Cogito, Ergo Sumana for 2012 July

# (1) 07 Jul 2012, 04:46PM: Various: A few links for the weekend.

This video is probably only of interest to Arrested Development fans and people who want to hear an Australian imitating a US accent. By the same creator: "...It’s much easier and simpler from a user interface perspective, and worked brilliantly until one particular night....."

A few pieces of speculative fiction: "Other Moments" by Daniel Goss (short and poignant), and "The Naturalist" by Maureen McHugh (creeptastic).

Interesting perspectives on media I haven't experienced: "re: Fifty Shades of Grey" and Steen on noise music. Intriguing comic-narrative-as-commentary: new webcomic "Strong Female Protagonist", which "follows the adventures of a young middle-class American with super-strength, invincibility and a crippling sense of social injustice." And Hari Kondabolu and Janine Brito discuss comedy by and for women & nonwhites.

More thought-provoking explanations, on perspective and how people interact: the metaphor of the missing stair, or, why it's worth paying attention to problems you've gotten used to in your community ((the same analogy running the other way). And the word "creepy" compresses meaning in a useful way and in response to distortions around safety and agency.

Curious about the indie Kannada film scene? Check an example out (YouTube channel). My bonus "hey I recognize him!" moment was when venerated Kannada film director Chandrashekar popped up in one of those videos praising the new movie.

In non-indie film: the original trailer for Kubrick's 2001: A Space Odyssey. The year is 1968. (I'm seeing it on the big screen later today.)

Finally, "wild child" by calapine, a vid I liked a lot -- and if you like that, check out fizzyblogic's "What About".

# 08 Jul 2012, 08:56PM: Taking Stock: This weekend I:

took a capoeira class for the first time
went to the top of the Empire State Building for the first time
saw open culture and open source friends, old and new
caused about ten Wikimedians to see "Too Much Light Makes the Baby Go Blind"
walked bits of the High Line park I'd never seen before
saw 2001: A Space Odyssey on the big screen for the first time
shared my career origin story with a few high schoolers
rewatched a bit of Arrested Development
watched some of Ken Burns's documentary Prohibition
reread Jean Merrill's The Pushcart War
worked with OpenHatch on this week's hackathon
caught up a bit with other friends and family

Hey Sumana, next time you think you're wasting your time all the time, YOU'RE NOT.

And in my continuing catalog of things women talk about, in case you need help passing the Bechdel test in your fiction:

gardening, plant identification, and methods
whether to start a startup, and when, and how
health insurance woes, birth control, sex education, and the new HIV home test
how to structure work to reduce burnout risk
working at nonprofits versus for-profits
how to prepare kasha
New York's joys and confusions
being the children of immigrants
how to improve engineering education, and the importance of finding martial arts classes that have friendly instructors and other friendly students
old TV shows, and the music licensing barriers that keep them from DVD release
whether going to a particular conference would forward one's goals
choosing a college or major

# 09 Jul 2012, 10:46PM: Open Content, Source, And System: Video interview with me about Wikimedia's openness on multiple levels.

Filed under: Work:Wikimedia

# (4) 16 Jul 2012, 10:32PM: Two Weeks Home: I'm home from Wikimania, where one of my presentations got someone "legitimately excited!" And what else can you ask?

Home for two weeks before I take a nice long summer vacation.

A few random thoughts:

"Assume Good Faith" is a pretty life-changing choice.

"I have this problem" and "we have this problem" are qualitatively different situations.

Some stimuli are like necessary vitamins and I need to make sure I get them, or I'll feel run-down. Examples: exercise, seeing my colleagues, making other people laugh, walking in greenery, telling and hearing stories, hugging, and the music of the Mountain Goats.

Multiple people have asked me, in the past few weeks, how I've gotten to where I am, to who I am. One answer: the hospitality gifts my parents gave me, plus an unremitting personal history of feeling like a powerless outsider and thus an iron-willed resolution that no one should ever feel like that again, plus catching open source zealotry as a youth.

Instead of "what do you do?", when I meet strangers at conferences, I ask questions like "what cool stuff are you up to?" or "what is your current endeavor?", allowing people to self-define by their chosen interests, but avoiding implications that reduce them to their current externally assigned titles.

One of the hardest parts of conferences: I rarely see these fascinating people, and can't just stop time to mind-meld with them.

Sometimes I misread my own calm as feeling tired.

# (1) 18 Jul 2012, 01:11PM: Mentorship: Today I taught someone how to use the command line, showed him whoami and ls and nslookup, showed him Wolfram Alpha, and explained DNS, IPv6, hexadecimal, and WikiProjects.

That was nice.

# (3) 21 Jul 2012, 04:28PM: Thoughts Upon Seeing "Cabaret": I've now seen the film and the stage versions of Cabaret. Some thoughts:

Our leads are basically Kermit and Miss Piggy. In fact, I am now reinterpreting the Meet Cute from The Great Muppet Caper through the lens of Cabaret and it TOTALLY MAKES SENSE right down to the "wait, why don't you have a (British?) accent?" joke.
I saw the stage version first, so of course I've imprinted on it as "right". And people who saw the film in 1972 didn't first run into Michael York as Basil Exposition from Austin Powers. With that disclaimed, the romance subplot and the political foreshadowing in the stage version are more compelling than those in the film. Also, in retrospect, no surprise that a 2012 stage version in northern California would be more realistic and sensitive about sexuality (especially bisexuality) than a major motion picture from 1972.
I have the same issue with Cabaret that I had with The Science of Sleep, namely, over time I just get more irritated with main characters who hurt others or themselves. I briefly fantasize about a plot in which the immature or malicious characters realize, "I should leave the story and go concentrate on being a more reliable and kind person," and then the sensible people can get on with, like, teaching English lessons and making art and building nonviolent empowering institutions. Not sure how this squares with my love of Breaking Bad; maybe the poisonous insta-hate ingredient is the Manic Pixie Dream Girl/Guy.
I also seem allergic to certain phrasings and generalizations in songs, just like the utter Wikipedian pedant you might expect I am. "What use is sitting alone in your room? / Come, hear the music play. / Life is a cabaret, old chum / Come to the cabaret!" Point-by-point refutation:
1. Leave the introverts alone and let them be alone in their rooms if they want; it's totally legit to be alone in your room!
2. Why are you telling me to come hear the music play? I'm already here! The music is playing! God! Nothing's good enough for you!
3. Life is NOT a cabaret, that makes no sense
4. I did! I came to your cabaret and then there were Nazis!
I sound like I'm really down on Cabaret; I'm not. It's interesting and visually spectacular, and the stage version I saw was haunting and creepy in a good way.
Props to Kander and Ebb for writing a cheery earworm anthem ("Tomorrow Belongs To Me") that the viewer really wants to hum on the way out of the theater, but must squash because one doesn't actually want to be singing about the Fatherland and glory awaiting and so on. The viewer becomes complicit in the glib catchy power of a jingoistic jingle. Nice trick.