Recent posts

• Stacking Chairs

  I frequently use the phrase “stacking chairs” as a metaphor for all sorts of community volunteering actions. Someone recently asked me to explain what I meant by it, and I thought it would be a good topic to share more broadly as a blog post.

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• PSF and DSF Membership Application Links

  This post contains some easy to reference membership application links that can sometimes be otherwise hard to find.

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• PSF Fellow Nominations Q4 Due Date

  Do you know someone whose work meets the criteria for Python Software Foundation Fellowship Membership? You now have less than three weeks to get their nomination in for Q4 of 2024. More details at https://www.python.org/psf/fellows/, and I will happily help you craft that nomination and get it out the door contact me if you want to chat.

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• My 3D Printer is an Appliance

  I view my 3D printer as an appliance rather than a hobby, and I like it that way. Here's why.

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• Video Store Nostalgia

  I once again find myself nostalgic for video (rental) stores, and I’m trying to figure out what I would actually want from that experience today aside from the nostalgia itself (hard to live up to those expectations and rarely a recipe for a viable business or community space).

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• Conference Organizing Isn't a Trap

  Every now and then, an oft-repeated joke rubs me the wrong way, and I feel the need to play joke police. This post isn’t targeted at any one individual (no, not even you, the reader). I’ve made these jokes before, and I’ve heard them from all sorts of people. Let’s be a little more mindful about how we portray conference organizing.

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• PyVideo

  I am excited to announce that I’ve recently stepped up as the new maintainer for PyVideo. PyVideo is a wonderful resource for the Python community, cataloging videos of conference and meetup talks from around the world for over thirteen years now. As a conference organizer and frequent conference attendee myself, I get a lot of value from PyVideo, and I’m glad to be able to contribute back to it in a larger role.

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• Three and a Half Years of Conference Chats

  In October 2019, I put out a call for conference organizers to join a discussion group.

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• "In person next year?"

  I’ve heard this question a lot this past year with regard to community tech conferences. I think most people who’ve asked me this question expected or hoped for a response of “yes”. My short answer is “it’s not our call to make”. Read below for my longer answer.

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• System76 Lemur Pro Review

  My old Thinkpad X260 had some graphics issues, so it was time for a new laptop. I’ve had my Lemur Pro for a few months now, and I like it so far. Read on for my likes and dislikes.

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• My Homelab

  An overview of my homelab and what software and hardware power it.

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• Sing: Review and Rewrite

  Sing is a fun movie. Here's a small change I'd introduce to make it better.

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• Girl Develop It Columbus and PyOhio 2018

  Sponsoring a conference can be really beneficial to an organization. Nonprofits (especially volunteer-run groups) can rarely justify the cost. We’re trying a little experiment to fix that, and so far, it’s going well.

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• Tips for Conference Sponsors

  With conference season upon us, I want to share some tips for conference sponsors. I’ve gotten some questions about this lately, so I’d like to share some of the approaches I’ve seen over the years.

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• Yes, Run a Conference

  I wrote this in response to a tweet. The tweet was (I’m quite sure) a joke, but I’m responding to it on face value, anyway. I started replying on Twitter, but this grew to be way too long, so it’s posted here instead.

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• On Fighting (Software) Fires

  The world needs emergency responders for software systems.

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• My Flake8 Setup

  A list of Flake8 plugins I use when writing Python.

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• Rethinking requirements.txt

  Thoughts on how we can improve managing Python application dependencies.

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• Getting Started With App Engine

  A few months back, I gave a talk on the good and bad parts of Google App Engine. I’ve meant to open source the supporting materials for a while now, and I finally got around to it. You can find a very bare bones application on my github page. Feel free to contact me with any questions.

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• Redundant Billing Information Storage at Fancy Hands

  Check out my post over at the Fancy Hands blog about how we get around payment provider outages.

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