Furby this evening has both said ‘Work that core’ and something about wanting a protein shake. I must have been talking a bit too loudly about the 30 day abs challenge around it.
Burping, Farting Furbys
So a month and a half ago, I proudly announced that I’d been accepted as a speaker to OSCON, on the strength of the a topic called ‘Arduino + Furby Broken Build Notification – Oh, You’ll Want to Fix It Quick’. The pit-stop ahead of OSCON is Next Century’s annual Women In Computing Day (link is for news of 2013 event… 2014 event is June 8), where Furbys will headline the Robotics talk area.
So what appeals to young ladies, roughly in the area of 8-12? Why burps and farts, of course! (Research acquired through both my own daughters who are suspect through parental influence, and through their friends, and through work with young ladies in our church over the years.) Grand accomplishment of the afternoon: an Android app that allows a user to push a button and make a Furby fart _and_ burp on command. I think Women in Computing will be a grand success.
Quantified Self (health and fitness-wise, anyway)
I’m something of a gym buff. 3-4 times a week, sometimes more, you’ll find me at the gym at the crack of dawn. For a while, that included working out with a personal trainer once a week. To what end? Welp, the weight I could lift went up, but so did mine, and my clothing size stayed the same. I kept the same trouble areas, but had great muscles in my back and arms.
After more than a year of this, I figured I was missing something key. My friend Kim had recently lost more than 20 pounds, and her fitness exhertion, while growing, was nowhere near what I was putting myself through. But, she was getting results and I wasn’t.
Enter actually tracking what I eat. I’d generally tried to eat healthy, but never formally tracked. For one, food diaries seemed like a pain – beyond keeping track of what I ate, I’d then need to figure out its calorie counts. Beyond my level of dedication, until Kim mentioned MyFitnessPal.
It lets me scan food barcodes, enter recipe ingredients, keep track of recent foods…. So far, only lost 3 pounds (and may be gaining it back, given a recent backslide to Rollos and beer), but if I can keep with it, looks useful.
Rugby team update
This Saturday, my rugby team, Severn River Rugby, heads to the Nationals quarter and semifinals. This is the 2nd time I’m headed to the premiere contest for my division, and the third time in four years for my team overall. Last year, we lost in the final game, bringing home the silver medal. We don’t like second.
The games this weekend are in Pittsburgh, so we’ve been coordinating car pools and hotels. If we win both games, we’ll be headed to Wisconsin for the final game, needing air tickets, hotels, and car rentals. Although software wonks make a reasonable living, most of my team fits more in the student / waitress / otherwise breaking into their career category. Can’t win without us all there – can you help by contributing to our IndieGogo campaign? Every bit helps! We’ve also worked a stand at the Ravens stadium, are holding guest bar tending nights in Annapolis (Dock Street, May 14th, and likely Stan & Joe’s the following week), and are selling T-shirts to our fans. Orioles raffle coming, too!
We are a 501(3)(c). We’re also recruiting team members to join us for the summer sevens and fall seasons – come play with a winning team who knows to have fun! Watch the contribution box over to the right, or head directly to our IndieGogo campaign. Great perks, befitting a rugby team and its fans!
Tattoo discounts: Not seen before conference amenity
I’ll be in Tampa next week for a conference. The conference has arranged free streetcar rides and discounts at local vendors – much appreciated. A tattoo parlor is on the list. I’m traveling with my CTO and CEO. Hmmm… Is it less unprofessional to sneak off to get a tattoo if you convince your bosses to get them, too?
TED in 3 minutes talk: how to tie your shoe
Avoiding tax preparation, figured I could spare 3 minutes for the next TED talk in the TED in 3 minutes playlist. The ‘How to tie your shoes’ talk is apparently the first 3 minute session TED had done – noted. I admire the bravery of a guy who opted to show an audience of luminaries and thought leaders.. how to tie their shoes. In fact, showed them how they’d been doing it wrong, and then showed them how to do it right. Gives me hope that I, too, can give a decent speech on an inane topic. But otherwise, skip it.
OSCON, here I come!
In 2010, I went to OSCON. GREAT conference, very few women. For the GREAT, I wanted to go back. To help grow the set of women speakers, I needed to go back.
In 2011, I proposed a topic: W3C widgets and OpenAjax. (Don’t look them up..) Technical topic, in which I had great interest at the time, and which showed promise for a R&D effort. No dice.
In 2012, I proposed a topic: OWF, GOSS(?), FOSS?!.. The idea was to go to the biggest open-source conference, talking about a forthcoming open-source project out of one of the country’s less open government agencies. Not accepted.
In 2013, I decided to get a bit smarter. 3 proposals went in to better my odds. One on the now open-source OWF and how it got there (hey, who doesn’t want the in’s on what’s going on in a previously government-internal project?), one giving a tutorial on OWF itself, and one on how we were intending to extend the use of or patterns of use of OSGi to provide dynamic client modules. All good, in-depth geek topics. Not accepted. Geek in-depth just wasn’t getting me in.
By this point, I was more than a bit discouraged. However, discouragement != giving up. The end goals were still of value – I just needed to figure out how to be more viable as a presenter.
Cut to the chase: 2014, I _finally_ got the success. Decided to look at my topics from the catch-your-eye perspective. One topic compared open source communities to sharks – both need to keep moving to survive. Promised many Jaws and Nemo references. Technical topic, audience appealing-spin. One topic made folks aware of government’s efforts in the open-source world, with the intent of encouraging participation. Drier topic, but hits OSCON’s sweet spots. Last topic, and of course the ringer that got accepted, was the crazy what the heck idea – daughter’s Furby is annoying, where would annoying be useful – hey, hooking it up to a build system turns annoying bad into annoying good. Meaning, wanting to fix something quick to shut off the thing is a great use of an otherwise inane annoyance. Not only was the topic, “Arduino + Furby Broken Build Notification – Oh, You’ll Want to Fix it Quick!” accepted, it’s scheduled for the Main Stage (“There are some talks that are just too interesting to limit the audience. Join us in the Main Stage for a collection of jaw dropping talks across all topics”). That it’s scheduled as the last session of the full conference is both an honor (wow, closing out the conference) and a humbling note – folks start petering out by the last day…
Takeaway: marketing appeal matters.
Now to write a kick-tail presentation. By the way, we’ll preflight Furby + software with my company’s Women In Computing Day in June. The kids (young women from 9-14) won’t be seeing a Furby hooked up to a Jenkins server, but we’ll make use of Furby and its audio protocol to help show them robotics in action…
TED in 3 minutes Talk: 8 secrets of success
Following up on my last post, figured I’d try talk #2, 8 secrets of success. My secret: when 8 secrets can be boiled into 3 minutes, the biggest secret is that you’ve got a great schmoozer on your hands. Skip it in terms of the material itself, though I did like his slide deck and consistent use of the spiky hair guy. That was a good use of presentation technique – keep the audience interested mostly by talking fast and using a visual cue in new ways on each slide.
TED in 3 minutes talk: try something new for 30 days
My Twitter feed includes TED talk announcements. The one that caught my eye this afternoon was ‘9 thought-provoking talks in four minutes or less‘. Whatever the topic, I appreciate someone working to express something well in a short period of time – thought it was worth a few minutes to hear a talk or two.
The first talk in my stream was Matt Cutts ‘Try something new for 30 days‘ The idea is that anyone can try something out for 30 days : it’s long enough to let you form a habit, and not so long that it’s too overwhelming to begin or make it through. It’s also long enough to actually let you achieve something.
I think I’ve read the idea in other magazines and such before, and can’t state whether Matt is its originator or just a good person at expressing it. That said, he did get me thinking – what are good 30 day goals for me?
Quick run-down of ideas:
– read the Bible every day (that oughta already have stuck, but I fall off the wagon and have to get myself back on)
– some sort of fitness activity : squats, pushups, … These aren’t new, but I could get to a new level. Beats aiming at new levels on Temple Run 2
– a software activity: code in a particular language every day for, well, 30 days.
– a more specific software goal: build a mobile game. Doesn’t have to be great – just a game. Frankly, copy an idea, so the idea itself isn’t the blocker. Since the goal isn’t to make money/copyright, just try to get a simple game working.
– unicycle… As in, I can’t now, but I want to. I have two unicycles – warm them up.
– garden. An odd thirty day goal, perhaps, but maybe week 1 is planning, week 2 is seeding/planting, and by week 3 I’m weeding/watering? [Highly optimistic timeline, but I’d love to get in a gardening habit that doesn’t die out in weed-choked, low yield apathy.]
… more inspiration / ideas to come. Putting it out there here helps me catch the idea and inspiration, and then see it again later and do a ‘hey, I wanted to do this’ thing that’ll nudge me forward.
Feeling a bit inspired now, and only did 1 of the “9 thought-provoking talks.
Things I think are important
Just saw an image of a woman giving CPR to an infant, and it reminded me of a few things I need to act upon.
Learning CPR is important – being ready for the emergency, for the opportunity to save a life – that’s important. I was trained in college, when I was a rugby coach. But I haven’t renewed in a long time. Time to find a class…
Giving blood is important. My body produces blood, through no talent of mine. Even on my worst day, in terms of impact to the world, I can give blood and help tip the balance for someone’s life. Time to donate again, particularly before I get my next tattoo (tattoos mean you can’t give again for a year – the ink can be in your bloodstream, which could cause an allergic reaction in others…). Which means, time to take more iron – to not repeat the last ill-fated donation. If I’m going to get my finger pricked, I’m darn sight gonna give some blood this time.
Sharing my faith, particularly with my kids, is important. In fact, growing in my faith, so that it’s more evident as being meaningful, is even more important. My oldest daughter has been asked by our church to consider confirmation classes, and I think she’s likely to side-step this year… She can claim she’s shy (true), that it’s a lot of work (true, too)… I count that as a loss, but I’d rather have her do so when _she’s_ ready to investigate than when I wish she were ready. However, our pastor sent ahead the confirmation “to-do” list. I want to share the list with her, and then let her hold me accountable for working through the list myself… It may make an impression on her, it may not, but I certainly think that the things they ask teenagers to learn and practice are ones that would be valuable for me, as well.