08 Dec 2017, 10:10 a.m.

A Theme in Newitz, Sugar, Wells, & Leckie

I'm starting Annalee Newitz's Autonomous (enjoying so far; the science-sex-and-slaves narrative makes me also want to reread Nicola Griffith's Slow River). I'm fuzzily thinking about thematic echoes in Rebecca Sugar's Steven Universe, Martha Wells's All …

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03 Dec 2017, 12:23 p.m.

The Programmer Experience: Redundancy Edition

Sunday morning, one thought led to another, and I realized I'd like to read a US nonprofit's Form 990 (annual report on assets, revenue, etc.). I started looking for 990s, and stumbled upon a big …

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11 Nov 2017, 7:14 a.m.

Video of Our PyGotham Play

You can now watch the 22-minute video of the play I discussed last month. "Code Review, Forwards and Back", co-written by and co-starring Jason Owen and me, directed by Jonathan Galvez. Thanks to: Kenneth Durril …

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31 Oct 2017, 14:57 p.m.

Happy Halloween

Today in the US we have the 1st of the crowded season of holidays taking us into the spring: Halloween, Thanksgiving, ["the holidays"], New Year's, Valentine's Day. Fear/horror, gratitude, tradition/family, hope, romantic love. Halloween and …

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15 Oct 2017, 13:35 p.m.

Cleveland Visit

I'm visiting Cleveland, Ohio this coming weekend, in case you live there or have suggestions for things I ought to do. (One proximate cause of this is that, through the Python community, I've met multiple …

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11 Oct 2017, 11:13 a.m.

Hello City Limits, I See Your Sign, Left Your Dystopia Way Behind

A joking-around conversation from a recent conference, from memory and condensed. A: "I saw the eclipse in Nashville." B: "Oh I'm from Nashville!" A: "Oh cool! Did you see it there too!" B: "No, I …

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02 Oct 2017, 16:45 p.m.

Code Review, Forwards And Back

This Friday, at PyGotham, Jason Owen and I are co-presenting "Code Review, Forwards and Back". This is not a standard technical conference talk. It's a 25-minute play, basically a one-act.   The setting: an office …

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21 Sep 2017, 8:16 a.m.

A Misheard Moxy Früvous Lyric, Corrected

Sometime around 1999 or 2001, I first heard "King of Spain" by Moxy Früvous. The UC Berkeley a cappella group DeCadence performed it during one of their lunchtime concerts near Sather Gate. (Four out of …

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18 Sep 2017, 13:35 p.m.

Supporting Int 1696-2017 for Source Code Transparency in New York City

The principle at stake in California v. Johnson: due process requires that we be able to examine the evidence used to convict someone. Kern County got a $200,000+ grant and started using closed-source software to …

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18 Sep 2017, 11:01 a.m.

On Noticing That Your Project Is Draining Your Soul

I was talking with a fellow consultant about what to do if you have a gig getting you down. Especially when you realize that the client isn't being helpful, and there's a bunch of learning …

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