# (2) 02 Nov 2011, 09:45AM: Free, Good, And Durable:
I want to buy a smartphone. Help me decide.
I care about:
- Freedom (I want root on my phone without having to jailbreak it)
- Hardware quality
- Operating system quality (random crashiness is not acceptable)
- Operating system longevity & upgradability (Maemo and Meego went away pretty fast, and I don't want to buy a device that will never see another OS upgrade)
I'd rather have a physical keyboard, either in addition to or instead of a touchscreen, but I can stand not having one. And I have basically no hope that I could get a device made under fair labor practices and with any attentiveness to the environmental impacts of its manufacture, but am willing to be surprised.
I really do not care how many apps are available for a phone -- I'll be fine if it browses the web, makes and received phone calls, and it would be lovely if it takes mediocre photos and plays music. And it can be big and heavy and ugly and I don't mind as long as the hardware is robust.
I am planning on buying a device, that is, buying an unlocked one separately from getting a data/voice plan from a carrier (see again: my interest in freedom). I acknowledge that I am being picky here so I'm fine with spending commensurately.
Recommendations?
# 03 Nov 2011, 11:38PM: Five-Sentence Review:
Intro music to tonight's Mike Daisey piece (about Apple, Chinese sweatshop labor, and control) included Jonathan Coulton's "Skullcrusher Mountain." Outro music included Barcelona's "I Have The Password To Your Shell Account." Very good pandering (to me).
The show's running till December 4th. You should try to go.
# 04 Nov 2011, 10:15AM: "I Am *Just* Like You":
Via Jed: A guy peacefully protests in front of some banks in Daly City, California, and the police protect his right to do so. Shocking!
"I'm no activist. I have never done anything like this before. I have marched in 2003, sure, with many others in a big peaceful crowd. I have never had the cops called on me ever before.
I am just like you, or if you like, you are just as able to do this as I am."
That's so often my favorite part of a story: someone doing something they never thought they could do.
# 06 Nov 2011, 10:52PM: Normal:
A nice weekend.
Yesterday I weeded, loosened soil, and planted some bulbs in Washington Square Park with other volunteers. The purple flowers will show up in April, brightening the grounds and signalling that folks should stay off those areas. That way, late-blooming summer flowers and grasses will have untrampled soil to grow in. A Parks Department worker said that they'll keep planting bulbs until the ground freezes in a few weeks.
It surprised me, hearing someone talk about April and June as though they'll certainly come and we know what'll happen on Earth's schedule. Nothing feels like that to me.
Leonard and I went bouldering in Central Park. That is to say that when I saw a big rock, I found a way to walk up it and rarely used my hands. I think I would like to take up rock climbing for real. We saw crew setting up for the New York City Marathon.
Today I went to Grand Army Plaza to serve as an extra in The Shondes' new music video. The director had asked that the extras wear clothing that wasn't black. I dressed in the white pants from my wedding, a bright stripey multicolored sweater I've had for half my life, and a Depths of the Never Never pendant on a thin chain, a necklace I'd bought in Melbourne. Evidently I will be quite noticeable in the finished video.
Also this weekend I watched some Breaking Bad and other shows with Leonard -- what's the moving-picture equivalent of "page-turner"? That's what it is. And I read a little more of City of Exile (almost done!) and wrote some correspondence to friends, and caught up with Jed a little, and listened to a This American Life on the subway. It was #318, "With Great Power", and of course I connected it to my job, because I connect most things these days to my job. Heck, I gave out three business cards at the music video shoot today. In the MediaWiki community, I have rather a large responsibility (to facilitate volunteer activity), and I'm not sure how much power I have, or of what kind. I'm still learning. Come to think of it, I'm still learning my responsibilities, too. And one of them is to myself, to keep a sustainable pace, to do exercise and cleaning and planting and the other infrastructure setup/maintenance that sets me up for success, to take breaks so I stay eager to come back to the work.
A nice weekend. I strayed into work for a few hours (aiee, just noticed that I need to get someone to review this patch), but tried to take a rest. Maybe tomorrow my gardening will go well, and I'll believe that there will be an April.
# 12 Nov 2011, 10:09PM: Work And Being Realistic:
This month I'll briefly be in Mumbai for a Wikimedia developers' meetup. Developers and translators will be working on mobile and offline access, localization, and general knowledge sharing about Wikimedia technologies. If you're interested in coming by, let me know.
Selected recent Wikimedia (work) stuff: Guillaume Paumier did important foundational work in collecting and integrating information for a MediaWiki architectural overview and history. I've already pointed newbies to it at least five times to explain something. And the first MediaWiki 1.18 beta release is out so people can download and test that. We're hiring for like a dozen technical positions. There's so much going on that if I go on I'll end up repeating our monthly reports.
Perhaps more interestingly, my current crusade is patch review. When new technical volunteers show up, perhaps trying to scratch their own itch or get started with an annoying little easy bug, they contribute patches in our Bugzilla. We're not reviewing and responding to them consistently and quickly enough; there are more than 260 patches awaiting a response, some dating back years and thus suffering bitrot. So, the workflow isn't working. I'm working on figuring out what's broken and how to fix it.
All my Wikimedia work and travel has kept me from my previous big open source commitment, GNOME. I've been saying to friends and GNOME teammates for some time now that I can't keep up, and am now unsubscribing from the GNOME Marketing and GNOME Journal team email lists in recognition of that fact. It hurts, but it's better not to pretend to commitments one can't keep. Fortunately, Emily (Rose? not sure of her last name) & Sriram Ramkrishna have done a great service in moving GNOME Journal to a modern publishing system at https://thegnomejournal.wordpress.com/. It looks like they'll take over running and editing it, which is lovely. Paul Cutler and I simply have not had the time to give this information channel the attention it deserves, so he and I asked for others to step in and take over, and I am glad to see Sri's, Emily's, Allan Day's, and others' energy pushing forward to keep the GNOME and FLOSS communities informed about GNOME happenings.
We are in this together. It's like the geek feminist saying goes:
Let's say that fighting sexism is like a chorus of people singing a continuous tone. If enough people sing, the tone will be continuous even though each of the singers will be stopping singing to take a breath every now and then. The way to change things is for more people to sing rather than for the same small group of people to try to sing louder and never breathe.
The demands of scaling up imply, somewhat recursively, that in my role coordinating and recruiting volunteers, I need to also recruit people who will coordinate and recruit volunteers. I'm working on it.
# 12 Nov 2011, 10:41PM: Boarding Passeth Understanding:
Now that I'm most of the way through 2011, how did my travel wishlist go?
I did go to Arisia. Ended up in Berlin for a MediaWiki conference, but not for the GNOME Desktop Summit, and I didn't go to the fall GNOME summit either. WisCon yes, Open Source Bridge yes, but QuahogCon no since the conference organizers cancelled it. And I didn't get invited to Foo Camp.
Unanticipated travel: just across the state line to PICC, somewhat more time in Washington, DC than I'd anticipated, and then so much work travel. I went back and forth to San Francisco a lot. I went to OSCON and Community Leadership Summit, which I hadn't anticipated this time last year. And I went to Haifa for Wikimania and New Orleans for a hackathon, and I'm going to Mumbai in a bit for another, none of which were on my radar last year at all. Also I went to Staten Island for the first time.
I have learned that it's hard to do the same thing for pleasure that I do for work, like travel and going to conferences (even science fiction conventions). I have learned more about napping and caffeine titration than I knew before. I have learned a little teensy bit of Hebrew and of German. I have met a lot of people, some of whom are now close friends. I have learned a little about how to pack for a trip, but not as much as my boss's boss's boss.
Today Leonard and I went shopping for a new bedframe (the old one doesn't fit our new mattresses; long story). It's good to make an investment in the place where I theoretically live.
# 15 Nov 2011, 08:45AM: Speechless:
Police shut down the airspace and part of the subway and crushed donated books and tossed out reporters here, where I live, in New York City.
And in Berkeley, at the University of California at Berkeley, where I went to college, where there is a Free Speech Movement Cafe in one of the libraries, where they send out entreaties to ask me for alumni money, they beat peaceful protestors.
I feel heartsick. How could you.
# 23 Nov 2011, 12:10PM: Muppet Fanfic:
"Tomorrow Is Waiting" by Holli Mintzer.
If you want the truth, it happened because Anji was feeling lazy. Her AI class wasn't all that interesting, nor was it a field she wanted a career in, so there wasn't any reason she could see for trying especially hard. So she came up with a project that didn't look like too much work, and she picked what looked like the easiest way of doing it. Things just got a little out of hand, after that....
Sweet and moving and happy-making.
# 25 Nov 2011, 03:41PM: On My Mind:
I remember, during an election debate, Al Gore quoting the line, "For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also" from Matthew. There's a similar Gibran line, "Work is love made visible."
It's important where you put your time. It's important to take care of your responsibilities, including yourself.
# (6) 26 Nov 2011, 07:14AM: Imagination:
I enjoyed the new Muppet movie thoroughly. I have, basically, only two substantial criticisms. One is the fact that nearly all the female characters are defined by their relationships with men. The second is more interesting.
SPOILERS AHEAD
Well, I'm not sure it's a spoiler for a Muppet movie to tell you that they have to put on a show to raise the money to save a theater. Rich guy has them over a barrel, wants to bulldoze their old theater to drill for oil. They need to raise ten million dollars to buy it back from him.
One theatrical regret of my life is that I had tickets to see Mike Daisey's How Theater Failed America and then forgot to go, and missed it. (Ever since then: cell phone alarms.) Daisey argues that US theatrical companies care too much about buildings and administration, and that they should instead focus on paying and sustaining actors. I had hoped, towards the end of the film, when it looks like our Muppets have lost their building and their trademarked name, that this was the kind of point they would make. Kermit even edges close to this idea, telling his team that it's not their name or their building that matters, it's each other.
It's the wine that matters and not the bottle.
And then the movie steps away from that, and tens of thousands of fans are cheering Muppets who thought they'd been forgotten, and the rich guy has a change of heart and turns generous (kind of like the problem with the end of Mr. Smith Goes to Washington, where the only reason Smith wins is that the corrupt Senator gives in and confesses all). So they get their building and name back.
But -- and I know I'm asking a lot of a Hollywood franchise, but this one has glimmers of intelligence -- wouldn't it have been a lot more interesting if they'd gone another way? If they got back on the bus and started bringing live theater to cities and towns all across the map? If they stopped treating Muppet diasporas as a failure and started acknowledging them as a natural part of the team's lifecycle, and enabled each other to learn, grow, change, and make great art while apart? If they took Walter as an example and started consciously teaching and recruiting young newbies? What else could they do with that ten million dollars?
Argh, I know, I know, I am pushing fruitlessly against the sitcom-esque constraints of a franchise film. The equilibrium must be restored and nothing architectural can ever change. Don't get me wrong -- I loved this film, it left me with a huge face-aching smile on my face, and it's sweet and funny and clever. But I came to it not seeking reassurance that old bonds and relations will endure and prevail. I came to it with the Mountain Goats' "The Young Thousands" in my head.
....The things that you've got coming will consume you
There's someone waiting out there in an alley with a chain
....The things that you've got coming will do things that you're afraid to
There is someone waiting out there with a mouthful of surprises
....There must be diamonds somewhere in a place that stinks this bad
There are brighter things than diamonds coming down the line
Every skeleton, every institution has a natural shelf life. It takes maturity to say, "There have been enough Star Trek stories. Let it end." And if I shun all the scary change that comes down the line, I'll miss the unimaginably glorious surprises as well.
And this is also why we make transformative work -- the fanfic, the vids, the filks and software. So, if someone wants to point me to awesome Muppet diaspora fic, I'll totally read it.
# (1) 26 Nov 2011, 10:41AM: A Sample Of My Stand-Up:
Geeky Stand-up Comedy from Heiko V. on Vimeo.
Sumana's Stand Up Comedy on the second day of the Google Summer of Code Mentor Summit 2011.
Unfortunately the recording died half way through the video...
Thanks to Heiko for recording this. It's 14:28. There's an odd synchronization problem with the audio and the video. Also this is unpracticed. I often go to unconferences, realize I may as well do some nerdy stand-up, and then do it with like fifteen minutes' rememorizing/practice. The answer is to develop new material that excites me more.
# (1) 27 Nov 2011, 07:11AM: Intuition and Property:
From and following conversation with Finn back in the winter, and "Slapdash Thoughts On Real Estate" two years ago:
I told Finn that Locke had posited three ways to legitimately acquire land-style property. "Incidentally, the least-Dugg Cracked.com list ever," he japed.
- No one owns it right now and you plop yourself down on it, leaving as much and as good for others
- Someone else legitimately has it and you consensually acquire it from them
- Someone else had it and is leaving it completely fallow; you mix your labor with it and squat and homestead for a while
This makes intuitive sense to a 21st century USian. For one thing, we hate waste and love utility. And this helps understand why one intuitive reaction to the Sita Sings the Blues copyright story is "but those songs were so old and no one was using them"!
But when you look at the four kinds of intellectual property, consider how we feel proprietary about the important people and things in our life. What are your intuitions, and how do they align with the particular kinds of ownership that you can get with various kinds of IP? When you think about folk copyright, what other norms does that remind you of?
We make all these analogies, we free culture folk, as do our adversaries. This is rather lazy and Sapir-Whorf of me, I never even seriously read any George Lakoff, but there seriously are metaphors we live by, and to win the hearts and minds of our citizenry we must activate the right metaphors as we market our ideas. And I'm enough of an outlier that I don't know my neighbors' intuitions; my contrarian heart keeps me guessing. I should read the research, of course, Biella Coleman and Rose White and James Grimmelmann, all the thinkers to whom I am a mere bikeshedder.
Perhaps we are more into a protocol for ensuring everyone's doing the same thing than we are into that thing itself.
# (2) 27 Nov 2011, 04:56PM: Milk Stout, Vanilla Porter:
Leonard and I both spend most of our time at the apartment these days, me working for the Wikimedia Foundation, him working on Constellation Games, his science fiction novel, launching Tuesday. (The novel's done, but he's been working on the bonus stories, Twitter feeds, and so on.) So we have to take care to give each other some regular alone time in the apartment. Yesterday he left for several hours, and today I did.
I read the end of a Kim Stanley Robinson collection, first in a park and then over beer and fries at a tavern. I liked the funny stories, like "Escape from Kathmandu" and "Arthur Sternbach Brings the Curveball to Mars" and "Zürich," and upon a second reading still found the end of "A History of the Twentieth Century, With Illustrations" kind of inexplicable. I read "The Lucky Strike" and "A Sensitive Dependence on Initial Conditions" for the second time and loved them all over again. Sensible people sweating out hard choices, that's KSR. Sometimes they find courage, sometimes they don't. Math, history, geology, biology, mining, astrophysics, poetry, music (the best fiction about classical music I've ever read), cleaning, archaeology -- all the disciplines get this gentle, straightforward, clear attention. He's funnier than Vernor Vinge, but Vinge talks about software more, and I'm a sucker for that. And I think Vinge writes about more kinds of characters.
Home, and the electric light on, because it gets dark at freaking four-thirty now. After I hit Post, some together time with Leonard, because we need that too.
# (1) 29 Nov 2011, 09:39AM: Practices, And Practice:
A few months ago, I was talking with one of MediaWiki's summer interns in our IRC chatroom. He confessed that he had procrastinated on the work for his project and was rushing to finish it before the deadline. We had a chat that he thought other people might also find useful, in thinking about work habits and discipline.
I asked this Google Summer of Code student, do you know what caused the delays, so that you can account for them in future projects? and he replied, to be honest, procrastination & laziness. I know it's very shameful. I try many times to come out of this vicious circle but keep falling in it again and again.
I asked him whether he knew what works to combat his own procrastination and laziness. The most important thing is acknowledging one's problems and then fighting them. For example, for me, I have a suite of tactics that I use to combat my laziness & procrastination. What has worked, and what hasn't worked? Well, for me, for example, merely promising something to myself and making deadlines for myself doesn't help. But setting up a meeting with a peer to sprint -- even if we're working on completely different things! -- or promising a peer or a mentor that I will give them something to review by $time or $date helps.
He said, "motivation works but only for some time."
I replied: "what do you mean by 'motivation'? Merely telling yourself to increase your willpower? I think for most people that is unsustainable."
Another woman agreed with me: "motivation only works if it's a core part of you (and even then for me it's more the worry that other people will find me to not have that quality)." I sympathized with her.
I continued with more tips. For example, I also try to set very small TODO lists each day, because I find that the most important thing is getting started, and avoiding feeling intimidated and overwhelmed. Then once I have the momentum of a little work under my belt, the energy and interest of the work itself keeps me going and then I accomplish a lot.
"So, I know this advice is coming a little too late for you to use it for GSoC, but an accountability buddy program is great," I told him. If he hadn't had daily deliverables due to his mentor during GSoC, then the next time he could try that -- or a private accountability group blog with you & two friends, posting each day what you did, what you aim to do, how long it'll take, and auditing yourself. Instead of budgeting for 8 hours of work each day, I budget tasks that will take at most 6 hours, because I know other random stuff will come in and need doing urgently, and some tasks may take longer than I've estimated. This also helps on the "less intimidating TODO list" front.
We also discussed education; many colleges teach mostly theory, and a student who wants practice has to find it on her own. I said that there is always that balance of theory & implementation/practice. I told him that I wish I had been more brave and bold about experimentation when I was in college. It's just software; if it breaks then you can fix it. I was too timid. I pointed him to a Geek Feminism post of mine for some insight on my education regrets and hopes.
And, on the improvement that comes from working in a different environment, I gave an example: "Friday, I was having trouble doing work while sitting on the couch, so I sat on the floor with my back to the couch, and that helped! just a tiny change of position signalled to my unconscious that it was not relaxation time. For me, it can be as little as a different chair in the same room."
He was pretty grateful.
Him: now i know the power of honest revelations, i was looking for this from so long!
Me: so the trick is not being disciplined about work -- that is ineffective, exhausting, and dispiriting -- but being disciplined about the habit that tricks us into working. No learning is wasted. Take this for next time.
Him: sumanah: i would shower a million thanks if i could, you have striked the very core problem of mine n gave me very practical solution
Me: the best thanks you can give me is to continue to contribute to Wikimedia and to tell your friends these tips as well
Him: sumanah: yes, I will keep contributing to the best of my abilities
Me: Yay!
...
Him: now, I really feel that I am not the loner who does all that stuff!
Me: you are not alone.
Him: you should also blog a few lines like the tip you told me, it would help millions
Me: I will strongly consider that. Thanks.
I've edited the original log for easier legibility.
A line that others have found useful is "so the trick is not being disciplined about work -- that is ineffective, exhausting, and dispiriting -- but being disciplined about the habit that tricks us into working."
But the best part of that conversation, for me, was being able to tell someone, "you are not alone." That always makes a red-letter day.
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