April 2023

"I have killed my affection for Harry Potter. I have buried it. I am refusing to allow this series space in my life. Trans people are worth more than Rowling is. They are worth more than Rowling’s world. They are worth opening and suturing a wound, and moving past a children’s story. Real people are harmed by Rowling’s rhetoric, and giving her stories more space in our cultural consciousness is harmful to one of the most marginalized groups of people in the world."

https://gizmodo.com/harry-potter-rowling-terf-tv-series-hbo-max-nostalgia-1850363444

I lead our parents employee resource group at Gusto and we had our monthly chat. I've been feeling a little down since we became empty nesters so in today's meeting, I asked everyone to share some joy about their kids: any little success, cute thing they've done recently, parenting win, anything.

IT WAS SO GREAT.

Parenting is hard. We focus on the disasters and our failings and the latest thing to be solved; but it's worth stepping back and celebrating the amazing humans we're raising.

In the interest of being the change:

We're starting up SF Ruby meetups again.

To do that we need your help: we need to find venues, sponsors, speakers, and people interested in attending.

I have some leads on all of the above, but if you have folks you know I'd love to chat with them.

Boosts for reach are appreciated, as well as any advice on how to make this happen.

with all the Flash movie news it's time for a reminder:

don't misgender someone just because they're a bad person or when you disagree with them

that shows acceptance of ALL trans people is conditional on YOUR approval, and that's hot trash

knock it off

#TransRightsAreHumanRights

My sinuses have been colonized. I am filing a petition with the UN for relief.

Poor FOX is all tuckered out.

one of the best tweets I ever read was something to the effect of "slavery isn't Black history, it's white history"

Screw TCP, UDP, and ICMP I use ICP, Insane Clown Protocol

The ficlets and ficly archives are both in the training set as well, and rank higher than my blog (which makes sense... way better content).

I'm ... something ... ummm ... "glad" ... I made the cut? Maybe? Is your blog in there too? https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/interactive/2023/ai-chatbot-learning/

Please don't clog up the Transgender Concerns Form with so many spurious reports that it becomes unusable, and the Missouri government gets Big Mad. Because that would be wrong. Here's a link to the form so you'll know exactly where not to do that: https://ago.mo.gov/file-a-complaint/transgender-center-concerns

Helping out a new team at work and realized I have a whole onboarding thing:

1. Look for READMEs. Fix typos or confusing things, submit PR. Yay, I helped!
2. Pair with anyone who is willing on anything they are working on.
3. Ask "dumb" questions to get people to collaborate.
4. Join in an adventure - go code spelunking and try to fix an open bug ticket. Document the adventure publicly and ask people to join you.

By the end of the first week, I'm a "real" member of the team!

Someone said I have good energy today. Good. I’m faking it as hard as I can right now.

Perry Mason is just the right amount of soapy, and has a cast that’s pretty much perfect. I love it.

Calling out toxic people in a community is something communities need, and often need more of. Always. No matter how small or big a community is.

It often matters less what a person says, than how they say it. Someone can be the smartest and most influential programmer in the world, but if they’re a toxic jerk their toxicity will eventually rub off. People like that should never be welcomed.

“Why were you late to today's meeting, Kevin?”
"I had chicken in the oven that refused to get to temp, so I had to stand there and stare disapprovingly at it until it got its act together.”

the unfortunate fact of the matter for transphobes and other assorted fascists is that being trans kicks ass severely

I’ve been sick since mid-February. I have an appointment (the soonest I could get) with an ENT in a week. I feel like I might rip my sinuses out between now and then.

Or, I might rage quit Savannah and move to the moon.

I'm helping out a new team at work and I love onboarding to new code and fixing READMEs. It feels so warm and cozy.

Crawling through old AV Club Undercover videos. There are some GREAT covers in here: https://www.covermesongs.com/2021/07/the-a-v-undercover-archives-are-back-for-now.html

Read this lovely piece by @timbray this morning and it got me thinking: the most effective systems are the ones that don't feel like systems at all. They get the desired result by adding just enough friction to what people already do to guide them to the desired result.

https://www.tbray.org/ongoing/When/202x/2023/04/15/Working-Well

Duuuude. 😡

The way you have a "great place" with "valuable conversations" is to BAN racists and bigots.

You can't reason with trolls. You can't ignore trolls. You have to **remove them from your platform**, often and always. Again, the stuff is not easy, but it's also not that complicated in the most obvious cases like this. Homophobe? Ban. Transphobe? Ban. Misogynist? Ban. Nazi? Ban.

I kind of want to do a bunch of side projects, but… I really really don’t want to spend any more time on the computer.

I love programming, but I also love NOT doing computer things.

"Why be openly trans if you pass well enough that people can't tell?"

Because there's nothing wrong with being trans. Being seen is a way of fighting against the bigots who don't want us to be seen or heard.

Because others like me see that they aren't alone.

Because I lost so much time due to a false image of what trans was. Scared and confused by media portrayals, stuck thinking that I'd just be 'an ugly man in a dress'

I needed to see and hear real trans people to see myself.

It’s definitely time to shut down my brain and watch… COCAINE BEAR.

I wrote another thing about work... this time about the 3 options you have when confronted with a change: https://lawver.net/2023/04/the-3-options/

Introducing people who have to write bullshit that nobody reads, to the magic bullshit generator is amazing.
#ai

Sometimes, my job is to be an organizational laxative. It's a whole lot harder than just writing code, which is weird. We spend so much of our careers becoming code monsters when it turns out the problems are almost always people.

Hi. It's Wednesday and today's Wordle is complete horseshit.

Seriously though, if you're going to BSides SF on April 22-23, I have two talks I gently suggest you add to your schedule:

No Adversaries: Getting Users on Your Side for Tough Transformations, linked above, in theater 15 at 11:05 am on Saturday, April 22
and
New Apps, Good Snacks: Effective Threat Modeling for New Territory
(https://bsidessf2023.sched.com/event/1Hzuu/new-apps-good-snacks-effective-threat-modeling-for-new-territory) in theater 15 at 2:30 pm on Saturday, April 22

I'm going to have stickers again too :) They're sparkly and cute.

I spent two of the last three weeks in the office and it was wild. I've worked from home a decade and love it. Working in an office requires so much extra time, effort and cost (commuting, meals, social interaction, infrastructure and the people to support it) for benefits that I'm not sure we couldn't get other ways (serendipitous meetings and socialization/bond building) if we tried.

So, thanks for all the office snacks and great cold brew, but I'm glad I'm going home.

If you want to level up to a more senior level, don't think that only parts of the app/tech stack at your company are "your domain". The more senior you get, everything becomes your problem. Taking responsibility for something outside your lane can show you're ready.

Enhance. Enhance. Enhance.

The Spider-Verse says: #ProtectTransKids 🏳️‍⚧️

https://youtu.be/shW9i6k8cB0

#SpiderVerse #SpiderManAcrossTheSpiderVerse

When you try to order blank stickers but the sticker website’s form screws you.

Tired: Catching up with email after vacation.
Wired: Catching up with Slack after vacation (which is way worse).

The metal is growing on me. Not saying it’s going into the rotation, but I get the appeal.

The heavy metal brewery around the corner from where I’m staying has THE BEST PIZZA. Their beer is good too… so, here I am, listening to metal and waiting on a pizza.

In Germany, teaching the Holocaust is mandatory.

It includes visits to concentration camp, museums, etc. They don't shy away from their own ugly history. Yet the kids aren't damaged; they're strengthened, matured, humbled. The U.S. needs to do same with slavery.

Not that complicated.

#history #books #education #politics #democrats

just a reminder: if you want to jump on this trilogy, the first book, VICTORIES GREATER THAN DEATH, is still just $2.99 in all the ebook formats! I think today is the last day of this sale, so better get on it...

A WHOLE GALAXY FOR THREE BUCKS Y'ALL.

Breaking: ChatGPT BANNED in Florida