Scott Weston

About Me

I’m a Ballarat based IT professional with over 20 years industry experience, 5 of which employed at Google. The full details of my employment history is available on my LinkedIn profile.

I donate time and experience to a local non-profit (The Ballarat Hackerspace) that provides the Ballarat region with a workshop and promotes STEM fields. Most days I can be found working out of the Lab 79 co-working facility in Ballarat.

If you see me around Ballarat ask me for some free Bitcoin and I’ll explain why what I give you is technically the real Bitcoin.

Non-profits

If you are a local^[1] non-profit or community group then I am very keen to help you out with small/medium sized projects (providing the organisation is completely nondiscriminatory towards race, gender and sexual identity/preference). Non-profits and community groups do amazing work and I hate to see them over spend on IT when that money could be better spent providing their services to the community.

[1] within approximately 30 minutes drive from Ballarat

Contact

Feel free to contact me, the best ways are:

hello@scottweston.com.au (PGP Key)
0448 999 690 (Signal App)
@sctwstn

Marriage equality ( We did it!)

• On Thursday the 7th of December 2017 Australia passed a change to the Marriage Act to end discrimination against same sex couple that the Liberal Party under John Howard introduced in 2004 finally making Australia a fairer place for all!
  
• If Australia hasn’t passed this by 2019 I will be super angry with our government

Secularism

• Religion is not a force for good
• Religion should not receive government subsidies in form of tax free status
• Religion has no place in education
• Religion teaches people to be satisfied with not understanding the world

N.B.: I am not interested in debating or discussing the above statements for the same reason you wouldn’t enter into debates on the topics of unicorns, leprechauns or pixies.

STEM and Startups

• Improved STEM teaching especially in regional areas where kids don’t have good access and exposure to technology
• Better support for tech startups in regional areas
  • Faster NBN roll-out
  • We need a gigabit capable NBN, what kind of backwards Edwardian thinking says copper speeds are acceptable in the 21st century? FTTP, anything else is living in the past.
  • Funding for coworking and tech incubators
    • These will create the jobs of the future

Effective Altruism

• Inspired by Peter Singer and Will MacAskill I give all income above $40,000 per year away (inflation and cost of living adjusted to 2009)
  • as of 2018 this stands at anything above $47,695
  • I prioritise giving to secular charities that do not discriminate towards race, gender or sexual identity/preference
  • Inspired? Find a charity:
    • The Life You Can Save
    • GiveWell
  • more details:
    • How to live happy
    • TEDTalk from 2013

Renewable energy ( We’re doing it!)

• Australia should have large solar installations
  • Aurora Solar Reserve
  • Kiamal Solar Farm
• Australia should have more wind farms
  • Golden Plains Wind Farm
• We need grid scale battery installations instead of gas peakers
  • Hornsdale Power Reserve
  • Bulgana Green Power Hub
  • Gannawarra Energy Storage System
  • Ballarat Energy Storage System
• Fairer feed-in-tariff for residents with solar
• Tax incentives for purchase of 100% electric vehicles
  • remove LCT on 100% electric vehicles
  • lower registration costs
• Create more jobs in this sector
  • create incentives for companies like Tesla to build cars and batteries in Australia
• Australia could be the first entirely renewably powered continent!
  • This is entirely achievable with current technology
  • This would employ and train an incredibly large number of people and get us innovating again

Universal basic income

• Self driving trucks, buses, taxis and cars are coming very soon and we’re currently ignoring the impact this will have on employment
• Automation is coming faster than people can be retrained, we need to be thinking of solutions now
• We are a perfectly sized population to trial replacing existing welfare with a UBI

Space ( We did it!)

• At the end of September 2017 the Australian government finally announced plans to create a space agency!
• Let’s use our space agency to inspire our kids to do amazing things!
• Where is our space program?!

Removing advertisings grip on the Internet

• We all know advertising isn’t working as a way to fairly pay content creators for their content and in turn gives advertising companies unfair control over what content we choose to consume (c.f. Adpocalypse)
• Install and use the Brave browser for when you’re just browsing for entertainment - it blocks ads and pays content creators

I own and drive a Tesla Model S, it is primarily charged from the solar panels on my roof or the renewable energy from Tesla Superchargers. If you have questions about Tesla ownership feel free to contact me, fair warning – I will talk your ear off.

My Tesla is currently % charged.

Some Tesla related hacks that I’ve done can be found on HCKR.IO

If any of the above inspires you to buy a Tesla you can use my referral link to get some money towards upgrades and options ($700 in Australia, ~equivalent elsewhere) and get unlimited supercharging for your Tesla: http://ts.la/scott1272 (you definitely want to use a referral code while they are available).

I also have a Powerwall 2 attached to my house. It is setup to charge from my solar panels and provide power to the house once the sun goes down. It also offers backup power for those times when the grid power is unavailable. With this device I can normally achieve around 99% self powered every month.

My Powerwall is currently % charged.