# (1) 05 Jun 2012, 02:37PM: Fuzzy:
Back from Berlin, trying to cure my cold with sleep, lots of healthful snacks, light reading, spicy soup, herbal tea, limeade, and whiskey. And a day off. Makes sense, since I worked the whole weekend.
Enjoying The Perilous Life of Jade Yeo. On the plane I watched Haywire and Young Adult basically because they are both about female antiheroes. Also ADORING the Regeneration trilogy by Pat Barker -- found an all-in-one volume and would be reading the last part, The Ghost Road, right now if my fuzzy head were up to it.
People liked the hackathon. Glad of that.
# (1) 06 Jun 2012, 11:54PM: "But your news is not true.":
Fun things from tonight:
Reading bits of Hamlet aloud with Leonard. Some bits do really well if you do them as Jerry Seinfeld and George Costanza.
George: "Pity me not, but lend thy serious hearing to what I shall unfold."
Jerry: "Speak. I am bound to hear."
George: "So art thou to revenge, when thou shalt hear."
Jerry: "What?"
And honestly, the "to be or not to be" soliloquy has the same rhetorical structure as the last two thirds of a
Seinfeld monologue...
Turns out that I've been misunderstanding, for half my life, Hamlet's line "a custom more honored in the breach than in the observance." Disorienting! It's fun that Hamlet still has surprises for me. Also, to you, what does the phrase "Murder most foul, as in the best it is" mean?
Leonard's related to Eli Whitney, who -- as we discovered tonight -- took upwards of seven years to deliver on a one-year government contract! This makes me feel better about missing and bending deadlines.
Re-watched the very last bit of Dave and realized that one reason I like being a community manager is that it's a position as a public servant. (Complete with Greek Chorus of Doom some days.) I must also own up to Dave-related assumptions that the way to solve difficult problems is with a big speech!
Dave stars Frank Langella, who has played evil dudes in Dave, Star Trek: Deep Space Nine, etc. He has played Dracula and Skeletor.... and Sherlock Holmes. It's cute that he did a few roles for his kids. I also look forward to someday seeing Frost/Nixon and Robot and Frank.
Less fun: Amazon has some weird rights-related glitch that's keeping us from watching any Star Trek via Instant Watch. More fun, as an exercise for "count the ways in which you know the author is not a native English speaker": the description for We're No Angels.
In Christmas, three prisoners - Joseph, Albert and Jules - escape from the Devil Island to a French small coastal town. They decide to robber a store, to get some money and clothes and travel by ship to another place.
And, just discovered: Mel Chua analyzing me (I laughed aloud in glee several times, most at "I have no reason to doubt that these things are true.").
Blog post title from Hamlet, Act II, Scene ii. I like imagining different deliveries.
# (7) 08 Jun 2012, 01:00PM: Riddlish:
A big long book, cities in Italy and Alaska, my flat, a journey, the most internationalized and accessible desktop environment, an igloo.
# 15 Jun 2012, 10:39PM: "A clipboard to catalog all my finds":
The first few times I hung out with Leonard in person, he brought me to his friend's parties. Kevin Maples and his pals were interesting, of course, but somehow -- two Fridays in a row -- at some point during the party, they all slipped elsewhere, and Leonard and I were alone in the living room with Kevin's guitars. And Leonard played his songs for me.
I was in a serious relationship with someone else at the time. I thought I was just making a cool new friend. But, in retrospect, all the other partygoers could tell that something was happening, and unobtrusively left us to it.
I'd learned of Leonard through his geek humor site, Segfault, then started reading his blog. His prose had attracted me. His songs arrested me.
A few months later we were dating, and a few months after that we were fairly exclusive, and now we have a world together.
His creative energies flow into his prose, which gets more marvelous every year. He doesn't play much guitar anymore, and I miss that. If you like Constellation Games then you might also enjoy the science fiction songs he wrote, which include:
There's also stuff like "Shoshone Shoeshine" (as mentioned in this week's Constellation Games commentary), and his Age of Reason trilogy, which I adore but which Leonard has stopped playing and never recorded.
I wish I could go back to that room in Oakland, hundreds of Friday nights ago, and listen to that one-person concert with the ears I have now. I think I would close my eyes the whole time. I don't think I could stand seeing him, or me. I think I miss that moment as others miss their hometowns. I think I was too transported to know I was happy.
# (1) 19 Jun 2012, 05:54AM: Challenge:
Wikimedia Foundation is hiring a leader for volunteer software testing. I have ideas on what this person should do and how to do it* -- indeed, this position reports to me -- but more than that, I have ideas about what kind of person I need to find.
I need someone who has skills in open source contribution, who gets the wiki and open source way. Even if the person lives in San Francisco -- which they don't have to -- they have to collaborate well remotely, with volunteers and other colleagues. And I seek someone who has the focus and analytical skill one needs to test software, and the hospitable and generous temperament one needs to encourage and teach newbies.
I've been bookmarking lists of suggestions for ways to test, like You Are Not Done Yet and Falsehoods Programmers Believe About Names and its sequel on time. We've already started running online events for new testers. If talking like this is scratching an itch for you, even if you've never had a job title as a software tester, please apply. At least we'll have an interesting conversation.
* Had I worlds enough and time, I would start a retraining school that turned underpaid copyeditors into versatile and sought-after software testers. Proofreaders can already follow instructions and communicate effectively and deploy critical thinking skills while nitpicking, so they just need some guidance in learning some domain knowledge. (One of the great benefits of the modern technology industry is that it provides productive and lucrative channels for pedantry.) I do not have the time to do this for profit, but perhaps my Engineering Community Team can use this kind of arbitrage to recruit and train volunteers, give them some skills to put on their résumés, and get some more quality assurance.
# 19 Jun 2012, 06:17AM: Conference Seasoning:
You know you're traveling too much when you completely stop updating the "where I'm going to be" feeds (example).
Regardless: I'll be in San Francisco starting late today, and then in Portland on Monday the 25th, the day before I give the opening keynote address at Open Source Bridge. My tentative title: "Be Bold."
Wikimedians are giving several other talks during the conference:
The Wikimedia Foundation is also sponsoring the Friday unconference day, and will host a hacking table that day as well as (I hope) the Tuesday "Hacker Lounge Project/Community Night."
Then, I'll be in Washington, DC, July 10th-15th for Wikimania, especially the pre-conference Hackathon. I'm happy to announce that WMF is partnering with OpenHatch to make the pre-Wikimania hackathon even more useful. OpenHatch is planning and running the novice-focused half of the event, with trainings and projects to help people learn how to hack Wikimedia technology.
I'm leading at least two talks at Wikimania:
I say "at least two" because who knows whether folks will rope me into moderating a panel, or doing some stand-up comedy.
# (2) 27 Jun 2012, 03:57AM: Be Bold: An Origin Story:
I'm getting very positive reviews for my opening keynote from Open Source Bridge.
Video (starts around 6:00), speaker's notes (text that needs updating to match the audio).
Then, I'll be in Washington, DC, July 10th-15th for Wikimania, especially the pre-conference Hackathon. I'm happy to announce that WMF is partnering with OpenHatch to make the pre-Wikimania hackathon even more useful. OpenHatch is planning and running the novice-focused half of the event, with trainings and projects to help people learn how to hack Wikimedia technology.
