glyph

glyph, 3 days ago

@treyhunner Does this hypothetical attendee want to attend a sprint for an existing project or do they want to attract sprinters for their own project?

glyph, 3 days ago

@treyhunner In that case preparation is relatively easy, and definitely won’t take a year ;-).

Requirements:

• Pick a project
• Read its contributor documentation
• Make a fork of the repository and have the code checked out and on your laptop, and all dependencies installed before you are on conference wifi.

Nice-To-Haves:

• Try to land a PR in advance, no matter how tiny, to get to know the workflow.
• Introduce yourself on the project forum/discord/mailing list, and say you’re coming

glyph, 3 days ago

@treyhunner also really worth noting: “read the contributor documentation” means “have a look at it” not “memorize it chapter and verse and don’t bother showing up unless you know it all”. One very useful piece of feedback at sprints is actually “your contributor documentation sucks, I couldn’t figure out how to submit a PR that would be accepted”. Projects love to get feedback like this, so if you’re lost, that’s a very good thing to bring with you to the sprints!

glyph, 3 days ago

@mkennedy I believe it “sold out” at 2700, so we didn’t completely max out the venue. I’m not an organizer, but the limits have more to do with precommitments from the conference than physical size; i.e. we project we can get 2300 in the door for sure, so we won’t buy food or food-service-worker-time for more than 2700. Stuff like that.

Making these numbers too big (as they have been at a few points in pycon’s past) can be financially ruinous to the PSF so it’s always a little conservative.

glyph, 3 days ago

@mkennedy at one point one of the organizers explained to me just the logistics of getting coffee for the sprints and I felt like my soul left my body for the astral plane

glyph, 3 days ago

@mkennedy on a macro level though the game is a sort of “price is right” where the stakes are the financial future of the programming language. before you get sponsors, you sign in blood that you will get X people into hotels and Y people into the venue, and if you guess Y too low the sponsors get mad and don’t come back because you’re not getting them sufficient brand equity, and if you guess X too high the hotels and convention center clean out the foundation’s bank account

glyph, 3 days ago

@mkennedy I think we could have done 3.5k easy but there’s no way I’m signing my name to that, and therefore cannot blame the organizers even a little bit for being reserved in the estimations of our growth

glyph, 3 days ago

@mkennedy oh that’s the problem though: you promise that number to hotels, but by the time the conference is rolling around, they’ve already sold the other capacity, you can’t increase the cap much. You want to “open it for more” but there’s already a physics convention and a gynastics competition that the conference center & hotels sold during the same dates

glyph, 3 days ago

@mkennedy also, don’t quote me on this one, but I’m pretty sure that the economics of it are that you lose money on each attendee, so as you increase attendance you then need to go back to your sponsors for increased commitments, which is also itself an awkward conversation.

glyph, 3 days ago

@mkennedy you might get away with “no hotel discounts” but the nightmare of “you can only buy the kind of badge that doesn’t get you the conference-provided lunch” is intractable. I went to one conference that tried this and it was … well let’s say “logistically difficult”

glyph, 3 days ago

@mkennedy @jacob COVID was obviously an absolute knockout blow to event organizing, but the ongoing influence of high interest rates shouldn’t be underestimated either. Much as I think that we could do better, I am thrilled to have broken through 2500 in 2024, it’s huge progress in rebuilding.

glyph, 3 days ago

@mkennedy @jacob (Just for any readers who may not be familiar: high interest rates = money is expensive for corporations & startups = promotional budgets are slashed = much harder to raise money for “optional” things like conference sponsorships)

glyph, 3 days ago

@Migueldeicaza absolute peak brain-rot here, and I love it. I hate that I love it but I do love it

glyph, 3 days ago

@brainwane @chrisjrn it’s a classic; source: https://x.com/leyawn/status/877893376884035584?lang=en

glyph, 3 days ago

@mcc there are a bunch of boring technical reasons that this is super unlikely, but it is definitely bothering me that you have read them for filth in terms of the general problem-solving approach. I hate that if they could do this they probably would. (And, you know, not super high confidence from me either. I’m not exactly a SEP expert; maybe they can, and they will.)

glyph, 3 days ago

@hynek @chrisjrn in the US we have a tradition not just of itemization, but of meticulously documented socially-condoned insurance fraud, where every medical provider says that a 5-minute visit costs thirty thousand dollars, but because you paid cash and because they are very nice they are giving you a 99.8% discount

glyph, 3 days ago

@offby1 Good luck on a fourth negative. If it’s just sniffles, that many negatives is a pretty good indication you’re in the clear. Thank you for testing repeatedly to help keep the community safe, I know those tests aren’t cheap any more :-.

glyph, 3 days ago

@Ooze @offby1 I have had COVID exactly once. I contracted it from my kid, who picked it up while both masked and outdoors.

Other people living riskier lifestyles have not gotten infected. COVID infection is an unfortunate fact of human biology, not a moral failing.

I think masking is a good idea and I do it frequently. But there is no perfect prophylaxis, and the idea that anyone who shares a meal with friends is “killing people” is both wrong and counterproductive.

glyph, 3 days ago

@Ooze @offby1 Wearing a mask is a good idea, sure. But masks are not clinically effective unless they are regularly fit tested and you do seal checks. Do you do a hospital-grade fit test every time you leave your house? Would you characterize someone who did not do this every day as “killing people”? https://www.ahrq.gov/sites/default/files/wysiwyg/nursing-home/materials/respirator-fit-testing.pdf

glyph, 3 days ago

@tylerdave really sorry to hear this hit you. Thank you for sharing your results, and I hope you recover quickly.

glyph, 3 days ago

@Ooze @offby1 well sure, but masking in large crowds is better than never masking. you’re the one who set the terms in absolutes. why is going out on the town in a non-fitted surgical mask and getting unlucky and giving someone COVID a reasonable risk mitigation strategy, but wearing a good N95 in high-risk crowded environments but unmasking in small groups to eat “killing people”?

glyph, 3 days ago

@Ooze @offby1 oh, so you’re using masks from a vendor with a history of non-compliance with safety regulations, that does not even meet its advertised particle filtration efficacy? I guess you don’t care about other people https://www.tga.gov.au/resources/facemask-respirator-tests/detmold-medical-d95-p2-respirator-masks-detmold-medical-pty-ltd-1

glyph, 3 days ago

@Ooze @offby1 I should be clear here, I’m being sarcastic. I think your personal masking practices are high quality (although seriously, maybe find another vendor) and trusting a medical supply company is certainly reasonable. But so is acknowledging that “eating with other people” is like a universal cultural practice that is older civilization and cannot be done with a mask on.