SeaGL speaker Q&A: Margaret Staples
September 21, 2017
Margaret Staples gives her talk titled, “Philosophy in Code: I Kant Even” on Saturday morning.
Q: Could you please introduce yourself and tell us a little about your background?
A: I’m a cyborg but with really primitive upgrades. You’ll see me rolling around and sometimes maybe laying down to give my bionicness some recharge time. I’ve been into computers since before they were common enough for me to have touched one, but my formal education is in World History.
Q: Without tipping your hand on the actual talk, can you give us an idea of what we might expect?
A: You can expect me to be ridiculously enthusiastic about logic and programming.
Q: Is this your first visit to SeaGL? If so, what are your expectations? If not, can you give us your impressions of the event?
A: Yes! I’m doing my best not to form any expectations, but I did meet someone from the org at PNWPHP last week and they were super nice, so I am hoping most people there will also be super nice :)
Q: Do you have a dog you would like to tell us about?
A: Why yes I do! Her name is Lilith. She’s a black lab border collie mix made entirely of sweetness and joy. She’s been with me for 16 years so you could say she’s my old lady. She’s a very good girl.
SeaGL speaker Q&A: Brian Raiter
September 21, 2017
Brain Raiter gives his talk titled, “Introduction to the Godot Game Engine” on Friday afternoon.
Q: Could you please introduce yourself and tell us a little about your background?
A: Hello, world: I’m Brian. I’ve been a professional programmer for most of my adult life, and a recreational programmer for even longer.
Q: Without tipping your hand on the actual talk, can you give us an idea of what we might expect?
A: I’m going to give a whirlwind introduction to Godot, a very cool free-software game engine. By the end of the talk you’ll be ready to fire up Godot yourself and start using it to build your own game.
Q: Is this your first visit to SeaGL? If so, what are your expectations? If not, can you give us your impressions of the event?
A: This is my fifth time attending SeaGL. Talks cover a wide range of topics, given by all kinds of people and all kinds of Linux users. I especially appreciate SeaGL’s commitment to free software and inclusiveness.
Q: What’s the first computer game you ever played?
A: Mainframe “Star Trek”, on an IBM S/36 where my father worked.
SeaGL speaker Q&A: Adam Monsen
September 21, 2017
Adam Monsen gives his talk titled, “Automatic Chicken Door HOWTO (No it will not hurt a chicken)” on Friday afternoon.
Q: Could you please introduce yourself and tell us a little about your background?
A: I’m a Seattle-native FLOSS fanatic and VP of Engineering at C-SATS. I co-founded and help organize SeaGL. My blog is at http://adammonsen.com.
Q: Without tipping your hand on the actual talk, can you give us an idea of what we might expect?
A: Inspiration to do your own fun, rewarding hardware project. Knowledge of which parts will be easy and which parts will be challenging. This is my first Raspberry Pi project.
Q: Is this your first visit to SeaGL? If so, what are your expectations? If not, can you give us your impressions of the event?
A: I’ve been to every SeaGL so far. I heart heart heart SeaGL because we focus on inclusion and education of everyone about FLOSS.
Q: Would I rather have a frontal lobotomy or a bottle in front of me?
A: What the heck… I guess I’d go for the bottle. Wait, for you, or me? And bottle of what?
Lightning Talk CFP now OPEN!
September 18, 2017
Come present a lightning talk at SeaGL!
Are you attending SeaGL this year (you really should)? Are you passionate enough about something to talk about it for five minutes (of course you are)? Then you should propose a lightning talk!
This year the SeaGL lightning talks will take place during the conference party the evening of October 7th. We’re looking for eight amusing and informative talks for that segment of the party entertainment.
About lightning talks
Lighting talks are five minute talks. You may use as many (or as few) slides as you wish.
SeaGL’s attendees are fascinating and well-rounded individuals with a lot of different interests. Therefore SeaGL lightning talks may be on any topic whatsoever. There’s no need to stick to technical matters.
There are three criteria for a SeaGL lightning talk:
- The topic is interesting to the SeaGL audience.
- You can present it in five minutes.
- The presentation does not violate the code of conduct.
That’s it! Pretty easy, really.
Topic ideas
Lightning talks can be about anything which you think would hold the interest of the audience for a max of five minutes. For instance:
- How not to crash your drone
- What’s the deal with international paper sizes?
- Your car is a computer which you can hack
- A travelogue of your trip touring Thai Buddhist temples
- An introduction to lactobacillus fermentation
- Mending for geeks: how to save your favorite clothes
- What the heck is this thing?! Bizarre tools of yesteryear
- Lost language: Modem AT Commands
- So you want to buy a house: What to expect
- How to mingle at parties and events
Technical talks, funny talks, WTF talks… If you can make it interesting, then we’d love a proposal about it.
Target dates
- CFP Opens: Monday, September 18
- CFP Closes: Sunday, September 24
- Speaker Notifications: Friday, September 29
- Lightning Talks: Saturday, October 7, during the evening conference party
Talk selection criteria
The main SeaGL program had nine reviewers and a well-documented list of selection criteria.
The lightning talk selection criteria are going to be considerably more casual. The speaker committee will vote on proposals, then the final decisions and schedule will be made by the program chair. It’s going to be a fairly laid back process, keeping with the fun but informative nature of lightning talks themselves.
Proposal and public speaking resources
Never presented at a conference or meetup before? Presented but still not feeling confident? It’s OK, even the most experienced conference presenters aren’t necessarily confident at this stuff.
A lightning talk can be a great way to dip your toe into conference speaking. It’s quick (so the pain of public speaking is over quickly). It’s short (so you don’t have to spend days crafting your talk). It’s fun (you can talk about anything which interests you).
The Public_Speaking repository has collected a lot of resources to help you level up in your conference presenting.
Pay particular attention to the Proposing talks section of this page. Follow these tips and your talk proposals will stand a better chance of being selected.
PLEASE NOTE: Whether your talk is accepted or not often doesn’t have as much to do with how great your proposal is as it does with how many speaking slots the conference has available and the balance of the program the organisers need to craft. It’s nothing personal: we just don’t have enough time to accept all the great lightning talk proposals we receive.
Don’t let that stop you from proposing! You can’t win a race you don’t even run, so click here to propose a lightning talk.
Lightning talk proposal help and feedback
Want to propose a talk but would like feedback on your idea, proposal wording, talk title or just on how to deal with nerves? The speaker committee will do everything possible to help you be successful with your proposal and presenatation. There are two ways to ask for help:
- Join us in the
#seaglIRC channel on Freenode IRC. Don’t worry if you’re not familiar with IRC. Just click here for the webchat, choose a nickname, and you’re good to go! - Email us at
speakers AT seagl D0T org. We’ll do our best to get back to you within a day.
We stand ready to assist, so please don’t hesitate to ask us for help!
Code of Conduct
All staff, speakers, and attendees of SeaGL must agree and adhere to the Code of Conduct for the safety and enjoyment of all organizers, volunteers, speakers, and attendees. We ask that all prospective speakers review and confirm their willingness to abide by the Code of Conduct terms and expectations when interacting within SeaGL community spaces.
What are you waiting for? Propose a lightning talk now!
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About
The 2017 Seattle GNU/Linux Conference is scheduled for October 6th and 7th at Seattle Central College (Maps).
SeaGL is a grassroots technical conference dedicated to spreading awareness and knowledge about the GNU/Linux community and free/libre/open-source software/hardware. Our goal for SeaGL is to produce an event which is as enjoyable and informative for those who spend their days maintaining hundreds of servers as it is for a student who has only just started exploring technology options. SeaGL's first year was 2013. The SeaGL web site is built with Jekyll and we use OSEM for event management.
The cost of attendance is free.
Attendee Registration will not require the use of non-free software.
You may attend SeaGL without identifying yourself, and you are encouraged to do so to protect your privacy.
Contact
IRC
Social Media
Twitter | Facebook | Google+ | YouTube
participate@seagl.org | press@seagl.org
or join the announcement mailing list.
Exhibitors
We will have a small hall available for exhibitors. Free tables will be available for free/libre/open-source software/hardware and non-profit organizations, and there are several sponsorship levels for everyone else. If your organization would like an exhibit table at SeaGL, please send an email to sponsor@seagl.org for our vendor prospectus.
Exhibitor space is limited, please contact us right away if you are interested in a table.
Sponsorship
We can't do what we need to do without the support of the community. If you would like to offer financial support but don't need an exhibit table, please send an email to sponsor@seagl.org.
Donate now
Our fiscal sponsor, Free Software Foundation, set up a donation page to support SeaGL. It accepts credit card or PayPal and provides instructions for donating via check or Bitcoin. Thank you for your support!
SeaGL is dedicated to a harassment-free conference experience for
everyone.
Our code of conduct can be found
here