@brainwane@social.coop
@brainwane@social.coop avatar

brainwane

@brainwane@social.coop

Indian-American gal who likes to make people laugh. #OpenSource entrepreneur, programmer, tech writer and encourager, stand-up comedian, advocate for transparency in government software and data.

New York City #NYC, Changeset Consulting, #RecurseCenter, #WisCon, #MetaFilter, #Python packaging, Geek Feminism, #Dreamwidth, harihareswara.net.

Hope you're having the best possible day.

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brainwane, to random
@brainwane@social.coop avatar

@unpretty I just read https://unpretty.space/post/749936623491416064/is-there-anything-stopping-a-very-rich-person-from and I am going to ask my spouse, who used to be head of digital lending at the New York Public Library, to opine

brainwane,
@brainwane@social.coop avatar

@unpretty Wayne could create an Overdrive account for his privately owned library

but publishers might not want to sell ebook licenses to his library (depending on whether it is geographically exclusive), depending on how many books we are talking about

He might want to negotiate directly with the publishers for the rights to a specific enumerated list of titles

@leonardr also briefly started considering Wayne's plans for offering app and/or web reader access to said books

brainwane,
@brainwane@social.coop avatar

@unpretty

The closest model to what Wayne would be doing is Open eBooks

https://www.openebooks.org/about

given that Wayne is doing this toward a public policy goal

Some more on digital lending at libraries: https://www.crummy.com/writing/speaking/2015-RESTFest/

brainwane, to random
@brainwane@social.coop avatar

I was just bragging to a pal about this: a few years ago @leonardr wrote a series of interesting blog posts about the titles of video games and what they do and how.

https://www.crummy.com/2009/01/31/0 is the first post & links to the rest.

He later gave a presentation about it at Penguicon 2017 - slides at https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/1wpRXVx73Zl3LlW4ZLkIALb68Wi5TflwpMCDzYa5pNmE/present include some insights from titles he imagined while writing "Constellation Games".

Also, his investigative journalism regarding "Spacewar!" https://www.crummy.com/2013/02/02/0

ditiro, to random
@ditiro@mastodon.social avatar

I just watched your @pycon video on YouTube!😂 😂 Its awesome, I just wish I could get my visa and attend @brainwane

brainwane,
@brainwane@social.coop avatar

@ditiro Thanks for the kind words and I hope the online experience is also good!

@pycon

brainwane, to random
@brainwane@social.coop avatar

Music recommendation:

https://music.metafilter.com/6838/Everyone-I-Know

still a great earworm of melancholy synth

jacob, to random
@jacob@jacobian.org avatar

Holy shit this is incredibly good news https://www.ftc.gov/news-events/news/press-releases/2024/04/ftc-announces-rule-banning-noncompetes

brainwane,
@brainwane@social.coop avatar

@jacob "The Commission also finds that instead of using noncompetes to lock in workers, employers that wish to retain employees can compete on the merits for the worker’s labor services by improving wages and working conditions." Oh I bet that felt good to write

jacob, to random
@jacob@jacobian.org avatar

This probably doesn’t mean anything but if it means something it means something HUGE (via r/dropout)

brainwane,
@brainwane@social.coop avatar

@jacob I made an undignified noise in my throat upon seeing this

brainwane, to random
@brainwane@social.coop avatar

12+ years ago I wrote "What Does A Volunteer Development Coordinator Do?" https://www.harihareswara.net/posts/2012/what-does-a-volunteer-development-coordinator-do/ listing off specific activities I did to facilitate open source volunteers' work within Wikimedia.

I'd be curious to read something like that from someone in 2024 who has a similar role (likely called "developer relations lead" or "community manager" or "head of open" or something) at an open stuff org. I wonder what's substantially the same and what's shifted.

brainwane, to random
@brainwane@social.coop avatar

@unpretty I saw https://unpretty.space/post/743319759762948096/jane-moon-transition-and-recovery-funds-organized and saw the Google Doc link had been taken down - any chance you held on to a copy?

andybaio, to random
@andybaio@xoxo.zone avatar

Today's my birthday, and all I want is YOUR CLIPBOARD! Hit reply and paste—NO EDITING! ✂️📋🎉

brainwane,
@brainwane@social.coop avatar

@andybaio Other NYC people: if you would like to set up an IRL event that isn't this, please do! Some ideas:
<ul><li>Outdoor dining! (Recent recommendations from Ask: <a href="https://ask.metafilter.com/377527/Recently-verified-heated-outdoor-gathering-spots-in-New-York-City">1</a>, <a href="https://ask.metafilter.com/378856/NYC-Tasty-Vegetarian-Options-south-of-31st-dining-filter">2</a>, <a href="https://ask.metafilter.com/378617/Recently-verified-outdoor-places-for-2-to-eat-in-Manhattan">3</a>

brainwane,
@brainwane@social.coop avatar

@andybaio , <a href="https://ask.metafilter.com/378244/Restaurants-in-East-or-West-Village-NYC-with-HEAT-LAMPS">4</a>)

<li>Search <a href="https://www.nycgovparks.org/events/">the Parks calendar</a> for something that speaks to you.

<li><a href="https://queensnightmarket.com/">The Queens Night Market</a>, starting Saturday, April 27th.

<li>Whatever movie or play you're already going to go see.
</li></li></li></li></ul><br>

brainwane, to random
@brainwane@social.coop avatar

@siderea not yet shipping to the US I think but: Vitacore is making a black-colored N95

https://shop.vitacore.ca/collections/frontpage/products/can99-black-respirator

brainwane, to random
@brainwane@social.coop avatar

ok so I don't think of myself as a Very Online person

I have friends whom I see in person

I sometimes see references I don't understand

but something happened the other day that is making me recalibrate

1/n

brainwane,
@brainwane@social.coop avatar

I was getting on the subway and, you know, trying to obey NYC transit etiquette, giving other people their privacy

I boarded along with a guy and his, I think, teenage child

Kid sat next to me and said to their dad something like "I can't figure this out"

I glanced over, saw their phone, and instantly just BLURTED out "Oh I know what that is"

2/n

brainwane,
@brainwane@social.coop avatar

And then of course backtracked and apologized for eavesdropping

But they wanted to know

I started bumpily - "You know those, those memes people are always sharing online?" like I'm about to start an Andy Rooney impression

"Yeah"

"That's a reference to a meme called loss"

"Lost?"

"No, loss, L-O-S-S dot P-N-G"

Because the image the kid was looking at looked like this

3/n

brainwane,
@brainwane@social.coop avatar

and then I explained the background

we had a perfectly nice conversation and then they got off the train

me having served as a helpful non-player character in their quest to understand what their friends on Discord were saying about, evidently, the Beatles

(ugh, I see from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Loss_(comic) that I remembered the file extension wrong, hope that does not completely derail their efforts to do further research - and I don't know what it says about me that I got only THAT bit wrong)

4/4

brainwane,
@brainwane@social.coop avatar

@xgranade Yeah I think there is no avoiding this

brainwane,
@brainwane@social.coop avatar

@itamarst ha! :)

brainwane,
@brainwane@social.coop avatar

@joshmillard I am so glad to give you some cackles on a Friday

terri, to rust
@terri@social.afront.org avatar

Tell me about your favourite learning resources.

My initial goal is more "understand Rust security" rather than "write things in Rust" but I'm not adverse to learning development. It's just that architecture, design choices, ecosystem and community likely matter more to me than "how to write an if statement."

I've got access to the O'Reilly courses so if any of those are great (or terrible) I'd love to know.

brainwane,
@brainwane@social.coop avatar

@terri I am disappointed that you haven't gotten more recommendations suited to the lens you specified!

I've used Rustlings and liked it but my aims weren't yours. I have soaked up some knowledge of Rust ecosystem and industry dynamics via reading some blogs and chatting with folks like Carol Nichols https://foundation.rust-lang.org/news/attending-cisas-open-source-software-security-summit/ .

I do want to know what you end up using!

brainwane, to random
@brainwane@social.coop avatar

Really happy to share https://pip.pypa.io/en/latest/ux-research-design/ !

Back in 2020, during grant-funded work on the next-generation pip resolver, @sprblm did fascinating user experience research & design work. https://pyfound.blogspot.com/search/label/pip

They wrote several useful documents that took a while to get merged, but now live in pip's documentation! Like:

how to design a survey https://pip.pypa.io/en/latest/ux-research-design/guidance/#designing-surveys

how users think pip should react to dependency conflicts https://pip.pypa.io/en/latest/ux-research-design/research-results/override-conflicting-dependencies/

security practices https://pip.pypa.io/en/latest/ux-research-design/research-results/users-and-security/

brainwane,
@brainwane@social.coop avatar

Turned this thread into a blog post:

The pip work and how you can learn from it

Questions you can answer

Join forces

More resources

https://www.harihareswara.net/posts/2024/model-ux-research-design-docs-for-command-line-open-source/

KentuckyConjurer, to random
@KentuckyConjurer@horrorhub.club avatar

♻️Donate your undamaged eclipse glasses to Astronomers Without Borders so they can be handed out for free in Latin America for the October 2024 eclipse!♻️
🌞Evansville you can drop off glasses to:
The Evansville African American Museum and recieve a free pass! 🌞
Sixth and Zero located at 425 Main St. is also accepting eclipse glasses

Or mail them directly to:
Eclipse Glasses USA, LLC
P.O. Box 50571
Provo, UT 84605
(Deadline August 1st)

brainwane,
@brainwane@social.coop avatar

@KentuckyConjurer Thanks for the info! And I saw further local collection points via:

https://astronomerswithoutborders.org/programs/solar-glasses-distribution

grimalkina, to random
@grimalkina@mastodon.social avatar

I would never, ever, ever bother to try to get into contributing on this stuff in the topics of my expertise. So maybe look inward guys.

https://wikimedia.social/@wikimediafoundation/112122065590727479

brainwane,
@brainwane@social.coop avatar

@grimalkina FYI I didn't forget about this, and finally decided to ask for help https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia_talk:WikiProject_Countering_systemic_bias/Gender_gap_task_force/Media_and_research#c-Sumanah-20240423000200-request_for_recent_research_summary

brainwane, to fantasy
@brainwane@social.coop avatar

Today, again, I reread the very short story my spouse @leonardr wrote https://www.crummy.com/2022/12/16/0 after I asked him to write a sweet story about a robot oven.

https://www.diabolicalplots.com/dp-fiction-94b-when-there-is-sugar-by-leonard-richardson/ “When There is Sugar” has a decommissioned military meet a human baker who misses his son.

The ending always makes me tear up.

More of Leonard's writing: https://www.crummy.com/writing/

brainwane,
@brainwane@social.coop avatar

Today I read a news story and watched a 1-minute video about the new world record for the longest baguette

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-68962680

that gave me an idea for a sequel to Leonard's short story "When There Is Sugar", because both stories involve mobile ovens of kind of the same shape

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