Lin Nah

Christchurch Aerospace Centre Meetup 4 – Christchurch – 11 December 2018

What

At our previous meet up we heard talks about CubeSats, air launch rockets and jet packs. As we glide to the end of the year, we’re going to be zooming in on the human element with talks from a NASA astronaut candidate finalist and a jet pack test pilot, as well as discussing a number of other recent developments.

Sarah Kessans, University of Canterbury. A plant biologist and biochemist by training and an adventurer thriving on challenges by nature, Sarah decided to throw her name in the hat for NASA’s 2017 Astronaut Candidate selection cycle. The journey through the selection process to becoming one of the top 50 Finalist Interviewees (out of 18,000+ applications) revealed many lessons that can be applied to New Zealand’s emerging space ecosystem. In that same spirit of adventure and innovation, Sarah is excited to play a role in developing Christchurch into a hub for space industry and research.

Michael Read, Skybase. After an exciting career as a pilot in the Royal Australian Air Force, Michael went on to become a test pilot and executive at Martin Jetpack. Michael now resides in Christchurch and is a founder of Skybase, who are leading developers in the drone industry for Beyond Line of Sight (BLOS) flight. In his presentation, he’ll pass on some stories of the past, a look to the future of unmanned and autonomous systems and how Christchurch/ Canterbury is ideally placed to become a nexus of aerospace innovation and launch platform.

So come along to the GreenHouse at 146 Lichfield Street, be inspired and network with our local aerospace community!

The generous sponsor of this event, BizDojo Christchurch, will be providing delicious food and wet beverages.

When and Where

Tuesday 11 December 2018
5:00 PM – 7:00 PM NZDT

GreenHouse
146 Lichfield Street, Christchurch 8011

How Much

Free. Please register here.

Event

Christchurch Aerospace Centre https://www.christchurch.space/ Twitter @chchspace.

Code Session: IDE and Time Saving Tips – Tauranga – 13 December 2018

What

Pack your laptops and join us for our last meetup of the year where we’ll talk and learn about something we all use: IDEs.

An IDE is an Integrated Development Environment and where we live in our day to day lives as working or learning developers. We’ll look at some of the different IDEs out there, functionality and how they compare, as well as extensions and keyboard shortcuts that can make your life easier, including making your own code snippets.

This talk and the exercises will be led by Jeff Kranenburg, a senior tutor at Toi Ohomai Institute of Technology in web and software development.

5:30pm – Doors open, catch up.
6:00pm – Welcome
6:10pm – IDE Talk and Practical Exercises
7:30pm – CodeChallenge reviews (see the #codingchallenges channel on our Slack for more info)
8:00pm – /end

To prepare:
Make sure you have your chosen IDE on the laptop you’re bringing, and while there are no wrong choices, we will be looking a lot at one of the most popular: Visual Studio Code.
Make sure you’ve joined our Slack channel, as we often share resources through there on the night.

What to bring:
Your laptop + charger
Drink bottle
Your IDE, extension, and shortcut suggestions!

Thanks to VentureCentre at BaseStation for giving us the facilities to host, and don’t forget to familiarize yourself with our Code of Conduct before attending. This is a safe and inclusive space for everyone!

When and Where

Thursday, 13 December 2018
5:30 PM to 8:30 PM

Base Station, 148 Durham Street.
We’ll gather in the cafe Folk on the ground floor and then head down into the basement after 6pm.

How Much

Free. Please register here.

Code Session: IDE and Time Saving Tips.

JuniorDev Tauranga Meetup.

Wellington City Library December Book Sale and Times Newspaper Sale – Wellington – 5-16 December 2018

What

Grab your holiday reading in the December Book Sale!

Every year thousands of avid readers and movie & music lovers gather at Central Library for the book sales. Judging by its past popularity, this sale should be no different. Past buyers have used the sale to find the best book deals, to complete their personal collections or just to rummage and find a gem. And the sale helps our libraries by making room for an ever increasing collection.

Highlights of this sale: plenty of children’s picture books, young adult reads along with a wide variety of adult fiction, DVDs, CDs and magazines on every topic imaginable. As at each previous sale, stock is replenished at regular intervals ensuring there are always fresh bargains to be found. With prices starting at 50c for childrens and young adult books, you really don’t want to miss out!

Get The London Times that was printed on your birthday! (or your Mums!)

The Central Library is offering to library members its hard-copy vintage collection of The Times, dating from 1946 through to the start of 1976. Each issue is for sale at $5 per copy but there is only one copy of each date. Please note that this collection excludes the Sunday Times which was, and remains, a separate newspaper editorially.

This is an ideal quirky gift for anyone born between 1946 and 1976; please pre-order your copy by visiting or phoning the 2nd floor reference desk at the Central Library on 04 801 4114.

You can still access and read this entire date-range of The Times for free via the Times Digital Archive on My Gateway.

Just in time for Christmas, come in, grab a copy and delve into the past.

When and Where

December Book Sale
Wednesday 5th December — Sunday 16th December 2018

Central Library

The Times newspaper sale
Please pre-order your copy by visiting or phoning the 2nd floor reference desk at the Central Library on 04 801 4114.

How Much

Depends on how much you buy. Bring a bag with you to carry your books home.

December Book Sale and The Times Sale.
Wellington City Library.

Agile, Testing and UX Xmas Lightning Talks – Christchurch – 12 December 2018

What

Shared get together with three Christchurch IT Groups:

Christchurch Agile Professionals Network.
Christchurch Testing Professional Network.
Christchurch User Experience Design Meetup

Lighting talks are 5 – 10 minutes and X-mas themed.

Short talks include:
– Leon – From the Agile Professionals Network
– Chris – from the Testing Professionals Network
– More to come…

When and Where

12 December 2018
6:00 PM to 8:00 PM

Greenhouse
146a Lichfield Street, Christchurch.

How to find us
Knock on the door.

How Much

Free. Drinks and snacks provided.

Event by APN, TPN or UX.

Christchurch Agile Professionals Network.
Christchurch Testing Professional Network.
Christchurch User Experience Design Meetup.

OWASP NZ Auckland area meetup – Auckland – 11 December 2018

What

We’ll plan to meet on the second Tuesday of April, June, August, October, and December.

Orion Health has agreed to host our meetings in their main conference room. Parking is available in the car park at the corner of Grafton and Khyber Pass. Entry will be through the staff entrance, just to the left of the main Reception entry. To comply with facility security requirements, all attendees will need to sign in.

At each meeting, we’ll have the following general agenda:

6:30 – 6:45 – Administrative Items
6:45 – 7:10 – OWASP Top 10 Focus Discussion
7:10 – 7:30 Networking
7:30 – 8:30 Technical Presentation, followed by Discussion/Q&A
8:30 Adjourn to local pub, if desired, for further networking

December Top 10 Focus: A4 – XML External Entity (XXE)
December Technical Topic: Threat Modelling

And, starting in December – we’ll have food! This month, I’ll be ordering pizza – hopefully, we’ll get more interesting for future events.

We’re looking for presenters and topics for future meetings – contact John (john.dileo@owasp.org) if you have an idea for a topic, or a presentation you’d like to make.

When and Where

Tuesday, 11 December, 2018
6:30 PM to 8:30 PM

How Much

Free. Meetup event.

Meetup event.

OWASP New Zealand Chapter – Auckland is a meetup group for Auckland-area events held by the New Zealand chapter of the Open Web Application Security Project (OWASP).

DevOps Auckland: Approaches to solving software delivery risks earlier and faster – Auckland – 10 December 2018

What

Our presenter is Stephen Phillips – Sumo Logic’s voice in New Zealand. Stephen has been working with leading global software ISV’s and service providers over his long career, he is ever curious about improving outcomes.
His background in management consulting and product delivery is underpinned by a pragmatic understanding of technology engineering principles.

He will share with us “Approaches to solving software delivery risks earlier and faster”: Learn about techniques for reducing the effort to troubleshoot software systems, without building unnecessary technical debt.

** This meetup is on the early schedule **

Doors will open at 16:00, and the presentation will run from 16:30 to 17:30, and we’ll leave by 18:30.

** Please note the venue **

Thanks to Catalyst IT for hosting us once again in their central downtown office.

When and Where

10 December 2018
4:00 PM to 6:00 PM

Catalyst IT,
Level 4, 2 Commerce St,
Auckland CBD

How Much

Free. Please register here.

Meetup event.

DevOps Auckland Meetup Group

Decision Making: Human vs Machine – Auckland – 5 December 2018

What

Decision Making: Human vs Machine

Stats NZ and Centre for Social Data Analytics (CSDA) are hosting a free lecture presented by international tech ethics expert Lorena Jaume-Palasi.

The use of algorithms in decision-making is growing steadily, so it has never been more important to understand how algorithm-assisted decisions differ from human decisions, and what good practice looks like.

Lorena Jaume-Palasi will explain the major differences between human and algorithm-assisted decision-making and share the trends she is seeing internationally. Her talk will focus on the key issues that algorithms tend to raise for governments, organisations and communities and how those concerns, like ethics and bias, can be navigated and algorithm-assisted decision-making done well.

With a background in founding ethics organisations including AlgorithmWatch and the Ethical Tech Society, and consulting to numerous governments and organisations in this space, Jaume-Palasi will present her experiences and recommendations.

CSDA co-director Rhema Vaithianathan is pleased to host Jaume-Palasi:

“It is very exciting to have Lorena on board for this presentation as it is the time to have extensive and more importantly, informed conversations about ethics and how organisations can use algorithms well.”

“Lorena brings a well-versed perspective to this argument and it will be a privilege for New Zealanders to hear from someone with such extensive experience in tech ethics.”

Key issues covered in the talk will include bias, automated inequality and ethical dimensions.

Lorena Jaume-Palasi

Lorena is the founder of non-profit advocacy organisation AlgorithmWatch (Berlin) and of non-profit research and advocacy organization the Ethical Tech Society (Berlin). Her work focuses on the philosophy of law and ethics of automatisation and digitisation. She serves as the head of the secretariat of the German Internet Governance Forum and is a member of the Spanish Government’s High Level Expert Council on Artificial Intelligence and Big Data. Lorena consults to international institutions, governments and corporations, and regularly writes and lectures on data protection, privacy, discrimination and the public sphere.

This lecture is proudly presented by the Centre for Social Data Analytics, in the School of Economics at Auckland University of Technology, together with Stats NZ.

When and Where

Wednesday. 5 December 2018
4:00 pm – 6:00 pm NZDT

AUT City Campus,
Room WG404, Sir Paul Reeves Building,
55 Wellesley Street East, Auckland

How Much

Free but registration required. Please register here.

Event at AUT’s website and on Eventbrite.

MONIAC Demonstration – Wellington – 3 December 2018

What

On the first Wednesday of each month, except January, an economist will demonstrate how the MONIAC, a pioneering econometric computer, works.

Invented in the late 1940s by talented New Zealand – born economist Bill Phillips (1914-1975),
the MONIAC was a way of demonstrating the macro economy to his students at the London School of Economics.

He built the prototype for around £400, including parts scavenged from a Lancaster bomber. The computer uses water quantities and flows to simulate the flow of money through the economy.

The acronym MONIAC – ‘Monetary National Income Analogue Computer’ – was apparently invented to echo the ENIAC digital computer then being developed in the United States.

By contrast with those machines the MONIAC operated wholly on analogue principles, using water to simulate flows of money. Around 14 were built.

The MONIAC was capable of making complex calculations that could not be performed by any other computer at the time. The linkages were based on Keynesian and classical economic principles, with various tanks representing households, businesses, governments, and exporting and importing sectors of the economy.

Water pumped around the system could be measured as income, spending and GDP. The system was programmable, and experiments with fiscal policy, monetary policy and exchange rates could be carried out.

When and Where

3 December 2018
12:15pm – 12:45pm

Reserve Bank Museum,
2 The Terrace, Wellington

How Much

Free.

MONIAC – ‘Monetary National Income Analogue Computer’. Wikipedia.
The Reserve Bank Museum.

Demonstrations are on the first Wednesday of each month, except January. The next demonstration will be on 13 February 2019.

Game Developers Meetup – Christchurch – 6 December 2018

What

Welcome to the December Game Developers Meetup!

Come along and join us to chat game dev with our special guest speaker, Jordan Carlton from Magic Leap/Weta Workshop, creators of Dr. Grordbort’s Invaders on the Magic Leap One!

—–

6:15 PM – KICK OFF
Welcome to the Christchurch Game Developers Meetup with news from around New Zealand.

6:30 PM – Be they Friend or Foe?
Jordan usually spends her days developing the companion AI character, Gimble, for the Dr Grordbort’s Invaders title on the Magic Leap One. Tonight she’d like to share her learnings and discuss things to consider when developing your AI character – be they friend or foe. This talk will span from the larger base requirements of functional navigation behaviour to the smaller nuances of gaze behaviour. Prepare for a mishmash of discussion of features that she has real life experience implementing and features that she wishes to implement one day.

Jordan was surprised when she emerged from a haze of debugging and realised she had established herself as a game programmer at Magic Leap. An unorthodox use of a psychology degree combined with some well-honed keyboard smashing skills and a dash of moxy contributed to the loveable companion character, Gimble, featured in Dr. Grordbort’s Invaders. In her spare time, she’s a classic Ravenclaw.

7:30 PM – Pizza and Networking
Bring along your games to show and get feedback!

When and Where

6 December 2018
6:15 PM to 8:15 PM

EPIC Innovation Center
78-100 Manchester St, Christchurch

How Much

Free. Please RSVP here.

Christchurch Game Developers https://chch.gamedev.co.nz/, meetup, @CHCHGameDev on facebook and twitter.

Check out Magic Leap:
Web: https://www.magicleap.com
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/magicleap
Twitter: https://twitter.com/magicleap
Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC2E1x3l45YUO2eOhRv-A7lw
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/magicleap/

Weta Workshop:
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/wetaworkshop/
Twitter: https://twitter.com/WetaWorkshop
Web: https://www.wetaworkshop.com/
Weta Workshop Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/WetaWorkshop
Dr Grordbort’s Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/DrGrordborts

—–

A HUGE Thank You to our Patreon supporters for making the meetups possible.

Our Corporate Sponsors:
University of Canterbury
Check out their Bachelor Of Product Design, Applied Immersive Game Design – http://www.canterbury.ac.nz/engineering/schools/school-of-product-design/

CerebralFix https://cerebralfix.com/
Christchurch Based Game Development specialising in work for hire from some amazing companies.

Our Individual Sponsor: Jeremy Craig

And our Patreon Sponsors: Jen Huei Lee, Leith Caldwell, Hannah Mackintosh, Maxwell Clarke

/dev/talk: Insight into Event Patterns – Hamilton – 27 November 2018

What

I’ll be taking us on a deep dive into event driven code, exploring different event patterns and real world implementation challenges. I’ll be talking about the two different types of events – domain events (user actions) and operational events (logs). I’ll discuss some patterns for thinking about event streams, e.g. coalesce, throttle / debounce, grouping by time, count, moving windows of events, projecting.

This is an open event, questions are welcome any time.

This event will be recorded.

As usual pizza and beer afterwards and a big thanks to our sponsors Company-X and Soda.

When and Where

27 November 2018
5:30 PM to 7:30 PM

WINTEC, Hamilton.
How to find us: Events room 2 in the Gallagher hub (top of the hill in Wintec)

How Much

Free. Please RSVP here.

Insight into Event Patterns Meetup event.

/dev/talk Hamilton meetup.

Youtube channel of past talks.