Topical Rothko

The deep end of the pool....

2010-01-17T21:22:00.000-08:00

I'm in Wellington, New Zealand to speak at LCA on Open Source for Newbies with my ever-awesome Google colleague, Leslie Hawthorn. Wellington is terrific; very much like San Francisco being right on a large, very protected bay which forms an expansive natural harbor backed by steep hills. Misty, cool, with great food, coffee and wine, and casually dressed and friendly locals; I feel very much as home. (But I will be very disappointed if I don't see even one Blue Penguin, though I can pass on seeing a Weta up close and personal...)

But. I'm trying something new. http://geekspeakr.com/ needs to be moved to a new server and and generally updated to the latest version of Drupal. Emma Jane Hogbin put out a call for volunteers to come and get it done, so I decided that it would be interesting to come and offer up my utter ignorance to the effort, figuring I might learn something. Hence the "deep end of the pool" title....

It seems certain that I'm going to learn something, if "only" how much fun it is to sit around a conference table with a bunch of Drupal women (and men). Actually, it's a crash course in how a group decides how to migrate and upgrade a website. So far, I'm no help at all, but I am learning something, the beer is almost as good as the company (I'm falling in love with New Zealand :-) and I'm hoping to be useful doing QA later on. I hope so anyway. Wish me luck!

A modest proposal...

2009-09-08T11:38:00.000-07:00

Well, not really so modest. ;-)

Actually, I want to record what I think is a darn good idea I came up with at FooCamp in late August in a session with Andrew McLaughlin, deputy chief technology officer for the Obama administration. Andrew was asking a small group of interested attendees for ideas on how to quickly disseminate time sensitive information about flu preparedness to ALL Americans - not just those people who are online. My suggestion: work with our nations retailers: food, drug and warehouse, to use their checkout couponing systems to spread the word.

Most merchants use computerized registers, and many retailers - especially large ones - print out coupons on your receipt based on what you've just purchased. For example, if you buy diapers you get a coupon for baby wipes. If you buy beer and hot dogs you get a coupon for BBQ charcoal and chips. Not every retailer gives you coupons; some print out their return policy, or info on an upcoming sales instead of a coupon, but the point is that their registers can print messages on each receipt.

This method won't reach everyone. People who live in areas not served by retail chains, most notably the low income inner city, and the far rural west and midwest will likely be missed. Some fill-in with broasdcast media, coupled maybe even direct mail will be needed to reach *everyone*, but using this medium should get relevant information into the hands of the vast majority of Americans within a week.

FooCamp and Twitter

2009-08-29T20:16:00.000-07:00

Okay. I've become a tweeter. See #catallman. FooCamp is amazing!

2009-08-11T09:33:00.000-07:00

Transparency Camp West 2009 is over. Not quite as many people as we had hoped, but exactly the number we predicted, and a mostly productive group.

It's an interesting puzzle of how to manage sign-ups. In this case and other, we and whomever we are hosting want our event to be open to the universe of interested people, so we make the event free, but since our numbers need to be limited in order to have a productive meeting, we limit registration. People sign up, either because they might come or to show support for the organization we're hosting, or for the topic, but they don't attend, taking seats away from people who actually would attend.

One idea, suggested by one of the terrific crew at the Sunlight Foundation, is to charge a $20 "reservation donation", and refund it at the door. Anyone who doesn't show has just made a donation to the org - or we mail them a $20. Thoughts? Evil or practical?

I'd also love to find a way to prevent the inevitable attendance by relentless self promoters who come only to hunt for people to hire them, sometimes for completely off topic work. And the mercifully infrequent people with "issues". Ever been to an open mike meeting of any San Francisco or Berkeley political body? Yup - like that.

Greetings from Berlin

2009-06-27T13:25:00.000-07:00

I'm in Berlin to give a talk at LinuxTag 2009. I've been looking forward to returning to Berlin after my talk at LinuxTag last year, so I've given myself a Saturday to be a tourist here. What follows in the next couple of posts is a series of my observations. (And yes, I think the talk went ok. I'm never terribly confident - and I hate the way my voice gets squeaky when I nervous (Note to self; remember to breath) - but 6+ people came up to me after to ask questions or to simply thank me for the talk and to tell me they enjoyed it, so I'm cautiously optimistic that I didn't completely suck.)

~~~~~~~~~~~~
At least half the crows I see are are a kind we don't have in the US, the Hooded Crow. It's always pleasantly disconcerting to see something you know like the back of your hand that is, in fact, something that's new to you. It's one of my favorite things about traveling.

And there are bunnies in the parks :)

~~~~~~~~~~
It's my last night in Berlin and I've just come from "Bandy Brooks": a small Berlin chain of ice cream stores. They told me as I bought a cone that the "backstory" for the chain is that it was American, like Hagen Daz pretends to be Dutch but is really made in New Jersey - but it wasn't until I was sitting outside, enjoying the mild evening and the foot traffic streaming by that I read the signage more closely and discovered that they aren't pretending to be American, they are pretending to be from "Confederate America", aka our southern states that seceded from the United States over slavery (and other things) resulting in the American Civil War. I think I just bought ice cream made for wanna-be slave owners. In Germany. Call me PC but I am creeped out. I know I should think, "Gone with the Wind", or "Colorful history of ardent support for states rights", but this was after one of my cab drivers went on and on in mercifully obscure English about how "Jews have all money, very rich!" feh I'm going to pack and go to bed.
~~~~~~~

My first article is live!

2009-06-02T21:35:00.000-07:00

I was asked by Rikki Kite, Associate Publisher of Linux Pro Magazine to contribute to the June 2009 "Women in Open Source" issue of Open Source Business Resource. As weird as it feels to self-promote - heck - I'm jazzed! :)

2009-03-30T08:40:00.000-07:00

Ok, so I was a *little* cranky when I wrote my last post. SIGCSE and the FOSS in Education workshop that preceded it were both informative and interesting events.

Greg Stein wrote a most interesting post on OS and the motivations of contributers - check it out.
http://prng.blogspot.com/2009/02/giving-back.html

My ignorance is embarassing...

2009-03-04T11:55:00.000-08:00

I've recently become aware how ignorant I am of the recent and current state of computer science education, and of the limitations of secondary education all together. I went to UC Santa Cruz in the 1970s, when interdisciplinary education was fairly new in American education. While intellectually I know my college experience of small, dynamic classes lead by closely involved senior faculty who I knew by first name and felt free to argue with was a bit unusual, I honestly assumed that with the passage of time that this had become the norm. As for CS, my experience was second hand, through my brother, 3 years ahead of me at UC Berkeley. Again, I'd come to assume that he and his experience was not that unusual, at least not anymore. I'm always surprised when I meet tech people for whom their choice of CS for a major was *not* a matter of passion, an avocation if you will, but I always figured such people were unusual.

Boy, am I wrong!

I'm at SIGCSE getting my nose rubbed in the fact that I'm woefully mistaken. Apparently CS is vocational education for people who want a reliable paycheck, companies buy out curricula in order to produce fresh generations of cubical cannon fodder, Open Source and interdisciplinary studies are still unusual and suspect, and all my friends and family are freakishly committed, talented, and passionate about what they do. Wow. How insanely sad! Even that last part makes me sad - I love my F&F, but how scary is the world if they are that unusual! My default is to assume that people have a rich inner life, love to learn, and are passionate about their work. Apparently I'm wretchedly naive.

FOSDEM '09

2009-02-23T17:35:00.000-08:00

I finally got to attend FOSDEM this year. What a fascinating event it is - the most user-generated event I've ever seen in person. "More than an Un-Conference?", you might ask? Most definitely! Here's why:

-FOSS projects apply to have a room for one or two days during the two day event.
-The chosen projects are responsible for programing that space with content, be it "regular" talks, group meetings, or hacking space.
-Each group makes up their own schedule within the opening and closing time of the event.

There are invited talks too - very good ones I might add - but having the various projects settling their own agendas makes for a stimulating non-stop rush hour of interesting stuff to participate in. You definitely need a timepiece of some kind!

And if you happen to see a friend but don't have time to stop and talk - make the time! You likely won't run into them again! I made that mistake when I happened across an old friend, Teus Hagen of CACert.

Cheap and Easy

2009-01-31T06:25:00.000-08:00

Pet peeve time - don't settle for something just because it's cheap! Our lives are full of stuff, full to overflowing, and how much of it is stuff we bought, not because it was what we *really* wanted or *actually* needed but just because it was cheap. Cheap and there.

"If I just go ahead and buy it I can stop looking - I'm tired of looking."

"It will do for now."

"Oh, we'll replace it later when we find something we really like."

"It's nice for the price."

A bargain is not a bargain if it adds another piece of junk to your life. Speaking as an American, my life is full of mounds of cheap crap; knock-offs, copies, extras to have on hand just in case I need it some day: stuff I bought because it was cheap. Enough already. I'm not saying, "Never buy anything.", or "Only buy expensive things.", or "Give up collecting stuff." (God forbid ;-) I'm saying "Quit settling."

If you need something, save up and buy one good item instead of the big box jumbo 12 pack of cheap plastic copies of the original design. Buy one piece of art from a person, instead of the pre-framed "set of 4 original prints digitally reproduced on genuine canvas" from a catalog. Buy one worn but real piece of furniture at a thrift shop instead of dragging home a truckload of matching, assemble it yourself, veneer on particle board, "lifestyle accessories". Or find something on the street - my favorite chair is from the dumpster of my old apartment in Oakland. It's worn, a bit paint stained - and is an extremely comfortable classic of mid 20th century design. Classic as in "exhibited in museums" classic. I like the paint and the cracks in the leather - we're all going to develop some cracks and blotches some day. I don't need the equivalent of some porn star's bust in my life - do you?

Are you smarter than a German plumbing fixture?

2008-05-28T20:22:00.000-07:00

Apparently I'm not. Anyone know how to drain an ultra modern bathtub?

Wow - Berlin is beautiful!

2008-05-28T13:12:00.000-07:00

I don't know why I never knew how lovely Berlin is! I'm here to give a talk on Google Summer of Code at Linuxtag.

My hotel is so cool - it has a HUGE multistory circular aquarium in the center of the lobby. The people have been great so far, most people speak english, some better than I do ;), and the city itself is so lush and green, laced with canals and rivers, and mostly barely taller than the many trees, so that it's hard to remember just how big a city it is. My room is very modern but sports a tiny balcony overlooking a canal with the Berlin Cathedral beyond, less than a block away. If it ain't Baroque.... ;)

Off to bed now, for tomorrow I must talk (in complete sentences.)

A shameless plug - LUGRadioLIVE USA

2008-03-24T10:30:00.000-07:00

I'm helping to organize it, and this is my blog, so I can market what I please :)

LUG Radio LIVE is coming to the US for the first time, and Google and
I are helping make the local arrangements. The text below from Jono
Bacon of LUG Radio LIVE and Ubuntu lays out all the info.

Spread the word!

~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Registration for LugRadio Live USA 2008 is now open at
http://lugradio.org/live/USA2008/register, and tickets for the two-day
spectacular cost only $10 for the full weekend, including full access to
all talks, the exhibition, evening events, and a free bag o'swag for
visitors. Pre-registrations also enjoy additional benefits at the show
and the first 50 registrations will receive a free copy of Postal 2:
Share The Pain (subject to age verification), thanks to Running With
Scissors. All pre-registrations will also be entered into a raffle to
win prizes by a variety of vendors.

LugRadio Live USA 2008, the 'rock-conference' from the team behind the
popular LugRadio podcast (http://www.lugradio.org), brings the
successful and unique formula of the UK LugRadio Live events to The
Metreon in San Francisco on the 12th and 13th April 2008. The event is
supported extensively by Google and also supported by Dice.

LugRadio Live USA 2008 brings together over 30 speakers across three
stages, 30+ exhibitors, a range of BOF sessions, debate panels,
lightbulb talk sessions, demos and much more, all wrapped up in the
unique event that the UK incarnation has become known for, combining an
incredibly loose, social, inclusive, and amusing atmosphere - if you are
new to LugRadio Live, it is nothing you will have seen before.

Confirmed speakers for the event include:

* Miguel de Icaza (Mono / Novell / Co-Founder Of GNOME)
* Ian Murdoch (OpenSolaris / Founder Of Debian)
* Robert Love (GNOME / Google)
* Aza Raskin (Mozilla / Humanized)
* Benjamin Mako Hill (Ubuntu / Debian / FSF)
* John Buckman (Magnatune)
* Val Henson (Kernel / VAH consulting)
* Christopher Blizzard (Mozilla / GNOME)
* Mike Linksvayer (Creative Commons)
* David Schleef (GStreamer)
* Matthew Garrett (Power Management / Kernel)
* Danese Cooper (Intel / OSI)
* Aaron Bockover (Banshee / Novell)
* Liana Holmberg (Second Life / Linden Lab)
* Emma Jane Hogbin (Hick Tech)
* Joe Zonker Brockmeier (OpenSuSE / Novell)
* Kristen Accardi (Kernel)
* David Lefty Schlesinger
* Joe Born (Neuros)
* Selena Deckelmann (PostgreSQL)
* Stewart Smith (MySQL)
* Dan Kegal (Wine)
* Ben Collins (Ubuntu / Kernel)
* Jason Kridner (Texas Instruments)
* Jeremy Allison (Samba / Google)
* Christian Hammond (VMWare)
* Ian McKeller (Songbird)
* Alison Randall (Parrot / Perl / OSCON)
* David Huffman (LVM)
* Brian Will (Pigeon)
* Belinda Lopez (Ubuntu)
* Ilan Rabanovich (SoCal Linux Expo)
* Eddy Mulyono (Packaging)
* Matthew Walster (Demo Scene)

The show will also see a large number of exhibitors, which will be
announced in the coming weeks, with plenty to see and do. In addition to
this, the LugRadio team will be recording a live performance of their
cult-hit podcast, which has over 20,000 listeners, in front of the
LugRadio Live USA 2008 audience - like the UK event, this is always
quite a spectacle, and excellent fun for all involved.

More information about LugRadio Live USA 2008 can be found at
http://lugradio.org/live/USA2008/

Finding Mentors

2008-03-23T09:09:00.000-07:00

While in Chicago, I was privileged to be a part of the selection process for Mentor organizations for Google's Summer of Code program. (Yes, I work for Google in the Open Source Programs Office.) When I say privileged, I mean it: having a chance to be a part of such a productive and far-reaching program is just that. I love my work :-)

Not that it was all sunshine and Care Bears. We received over 500 applications for what was to have been 150 spots. There were so many great applications that we increased the number to 170+ and still had to turn down some terrific projects that we really wanted to support. The review process is grueling - approximately 10 of us spent a entire afternoon in a room looking at each application*. A short list of roughly 250 was decided on, and then that list was cut down. Leslie Hawthorn did the majority of the heavy lifting of choosing which muscles and bones to lop off (and for the program as a whole), reviewed and seconded by the group - major kudos to Leslie, who stayed up most of the night finalizing the list and trying to keep as many orgs in as possible. It really hurts to have to pass on some projects, but we can only do what we can do.

To any groups who didn't make the cut - please try again next year! But I'm going to offer some advice - hell, issue a plea! Please, *please* - read the instructions first. And the FAQs. And if you think you might not understand something - email the program administrator before the filing deadline and double check. It was awful to have to turn down exciting projects, projects we really wanted in the program, because their application was incomplete.

If you're interested in Google Summer of Code 2008, keep your eye on the Google Open Source blog.

*people involved with a given project recuse themselves from reviewing that project.

Chicago

2008-03-14T06:49:00.000-07:00

I haven't been here in a l o n g time. What great buildings; the architectural details are everything I remember and more. The hints of vast prairie skies you see down streets and between buildings makes the details stand out that much more.

I'm here for a team meeting at our Chicago office. Maybe I'm focused on the buildings because we've had a fun team distraction of assembling and building things out of a couple hundred bloxes (www.bloxes.com). It's been well worth the prolonged death by paper cut from fiddling with that much cardboard in the dry midwestern winter air. Check them out.