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March 2018 News

March 2018 News Archive

Thu Mar 1 00:00:00 2018

This is the shadowcat news archive for March 2018.

Matt S. Trout is 35

Introduction

This year our Technical Director, and the person most responsible for the existence of Shadowcat as an entity, turns thirty-five. By folklorish manner that is half the span of man (three score years and ten) though modern medical advances places people in his region of birth/habitat as between 87-93 years of lifespan for those who are biologically identified as male.

In celebration we at Shadowcat would like to note a few facts about his birthday in figures. Our MD, Mark, has written a rather interesting blog for this day which has a lyrical take on the tale of how we came to be.

Some statistics

  • March 30, 1983 was a Wednesday
  • mst has slept on average for 4262 days or 11 years!
  • mst has been alive for 12784 days!
  • mst has been alive for approximately 306794 hours
  • mst has been alive for approximately 18407520 minutes old
  • Birthstone: Aquamarine
  • Star Sign: Aries
  • Matthew was the 3rd most popular baby name in 1983 in the US
  • Officially part of Generation Y - The Millennials
  • Birth date in Rooman Numerals: XXX • III • MCMLXXXIII
  • There were exactly 432 full moons after you were born up to this day
  • The next full moon that you can see will be on March 31 at 12:38:00 GMT – Saturday

March 30, 1983 was a Wednesday and it was the 89th day of the year 1983. The next time to reuse your old 1983 calendar will be in 2022. Both calendars will be exactly the same! This is assuming you are not interested in the dates for Easter and other irregular holidays that are based on a lunisolar calendar.

Famous Birthdays

  • 1950: Robbie Coltrane
  • 1968: Celine Dion

What happened on March 30 in history?

These were the events that made history that coincide with your birthday.

598

Balkan Campaign: The Avars lift the siege at the Byzantine stronghold of Tomis. Their leader Bayan I retreats north of the Danube River after the Avaro-Slavic hordes are decimated by the plague.

1282

The people of Sicily rebel against the Angevin king Charles I, in what becomes known as the Sicilian Vespers.

1822

The Florida Territory is created in the United States.

1841

The National Bank of Greece is founded in Athens.

1909

The Queensboro Bridge in New York City opens, linking Manhattan and Queens.

1910

The Mississippi Legislature founds the University of Southern Mississippi.

1939

The Heinkel He 100 fighter sets a world airspeed record of 463 mph (745km/h).

1940

Second Sino-Japanese War: Japan declares Nanking capital of a new Chinese puppet government, nominally controlled by Wang Jingwei.

1982

Space Shuttle program: STS-3 Mission is completed with the landing of Columbia at White Sands Missile Range, New Mexico.

2006

The United Kingdom Terrorism Act 2006 becomes a law.

Let’s all raise a glass to Matt and look forward to (at minimum) the next 35 glorious years - and his fortieth is going to be a blast!

Shadowcat at the FLOSSUK Spring Event

April sees the annual FLOSSUK Spring Conference (normally associated with Dev-Ops and system administration but more an open technology and open rights event) and as usual Shadowcatters will be in attendance. This year it is in the glorious Capital City of Edinburgh at the Dynamic Earth near to Holyrood.

Mark, currently the Chair of the FLOSSUK Council, will be attending as an organiser. This year he will be ably assisted by both Tom and Finn who are handling some of the technology and videography at the event. For a change the team will not be presenting talks, though a Lightning Talk might slip in.

Matt will be at the event but in stark contrast to previous years will not be giving a talk but enjoying just other people talking and the usual hallway and social tracks.

So who is coming to the FLOSSUK Spring Conference next month? If you are coming don’t forget to say hello to one of the team.

Some Facts

FLOSSUK is the UK’s primary support organisation for Free/Libre Open Source Systems (FLOSS) supporting Free and Open Technology.

  • Main Conference (26-27 April) – Dynamic Earth, Edinburgh
  • Workshops (25 April) – The University of Edinburgh, Edinburgh

The Spring Conference is the UK’s longest running event supporting systems and network administrators. But as FLOSSUK has evolved to support open networks, software, hardware and data so our primary conference now also covers these areas.

Venues

  • All the conference and workshop venues are within walking distance of each other in the city centre.
  • The main conference will be at Dynamic Earth, next to the Scottish Parliament at the edge of Holyrood Park.
  • The University of Edinburgh is kindly hosting the workshops at two locations.
  • The paid workshops will be in Argyle House near the historic Grassmarket and the free one will be in their uCreate Studio overlooking The Meadows park.

Accommodation

FLOSSUK does not have any recommended or discounted accommodation options. Edinburgh is an international destination and offers a huge number of places to stay which you can book online, for example at VisitScotland. However, the organisers will have rooms in KM Central, and we will be happy to accompany delegates from there to and from the other venues.

Conference

  • https://www.flossuk.org/about/code-of-conduct/ (Code of Conduct)
  • http://bit.ly/flossuk2018 (Main site)
  • http://bit.ly/floss2018-workshops (Workshops)
  • http://bit.ly/floss2018-Tickets (Tickets)
  • http://bit.ly/floss2018-talks (Talks)

Venues

  • http://www.dynamicearth.co.uk/ (Dynamic Earth)
  • https://www.ed.ac.uk/maps/maps?building=argyle#main-content (Dynamic Earth)
  • https://www.ucreatestudio.is.ed.ac.uk/ (UCreate Studio)

Information:

  • https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scottish_Parliament_Building (Scottish Parliament)
  • https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Holyrood_Park (Holyrood Park)
  • https://www.ed.ac.uk/) (Edinburgh University
  • https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grassmarket (Grassmarket)
  • https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Meadows_(park (Meadows Park)

Accommodation

  • http://www.edinburghfirst.co.uk/for-accommodation/km-central (KM Central)
  • https://www.visitscotland.com/accommodation/ (Visit Scotland)