[Melbourne-pm] Next meeting: 9th December with Damian Conway

[Damian Conway]

Jacinta broke the bad news:

> As those who were at the last meeting will know, Damian has
> volunteered to give a talk at the December meeting.

Those at the last meeting may also recall that I have a classic Apple
Power Mac G4 Cube (http://bit.ly/7wVr2M) that is in need of a new home.

The specs of that luscious hunk of polycarbonate are:

    Processor: PowerPC G4 450MHz
          RAM: 256MB
         VRAM: 16MB
         Disk: 20GB
        Media: CD-RW
        Ports: 2 x USB1,
               2 x FireWire 400,
               1 x VGA,
               1 x ADC,
               1 x 10/100 ethernet,
               1 x 56k modem

I have previously managed to install MacOS 10.4 on it (and used it as a
media server), but it's currently running as-new with MacOS 9.1 instead.
It comes complete with prehistoric versions of iMovie, iTunes, Mail,
Quicktime, Netscape Communicator, Appleworks, IE5, Outlook Express 5,
and Palm Desktop already installed, plus the original installation CD.

It has no monitor, keyboard, or mouse, but can take standard USB input
devices and drive VGA or ADC monitors.

As competition for this postmodern masterpiece is likely to be intense,
we need some way to choose the lucky recipient. It was suggested that we
have the candidates arm wrestle for it on the night, but this seems
extremely ungeekly to me.

The keyboard is mightier than the bicep, so our contest shall be written, i
nstead of grunted. If you're interested in becoming the proud
owner of this ancient and mysterious device then you are invited,
between now and 9am on Monday 7th of December, to send me an essay
of up to 1000 words explaining why you deserve to receive it and what you
plan to do with it. In order to ensure your entry survives my spam filter,
please include the word "cube" somewhere in your subject line.

Points will be awarded for expression, style, originality, wit, pathos,
surprise, ruthless efficiency, a fanatical devotion to the Mac, and
anything else that amuses me. At the meeting on the 9th, we'll announce
the winner, read out their successful proposal, and present them with
their new G4 Cube. No correspondence will be entered into and the
judge's decision will be final. One entry per geek. Void where
prohibited by lore.

See you all next month,

Damian