning, so no complaints there.), but since the conference proper doesn’t start until tomorrow that’s hardly a big deal, although it did cause a little consternation while trying to work out the arrangements for getting to the Löwenbräu, since the details were on the Wiki.

Once there, though, a good time was had by all. I think rather more people showed up than Steve, who organised it (and was quoted late in the night as saying, If I do this again in Melbourne (LCA 2008), shoot me) or the Löwenbräu staff expected, but it still went off without a hitch. Adam and I even managed to find our way back to UNSW without help, which surprised me a tad.

Beyond that, I can’t really comment on Sydney. We did get a really quick look at the bridge and Opera House from Circular Quay, which at least means that I probably have now qualified as Australian under some sort of eastern states metric.

Really, though, it’s just good to be here. The conversations about DRM and PHP on the bus, Dayvd stoking the vi/emacs war at dinner… the next week promises to be enjoyably geeky. Both Disco Stu and I can’t wait!

So long as I don’t get food poisoning and a major allergic reaction to anti-nausea medication again, at least.

Anyway, Sydney here I come!