# 10 Dec 2015, 10:55AM: On Meditation And Other Training Exercises:
Last night, as I do most Wednesday nights, I went to my local mindfulness meditation group. It was a very distracted meditation for me, and as we ended, a voice in me judged, failure.
And I internally replied to that voice, saying, hold on, define your terms. If this is failure, what would success be?
And I thought of an analogy. When we jump rope to exercise, we jump, over and over again. We know that at the end of each jump we will fall back down to earth, because that's how gravity is. The aim is not to jump, each time, in the hopes that this time we'll take off into space, as though this time we will escape gravity. Jumping rope is a training activity. The aim is to strengthen the muscles of the legs by using the unbending force of gravity. We practice pushing off against it, and over time our legs get better and better at letting us move around.
Minds have thoughts. That's what they do. The distractions you will always have with you. Meditation and prayer help me get better at working with them, using them, instead of having them in charge of me.
# 28 Dec 2015, 02:06PM PST: What Software Freedom Conservancy Does, Why It's Important, And Why You Should Give:
I appreciate the work of the Software Freedom Conservancy, a nonprofit that helps free and open source software projects. Right now they need 2,500 people to become Supporters to keep their work going. So I made a video about why I support them, using language and examples that you can understand if you're new to this topic. It's embedded below, along with the text script I spoke from.
This month, I'm volunteering to help raise money for the Software Freedom Conservancy. My local bookshop does something cool for the holidays: volunteers wrap gifts for free, and any tips from the customers go to a charity that the volunteer gets to choose. So I've been explaining to the customers (most of whom aren't technologists) that I am donating their tips to the Software Freedom Conservancy.
My one-sentence explanation: The Software Freedom Conservancy is a nonprofit that helps programmers give away their software for free.
If they are curious, I explain further:
One way they do this is by being a nonprofit umbrella. Developers who want to make software and give it away often need a way to take donations and spend them on stuff like travel (to see each other and work face-to-face). Setting up their own nonprofits would take a ton of time and paperwork and filing fees. So the Conservancy takes care of all that, handling the accounting and stuff like that.
Another thing they do is license compliance work. You see, if you just write something, then automatically, the license that applies is standard copyright. But programmers who want to give away their software do it by saying it's under a different license, one that says, it's fine for you to copy this and look at the code and change it and even give it or sell it to other people, as long as you let other people do the same thing, too. But there are some companies that don't follow these rules. They maybe reuse these things that other people gave away, and package them into a phone or a tablet or something, and then they close it up. They don't let other people see that code -- they don't give other people the same chance that they benefited from. So the Conservancy follows up on that, sends them legal letters that say, "hey, that's illegal, that's not fair, don't do that."
And another thing they do is, there's this internship program, a paid internship program called Outreachy, to help get women and other underrepresented groups into this part of the tech industry. You see, most internships in the software industry are paid -- it's not like a lot of other industries. We gotta pay these interns to help them get into this part of the industry. So the Conservancy is the nonprofit umbrella for this program, and handles the finances so that companies can donate money and the interns can get paid.
That's my explanation. I'm glad I can help tell people about this great nonprofit and the unique work they do. And it really is unique. So if you or people you care about have benefited from the Conservancy's work, or if you just think it's a good idea, please give them $120, or whatever you can, during this fundraiser, and spread the word. Thank you.
Technologists might also like Matthew Garrett's "GPL enforcement is a social good" and Mike Linksvayer's thoughts on his favorite Conservancy accomplishment of 2015.
Please give -- right now, there's a match available that will make your gift count twice!
Edited 6 February to add: The donation match runs till 1 March 2016. Please give.
# 28 Dec 2015, 02:19PM PST: More Zen Cho, and History in Hamilton:
People who read this blog will probably like the stuff I've been posting on the Geek Feminism group blog. I wrote a bit more about Zen Cho's Sorcerer to the Crown in October, covering "Cruciat-ish, or, Magic and Microaggressions", "The Diasporan Ugly Duckling", and "All The Fun Bits". And then, in November, I wrote a list of reasons why Hamilton appeals to geeky feminists -- including its user experience affordances.
I took some of those concepts and developed them further into my first-ever piece for Tor.com, "The Uses Of History in Hamilton: An American Musical". It compares Hamilton to Drunk History, Hark! A Vagrant, 1776, the HBO John Adams miniseries, Ginsberg's "America", Hughes's "Let America Be America Again", Sassafrass's "Somebody Will", and science fiction in general, and considers its narrative approach and metatextuality. I also link to a few great pieces of Hamilton fanfic.
# 31 Dec 2015, 05:31PM PST: Yuletide Treasure Reveal: "Pops Real Nice":
Fanfic authors started a Secret Santa-style gift exchange, "Yuletide", in 2003, concentrating on fandoms that don't have that much fic written about them. This year, for the first time, I participated. Now that the authors' names have been revealed, I can announce: I wrote fic about two songs by the Mountain Goats!
Pops Real Nice (2194 words) by brainwane
Chapters: 1/1
Fandom: The Best Ever Death Metal Band in Denton - The Mountain Goats (song), Beat the Champ - The Mountain Goats (Album)
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Characters: Animal Mask, Original Male Character(s), Original Female Character(s), Cyrus (The Best Ever Death Metal Band in Denton), Jeff (The Best Ever Death Metal Band in Denton)
Additional Tags: Wrestling, Zines, Psychologists & Psychiatrists, Divorce, Texas, Utah - Freeform, Transcribed, Inspired by Music, Friendship, The Mountain Goats, John Darnielle - Freeform, All Hail West Texas
Summary: After the events of "Animal Mask." Before, during, and after the events of "The Best Ever Death Metal Band in Denton".
Enjoy "Pops Real Nice" and the making-of endnotes (including thank-yous to my beta readers) at Archive Of Our Own (brought to you by the Organization for Transformative Works).
I received a sweet Babysitters' Club fic, "(Not) Like Uber but for Babysitting", by cbomb, which took my prompt and ran with it. It made me cheer (as in, cheer out loud) when I found out that BSC is deliberately setting itself against the "sharing economy" trends of Uber, Airbnb, et alia by making its babysitters' treatment a first-class priority. Awesome, and in keeping with the values we've always seen in BSC!
Thanks to everyone who makes Yuletide happen.
Filed under:
Deliverables
