Lots of cool submissions for linux.conf.au presentations have come in from people around here recently. Thanks everyone, it's shaping up really nicely. We'll still take submissions for the next week or so, so if you wanted to put something in it's not too late.

I woke up at 6am on a coderush. I wanted to finish writing up the plugin writer's guide for Sweep, but ended up porting the "byenergy" plugin I wrote a couple of weeks ago to the new API. It's pretty cool -- it lets you select all the loud or quiet regions of a sound given an energy threshold, kind of like "Select by color" in the Gimp. You can then go and do effects on that selection, which could be made up of hundreds of short snatches of sound. I wanted to include it in the next release because it's something other than a straight effects plugin -- people should be using the LADSPA API for those as much as possible. I think I'll make another plunger of coffee and get into the docs ...

I watched the closing ceremony and fireworks from Pyrmont Bay last night. I'm glad we didn't go into Circular Quay, as hypatia described it. Pyrmont Bay was much more civilised; still crowded of course, but enough room to lie around in front of the big screen :) Also, the security guards there were lame enough to only comment once on our two cases of beer (apparently there were "no glass" restrictions). Two of my friends were effectively forced by police to scull a six-pack in order to be allowed across Pyrmont Bridge earlier that afternoon. That was something to do with alcohol restrictions, probably along the lines of "excuse me sir, but you're not drunk enough to enter an Olympic party venue. Please drink all your beer, rapidly, before proceeding."

The conference will probably have a similar policy, but for energy drinks and caffeine :-)