kaberett: Trans symbol with Swiss Army knife tools at other positions around the central circle. (Default)

I am very amused at how well having set myself up with a set of columns where once a day I write down the number of unread e-mails in each of five accounts and a bonus one for my number of browser tabs... is actually working for getting those numbers to come down. Very slowly, but it is working.

(I was also amused to discover that I am not the only one of us who independently decided to do this. It is lovely to get to Know This Sort Of Thing About Your Lives Again by dint of having declared for myself Amnesty on reading list and just started over with the new Gregorian year. Though this year, as last, I am laughing at myself a little for having picked the time of year when everyone is most talkative to attempt to coax myself back into this as a habit...)

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May. 11th, 2019 11:31 pm
kaberett: Yellow gingko leaf against teal background (gingko)
  1. I have handled so. many. support. requests. So many. (So many.)
  2. [personal profile] alexwlchan has written A Bunch of bugfixes and I am v proud!
  3. [personal profile] momijizukamori has tentatively Fixed a problem that was making the support board Very Unhappy and I am approximately 95% pathetic gratitude by volume.
  4. I am increasingly convinced that the way to make scones Work is to tip out the bit that has actually stuck together, mix More Liquid into the remaining, and only then try combining the lot of them. (The previous batch I took this approach to did work; today's batch was... less successful, because I forgot to and didn't.)
  5. A is a sweetheart and got me a Larger Bucket for proving my bread in. That I... should probably actually use, whoops.
  6. Today I have arranged loaning one acquaintance a car battery charger, and acting as a friend's proxy for the EU elections. Hurrah for communities and interconnectedness.
  7. Tomorrow I will (among other activities) be seeing my mother, at which point I will be picking up A Wide Variety Of Artefacts from the Mouldering Ancestral Pile (that she ended up driving back up-country for me after the most recent round of house clearance, because there was no way I could carry even a significant minority of it back on public transport). I am not sure A is quite emotionally prepared for this reality, but there we go; I look forward to providing you all with an inventory.
  8. Two more things from the knife skills course: we were taught how to make garlic paste, which I utterly failed to understand in the moment but which Adam has subsequently patiently explained to me at home and Now I Can Do It; we also had explained to us A Trick for Mangos, being that if you roll them gently from side to side they always end up resting in the same place -- with the seed parallel to the horizontal. I am excited by all these things.
  9. I skipped out on therapy on Thursday by dint of my therapist having forgotten the session and me not reminding them (in the way I ordinarily would) because I Didn't Want To; rather to my surprise I received an e-mail later that evening, in which they pointed out that they didn't have me down for a session and inquired as to how I was doing. I've just e-mailed back to request an appointment net week, and even -- having written up my notes from the previous session -- I'm cautiously looking forward to it.
  10. Lots else to look forward to next week, as well: a trip to Kew, a birthday dinner, some time at the plot. Maybe planting my tomatoes on, even. I'm currently feeling relatively relaxed and relatively optimistic and relatively cheerful; long may it continue. (And if it doesn't then, well, that too shall pass.)
kaberett: A sleeping koalasheep (Avatar: the Last Airbender), with the dreamwidth logo above. (dreamkoalasheep)
Please see my announcement post over in [site community profile] dw_dev. tl;dr: show up from late afternoon Friday, expect to be kicked out Sunday by 11ish, the spare bed's been spoken for but the rest of the crash space is still available. :)
kaberett: A sleeping koalasheep (Avatar: the Last Airbender), with the dreamwidth logo above. (dreamkoalasheep)
ten whole years of open beta, and ten whole years of this account. I have learned a lot and worried a lot and grown a lot here, and I have used the platform as a life raft, and I'm very grateful for my community. <3
kaberett: Trans symbol with Swiss Army knife tools at other positions around the central circle. (Default)
HELLO FOLK AS U KNOW I am about to move house. I am sincerely hopeful that we will manage a housewarming in early November, and we should definitely be in a position to manage Dreamwidth docs/hack/etcathon come early December, so If That Works For You maybe pencil it in and let me know if you're thinking of coming?

(Please also let me know if you can do the 24th-26th November, the weekend before, and especially if you can do one but not both - there is some flexibility here but I'm needing to be a bit careful about how things interact with medical care, such that I'm unliiiiikely to manage hosting In The Style To Which You Have Become Accustomed again 'til late Feb/early March, if timings work out the way I think they're going to.)
kaberett: Trans symbol with Swiss Army knife tools at other positions around the central circle. (Default)
... I've announced the next contributor weekend, which is running on the 14th and 15th of May!

If you have requests for specific flavours of cake, now is a good time to make them :-)
kaberett: A sleeping koalasheep (Avatar: the Last Airbender), with the dreamwidth logo above. (dreamkoalasheep)
Folk, I've stuck a poll in [site community profile] dw_dev to choose dates for a May contributor event (holding them quarterly seems to be working out quite well). Please do let me know when you'd be available!

(The implementation for a run-off option in polls hasn't quite finished being implemented yet, so you're going to have to indicate strength of preference in comments to that post or, if you'd rather, this one. ;) Here's some quick stats for the February event just finished!)
kaberett: A sleeping koalasheep (Avatar: the Last Airbender), with the dreamwidth logo above. (dreamkoalasheep)
1. Apply all the changes in this pull request to your develop branch (with thanks to [personal profile] sophie). (Do not commit these changes!)

2. Add the line $DISABLED{loggedout_support_requests} = 1; to your file ~/dw/ext/local/etc/config-local.pl.

3. It should now be impossible to submit support requests on your Dreamhack instance while logged out. You care about this mainly because there is a risk that otherwise you will get 5000 Undelivered Mail Returned To Sender messages coz the spambots faked their e-mail addresses.

These changes will all want to be overwritten as and when that pull request Happens in a code push, but for the purposes of testing stuff over the contributor weekend it might be nice to be able to do so without spam!
kaberett: A sleeping koalasheep (Avatar: the Last Airbender), with the dreamwidth logo above. (dreamkoalasheep)
[personal profile] cesy is hosting a contributor event the 20th and the 21st of February, the weekend after this one just starting. People are welcome locally and remotely -- I'm looking forward to getting things done in company, and I do hope you'll join us!
kaberett: A sleeping koalasheep (Avatar: the Last Airbender), with the dreamwidth logo above. (dreamkoalasheep)
Pull requests made: 13 16 18 (with a few more probably to come)

Attendees: twelve I think (in addition to general hanging out in IRC)

Other bug progress: [personal profile] hunningham and [personal profile] pseudomonas did loads of work on big projects, [personal profile] shortcipher has done a lot of testing, [personal profile] cesy has made serious headway on an automated test suite, and [personal profile] me_and has written a feature spec

Longest telecommutes: [personal profile] swaldman had this one cornered (at ~725 miles) until the Australian contingent rocked up (thereby neatly overtaking the San Franciscans and Seattlites); video calls worked, eventually.

Wiki pages edited: SEVERAL.

Issues filed: five (#1604, #1608, #1609, #1612, #1613)

Naps taken: three

Wheelchair tyres changed: two

Slightly suspect soldering jobs: one

Food made: white bean dip & smitten kitchen's chickpea thing, macaroni cheese, sweet potato chilli, couscous, rice, parsley-tomato-cucumber-preserved lemon-pomegranate salad, apple-honey cake, gingerbread-apple upside-down cake (recipe via smitten kitchen; nb you can substitute yoghurt + a little water for the buttermilk), Apfelstrudel (family recipe I should probably write up), lemon meringue pie (with more reasonable meringue)

State of the kitchen: astonishingly non-wrecked.

Next (in-person) event: Saturday 20th February & surrounding, probably. Watch this space for details! (With an option on having me do something virtual or less over-catered sooner if folk are in favour.)

Thank you all so, so much. <3
kaberett: Trans symbol with Swiss Army knife tools at other positions around the central circle. (Default)
Hello folk!

A reminder that I am running a Dreamwidth contributor weekend this Saturday.

If you need my address and I haven't sent it you by tomorrow, please comment here or PM me and I'll send it + instructions on finding the place.

If you'd like to attend remotely, find us on IRC or add me on Skype (ekabrett): I'm intending to have a spare machine running a video Skype call to interested folk from the corner of one of the rooms from about 10.30am on the Saturday (i.e. if you're attending in person and would rather not participate in the Skype call this will be avoidable).

More logistics! )

I am currently slightly discombobulated, so may well have missed things; please do ask questions if you have any!
kaberett: A sleeping koalasheep (Avatar: the Last Airbender), with the dreamwidth logo above. (dreamkoalasheep)
The thing I enjoy most about Dreamwidth-goes-to-conferences is, honestly, the part where I get to hang out in hotel rooms with a group of people working on making the site better and more fun, one way or another, and I'd really like to have more of that in my life. As such, I'm trying out hosting a Dreamwidth contributor event at the beginning of November.

In terms of what will be going on: I'd never written code before I got stuck into Dreamwidth development, and honestly I'm still very much a beginner at Perl, but I know roughly where things are and there'll be several people who're fluent in Perl present who can help out with specifics. I'm also pretty invested in documentation (both for developers and for end users), Support Board work, and misc organisational stuff. I've got lists of things that could do with being worked on from introductory bugs to specced-out features, and from minor site copy tweaks to entire new FAQs that need writing. I'm happy to mentor & cheerlead in any of these areas from any starting point, and I'll probably bake you a cake while you're getting things shipshape.

We have an A0 whiteboard, a square metre of tea, and lots of things to sit on. I expect there'll be some sitting-around-in-groups-hashing-out-workflows and some one-to-one mentoring and some solo work; there will be a dedicated quiet room in which conversation/interaction Does Not Happen.

Interested? Please let me know if you're thinking of attending so I know how many to expect, but it's absolutely fine if you don't make it on the day.

Interested but can't make it in person? Come hang out in the IRC channel (instructions at the link): telecommuters welcome. <3

Logistical details )
kaberett: A sleeping koalasheep (Avatar: the Last Airbender), with the dreamwidth logo above. (dreamkoalasheep)
* offer is non-exclusive, not least because I know perfectly well that it's faster and cheaper to get to my house from Paris than it is from where [personal profile] swaldman lives

I really enjoy the hanging-out-and-getting-shit-done that happens when I'm at Whatever The Dreamwidth Conference Is This Year. I would like to have more of that in my life. Ergo I propose to begin hosting volunteer parties, concentrated on a Saturday but with tendrils into the rest of the weekend.

I can mentor for documentation and support work. I can help people get started with dev work, from never-coded-before to getting-set-up-and-letting-you-run-with-it. I have a wishlist of problems that aren't yet sufficiently well defined to work out a solution to (and want help characterising), problems where the information necessary for a specification's been gathered but the spec hasn't been written yet, and problems from "three-character fix" to "please write me this feature I will bake you a cake while you're coding it up". I didn't code at all when I started working on DW, and I still mostly don't.

Might you be interested? And if so, how does the 7th-8th of November sound for round 1? (I will need to check with my housemate whether that's okay.)

We have a square metre of tea, three sofas, and I like feeding people. If a couple of you holler interest then I'll start working out how to sort out crashspace and will advertise a bit harder in [community profile] uk and shit. ;)
kaberett: a watercolour of a pale gold/salmon honeysuckle blossom against a background of green leaves (honeysuckle)
1. Counselling is just around the corner from the V&A. [personal profile] aella_irene likes the V&A. Ergo we had lunch sat on the art installation You Know You Cannot See Yourself So Well as by Reflection, having spent the morning hanging out in the ironwork collection. (My plan for next time involves making friends with the glass gallery; wrought iron is something I just... find incredibly soothing, for reasons I haven't quite articulated but that include the fact that it's very stark in terms of colours involved, and has lots of nice bold lines and repeating patterns.)

2. Relatedly, plants: the hydrangeas up the sides of the central courtyard are currently fantastic, as are the other plantings, and [personal profile] aella_irene very generously gave me a bag of her household's surplus raspberries, so that was a joy and a delight.

3. Our internet connection is unstable enough (and I'm undermedicated enough) that I don't particularly feel like coding; nonetheless I made lots of progress with my Dreamwidth todo list today.

4. Benefits-related discussion. )

5. Peak 90s Kid: my mum frantically facebook IMing me for tech support. I sort of provided it, ineffectually, and she actually sorted the problem out by herself, and that means there exist more photos on the internet of me & largest smallcousin.

6. We had tinned pineapple in the house; we now have pineapple upside-down cake.

7. Another batch of rosemary sourdough is rising on the side, to be breakfast-and-lunch food.

8. I have Steam installed on the new laptop and it was rapid and painless and completely unlike most of my other attempts to install Steam under Debian. This means that I now have a MOUNTAIN yes yes.

9. Every time I reread your blue-eyed boys I find more things in it, and they are comfort and they are in their fragmentary way moments of peace.

10. Externally-sourced self-worth: my comments on the MeFi thread are getting favourited by lots of people & positively engaged with. Hurrah for managing to say things that are useful to people.
kaberett: A sleeping koalasheep (Avatar: the Last Airbender), with the dreamwidth logo above. (dreamkoalasheep)
1. The toilets labelled "Men or those who identify" and "Women or those who identify": not perfect by quite a ways (I would prefer and rather than or...); and the very visible notice next to the lift detailing where in the building to find gender-neutral bathrooms (with the assurance that gender diversity is celebrated in the community), which are in turn labelled "all gender bathroom".

2. The dedicated quiet space with the comfortable chairs and the open windows and the greenery.

3. The incredible catering - which is vegan by default, with vegetarian and gluten-free stuff carefully labelled.

4. The con lanyards for badges, which are colour-coded according to your preferences in terms of being included in photographs ("no", "ask me first", "yes").

5. The con badges themselves, which are little booklets that attach to the lanyard, containing (1) a copy of the schedule, (2) a map and (3) a copy of the awesome code of conduct.

6. Sufficient power points!

7. Lots of super, super friendly people: I have had pleasant discussions on a variety of topics with strangers, and we know what I'm like about People.

8. Enormous visibility of queer + trans people. (And at least 2 of 3 keynotes are being given by queer-identified women!)

9. Getting to actually put faces to a whole lot of names. :-) And concomitantly, the strangers and friends-of-friends I've been talking to looking at the two name tags I'm wearing (one "Alex", one "kaberett") and asking me which - if either - I prefer (and getting it when I say I don't at all mind, and both are my real name!)

10. Lots and lots of making sure that people stay hydrated, know where they're going, and are generally empowered to take care of themselves.
kaberett: A sleeping koalasheep (Avatar: the Last Airbender), with the dreamwidth logo above. (dreamkoalasheep)
(if there is anything you are particularly wanting me to get around to wrt DW, now is a good time to ask!)

get to grips with github issues (it's actually just shit)
sort out the babydev bait list (???babydev-bait GHI tag?)
repo access?
???go to some talks
sort out sadserver
intro to mysql
write a patch???
SORT OUT THE WIKI (made IRC webchat more prominently linked several ways over; removed some references to 'zilla)
spr0t
learn2vim i.e. got myself over initial startup hump of "but what is thing how does thing" -- I am nowhere near proficient but I begin to understand how to find my way around (and to make customisations)

arrived

Jun. 24th, 2014 05:02 am
kaberett: A sleeping koalasheep (Avatar: the Last Airbender), with the dreamwidth logo above. (dreamkoalasheep)
ridiculous hotel is ridiculous and full of nice rocks; pleasant flight was pleasant; I got to wave at Mt St Helens & Mt Rainier out the window of the Vancouver-->Portland leg; Portland is currently having a rose festival; pho for dinner; and for all I managed to sleep on the plane crashing out now yes yes.

[as we were coming in to land in Vancouver the pilot announced that Terminal 2 hadn't managed to get all hold baggage onto the plane. I was very pleased to be doing carry-on only...]
kaberett: A sleeping koalasheep (Avatar: the Last Airbender), with the dreamwidth logo above. (dreamkoalasheep)
Okay, so several of you have at this point mentioned that you'd like to start learning to code/develop etc with Dreamwidth, or that you'd like to volunteer for Dreamwidth, but you're scared of getting started. I'm doing a lot of work trying to encourage new volunteers at the moment (largely because of the amount of joy I get out of this work!), so -- what would help you feel more comfortable with reaching out and poking around?

(For the record, yes, this is me volunteering to mentor any of you!)

I know that finding the time can be a major issue, and not necessarily something I can help with, but -- as I say, I can mentor; I can point you at people with the knowledge to handle the thing you're trying to deal with; I can introduce you to people in IRC, if you want to hang out there; I can give you a guided tour of the wiki, and make additions to it at your suggestion; I can help you get set up to develop and I can help you choose a bug to work on; I can talk to you about non-dev volunteering options. These are all things I actively want to do for you. So. What can I do? <3
kaberett: Trans symbol with Swiss Army knife tools at other positions around the central circle. (Default)
My baby brother (all nineteen years and six foot something of him) dragged me out of bed this morning in order to make and feed me pancakes, in the kitchen with the back door open and the garden beautiful, and lectured me sternly about the fact that he was only doing this in order to use up the batter, and I wasn't to take away the message that he liked me. (This is how we express intense affection toward one another. My mother finds it quite distressing, bless her.)

Read more... )

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