Positively Glorious!

The line-up for Ignite Portland #5 is in, and yours truly is on the freight train headed straight for Public Humiliation, USA. I think this must be some kind of payback or revenge for laughing so hard when Cami Kaos went on about “her bluff being called.” There I was, sitting with A.J. and Jon laughing it up. “Ha!” I said, “She sent an idea as a joke and totally got called on it!”

Now here I am with waves of nausea spreading over me. Why? Because payback’s a bitch.

The thing is, I was laughing at Cami, and The Goddess¹ was laughing at me. It’s a subtle irony, really.  The simple way to look at it would be to assume that I was laughing about Cami having her bluff called, and then I got my bluff called. But that’s not really the joke.

You see, the greatest thing about Cami’s talk is that she broke the fourth wall. She was the speaker, but never spoke, instead she stood up on stage and let us in on a joke. “I was only bluffing,” she said, “but since I’m here, I might as well tell you how to bluff too, huh?”

Everyone coming after Cami will actually have to have something to talk about.

It’s a wonderful tactic, and tt’s really great the first time, but anyone else doing it is just copying. Everyone coming after Cami will actually have to have something to talk about. And that  sucks for us. We can’t say “Heh, wasn’t I stupid to submit a talk on <whatever stupid subject I submitted a talk on>.” We can’t talk about having nothing to talk about, because Cami’s already talked about nothing better than any of us will (and with pictures of underwear too!)

Of course, I didn’t actually realize any of this back on November 13th. At the time, I was in the bathtub, as Josh Bancroft noted:

We received a record 86 talk idea submissions for Ignite Portland 5 (we usually get around 50). There was a definitely “bathtub curve” to when they came in – lots were submitted right after Ignite Portland 4, when lots of people surely thought “I should do a talk about *subject*.”

At the time I was still in awe, and just a bit tipsy from lots of beer. At the time I was smitten over talks that, as far as my tiny male brain could surmise, mostly focused on women’s shoes and panties (and I think I saw some whiskey there at one point.) Sure, I read the Ignite Portland blog after I sobered up, so I know there were interesting and intelligent talks, but I just don’t remember those ones.

I was intoxicated by coolness, so I ran home, make up a joke, and hit “submit.”

Of course, by the morning I had sobered up and my head had cleared, but the damage had been done. Now I’m screwed. Now the subtle humor of Her Great And All Powerful Jokiness comes to light, because I can’t actually get up there and talk about how I was mezmorized by the overall energy that is Ignite Portland. I can’t stand and tell everyone that it wasn’t my fault!

There was actually a woman talking to me wearing both a TARDIS key and a Green Lantern Power Ring!! Jesus, talk about SWOON!

Seriously people, is there a single geek in the entire world who could possibly have been expected to keep a sane head under these conditions?

Well, I don’t. But that doesn’t matter, because the damage is done. I’m in the line-up, and this post is as close as I’ll be able to come to that fourth wall. No jokes for me. I actually have to have something to talk about.

Let’s hope I can pull this off.

1. God, Allah, All-Father, Obama, or whatever you worship [↩]

Those of us without health insurance, or whom are self-employed and need to pay gobs of money for it, know that every little bit helps. The Software Association of Oregon has decided to be that help. It looks like they have instituted a group health benefits package that is available to any member of the SAO. This includes Gorge Technology Alliance (GTA) members, since the SAO sponsors the GTA.

Details went out earlier today on an email burst, which many people may already have seen. Those who haven’t should definitely head over to their special benefits page which has details. There, they note on their site that:

We are pleased to offer Regence BlueCross BlueShield of Oregon Health, Vision, Alternative Care, Dental, Life, Disability, and Critical Illness Insurance Plans. In addition, All SAO enrolled members will have access to the popular LifeBalance recreational and cultural discount program.

The scoop from the lovely and talented Jessica (who is the GTA staff person now) is that the SAO is beginning the program officially in early March, but that they would like to get as many members signed up for health care as they can, as soon as possible.

This is great news for self-employed techies, small tech-business owners, and even larger companies, because it brings down health coverage costs for everyone. Once again, the Software Association of Oregon shows the tech world the meaning of awesome. If you are self-employed in a tech industry, head over to read about this on the SAO Benefits Information Page.

Bill Jackson has done it again. Mere days after he spurs us for a re-invigorated Oregon Blogs effort, he has the test site up and running. He posted the details on the Oregon Blogs Weblog:

Please go ahead and create yourself an account, add plenty of (appropriate) feeds, file issues for anything that is broken or otherwise obviously wrong, and chat us up on the mailing list with ideas for improvement! Please don’t be shy, we need as many people beating on this thing and providing feedback as we can get!

Read the full details at: Test site fixed! | Oregon Blogs. Then run, don’t walk to the Oregon Blogs Test Server and play around.

And don’t forget to add your blog!

Thanks again, Bill!

Ahh, the power of blogging. It’s one of the things that makes the internet great. Anyone can sit in the comfort of their own 40-hour/week job and detail how they are the only person who truly understands the large-scale economic trends that drive our global financial markets. Anyone can become an analyst of complex political interactions… or even corporate strategies.

I think this tendency is very important to the blogosphere, because without the ability to become an arm chair CEO, people might begin to take us too seriously. There are always blogs telling us why Facebook should buy Twitter, or why Facebook should by Xobni, or why Twitter needs to support Laconica. Most of these suggestions are at best an interesting idea, at worst they are complete non-sense.

The suggestion that I’m making, however, is spot on the mark. Why? Because, my friend I know what I’m talking about.¹

What I am talking about is this: In the new landscape of the web, Cuil and Iterasi go together like bacon and, well, anything. Continue Reading »

1. Okay, before we blow anyone’s top, feel free to scan ahead to the  disclaimer. I’m not starting with that because I want to get right to the bacon. [↩]

Woohoo! WordPressµ beta is released by Donncha O Caoimh mere minutes ago! This is a moment much anticipated in the Blog Server world, because WordPress 2.7 is a rockin great release, and we’re all anxious to get it up and running. It looks like we can too, it’s pretty stable:

This is quite a stable release and has been tested by many but it’s not the final 2.7 release so there are probably bugs we haven’t found yet. Don’t put it into production just yet, but if you’re working on a new site, you’re better off using this rather than 2.6.5 as the final WordPress MU 2.7 will be along soon.

Wordpressµ is the software behind the upcoming redivivablogs.com site and my own Blog The Gorge effort. I’m excited to download it, look for bugs, submit tickets, and even fix issues if I can.

Head over to read the full post at his site: Holy Shmoly!.

Thanks Donncha!

I’m thinking of starting a new category, or maybe even a new blog, with syndication and stories on this man. He’s turning our world right-side up again. I love that the Obama Administration hit the ground running, and that they’re running with such a strong, positive message.

For nearly a decade, Guantánamo has been proof that America is willing to do one thing and say another. We will bring down governments who use torture, and we will torture anyone we need to do bring them down.

President Obama just said “no.”

…our ideals give us the strength and moral high ground… We intend to win this fight, we are going to win it on our own terms… We believe we can abide by a rule that says we don’t torture, but we can effectively obtain the intelligence we need

Thank you, Mr. President.

via Obama Issues Directive to Shut Down Guantánamo – NYTimes.com.

I’ve finally gotten around to upgrading  my WordPress installation to 2.7. I’ve been meaning to do it for a while, but kept finding other things to do first- write posts, work on RedivivaBlogs, that sort of thing.

Then I read this post by Lorelle on WordPress hacks, worms and bugs and, as was his intention I’m sure, I got the wits scared out of me.

So, I upgraded immediately. Unfortunately, I was using about 38 different plugins and mucho custom code in my installation, so it’ll take a while before things are completely back to where they were. Of course, I’ll likely change a few things as I re-activate some of these plugins too.

The overall upgrade was completely painless- anything that breaks from this point on is completely my fault.

So, seconds after I write a post complaining about Twitter (which I use obsessively, so am a hypocrite anyway), Jon Karon responds with a comment putting me in my place. That’s Jon, always a step ahead.

He proved that minutes ago with a blog post announcing a new Twitterbot that gives you the scheduled arrival of the next TriMet vehicle you may be awaiting:

But how many times have you walked a bit slowly to your stop and missed a bus by 10 seconds, or been standing at a max station for 15 minutes and find yourself damning the cold, the wind, or the rain? I find I’ve done it more often than I’d like to admit…

So in the spirit of saving you the embarrassment of running the last 10 paces for the bus and keeping all y’alls fingers, toes, and other parts thawed I humbly submit the unofficial, beta TriMet twitter tracker service, powered by Pincushion

Now, there’s a part of me that almost wants to believe he did this just to say “Quit your complaining and admit how useful Twitter is.” But I know that’s not why he did it. It didn’t have anything to do with the ego that is me.

He did it because he’s just that damn cool.

Read NetJunky Research » Waitin’ on the bus, federation-style, and learn how you can use Twitter to spend a few more minutes in the warmth of the coffee shop before casually walking out just in time to stroll onto the Max.

That’s pretty cool stuff, Jon.

On Tuesday, Greg Pass wrote an article on the Twitter Blog called “Building on Open Source” where he states that:

When we plan new engineering projects at Twitter, we measure our requirements against the capabilities of open source offerings, and prefer to use open source whenever it makes sense. By this approach, much of Twitter is now built on open source software.

The article goes on to describe two open source spinoffs, Kestrel and Cache-Money, that Twitter has developed and given to the open source community. While the article lauds Twitter’s commitment to Open Source as if they are constantly thinking of ways to help the community, I find the suggesting at least a bit hypocritical, if not downright disingenuous. Continue Reading »

I mean do you love it this much?

How about this much?

Well, if you love blogging this much, then you’re probably interested in starting a blog. If you have one then you’d probaly start another blog if you thought it could help end bloglessness, right?¹

Well, if that’s you, read on! Continue Reading »

1. uh, the Columbia River Gorge End Bloglessness Campaign is not associated with BeerAndBlogs, the BeerAndBlogs End Bloglessness campaign, or any efforts to end bloglessness in Portland or any of its subsidiary towns, cities and municipalities [↩]