Sam's L33t Journal

I went to PyCon in Pittsburgh last weekend, once again traveling on my own dime and time, per the new way of things at Google. At least they comped me one of their sponsor passes for reg.

Cory Doctorow did the opening keynote, on his theory of the current malaise in the tech industry. Which was quite an opening to the conference: We'd like to thank our sponsors and now here's Cory Doctorow to rip them a new one. I'm a big fan of Doctorow, and think he has a lot of insight. I really do think tech companies have gotten themselves to a point in consolidation-friendly and competition-unfriendly political environment where not only are things getting shittier for users and other stakeholders, the companies have also really painted themselves into a corner and are suffering from stagnation (even in an environment where there's some really amazing development in technical capabilities). Doctorow highlights Jay Saurik's phrase about how the DMCA (and similar laws promulgated by treaty agreements and free-trade deals) prohibiting the circumvention of digital locks makes a de facto crime of "Felony Contempt of Business Model". Doctorow's suggestion that countries should retaliate against tariffs with IP liberalization instead of retaliatory tariffs (i.e. making it possible for their entrepreneurs and firms to compete with US big tech instead of just revenge-taxing their own consumers) is certainly an intriguing possibility!

I think the world Doctorow envisions would be so much better for a lot of people, including software engineers specifically. For those at startups, sure, you could actually get your "compete with the big players" start-up funded, for one thing. But also for those at big companies, which could actually compete with their rivals, instead of just carving out separate fiefdoms and taking occasional all-in/all-out-double-time shots at someone else's crown.

I got to spend a lot of time with my colleagues, especially meeting members of the new Python Team and catching up with members of the former one, many of whom seem to have settled into some really cool Python work at Meta (working on Instagram's high-performance CPython fork or the Rust implementation of their Python type-checker). It's so heartening to see people who enjoyed working with you and are happy to see you and would enjoy to work with you again. (Not that I don't get that on my current team, it's just very reduced.) And I ran into Itamar, a colleague back from my ITA days, and Allen Downey, my CS professor from Olin. Spent most of my time at the convention center, but got to take in a bit of local color. Ate some big sandwiches at Primanti's anyways.

I spent Friday morning in conversation with Cory Doctorow at the PSF lounge in the expo hall, wandered the expo floor, caught talks on new Python features that I hadn't read up on before (e.g. template strings, the effort to escape once and for all from the Global Interpreter Lock), heard about people's fascinating projects. All the talks will be posted to their YouTube channel over the next week or two. The Python community really is a pointedly liberal and activist one, too, there's a real insistence on "Python is for everyone". Python really did carve out a unique niche in its balance of usability and "batteries included" power.

After getting back: This week has been pretty busy with a lot of city and school events. This evening was Somerville's Slice of the City pizza-party get-together for our neighborhood. Tomorrow morning, Erica's class is participating in the Argenziano Wax Museum, an event where the third graders portray people from history (this year focusing on figures from the American Revolution). Tomorrow evening is Argenziano Heritage Night, a big cultural festival at the school that Erica looks forward to every year.

Julie was in NYC this weekend for a bike ride event with her dad and Kristin and Emilia. I had a beautiful weekend at home with Erica. I belatedly realized that it was the weekend of Somerville Open Studios, and we wound up exploring several art galleries tucked into the Milk Row neighborhood on our way back from climbing on Saturday. On Sunday, we went to see the open house at the Friend Museum (i.e the home of Martha Friend; the exterior alone is a notable Somerville landmark). We caught a few more gallery and outdoor showings on our way back. Other highlights of our weekend included the art of Lexi Havlin, Kelly Ann Clark McCormack, and Akira Fujita. The scale of the event is really impressive, with over 120 places in the city participating.

The city is so beautiful in the spring. The moment that stands out most in my memory was standing under some overhanging wisteria that a whole crew of carpenter bees was busily foraging with an audible buzz.

There was some scattered rain this weekend, but the bits between were beautiful. We mostly managed to avoid getting caught out in it.

We did a lot of art activities at home, too: The big project was egg-decorating, from the Easter basket Mary got for Erica. Erica made a cord bracelet, and built some Lego.

After finishing Death's Door, I've started playing Spiritfarer . Which I guess takes a completely different take (in terms of game mechanics and whole general vibe) on exactly the same topic.

Some of my extended team was in town this week, so there were some team social things. Went to Flight Club in the Seaport, a darts place with bowling-alley-style computerized scoring. I'm probably better at darts than bowling, but pretty terrible at both. Still was fun, the food was quite good there, too.

The weather has been a little more overcast and foggy and cool, but reasonably nice.

This weekend, I did a bit of cooking on Saturday afternoon. Made homemade refried beans and seasoned beef and tortillas for tacos. The tortillas turned out as good as I wanted this time, I got the consistency right and prepared the pan right and didn't forget to add a little salt.

We decided to have a family movie outing, so we went to see Paddington in Peru at the Assembly AMC this afternoon. And we watched the previous installment in the series at home yesterday, which I paid half attention to while I cooked. Those movies are not at the top of my recommendation list, but they're okay.

It's hard to feel like I'm ever going to rest and recover. Julie was pretty busy this week. The weekend was a little better.

Saturday, I got out to play a bit of Ingress in beautiful weather, wrapping up an in-game event celebrating 12 years since the game was released. I still really like the game's ability to give me random reasons to visit places I wouldn't otherwise. This time, I ended up at Bell Rock Memorial Park in Malden.

Today, I went to the art museum in the morning and wandered the galleries with Julie while Erica had her art lesson. In the afternoon I took Erica climbing and cooked dinner.

I just finished reading Erica The Boxcar Children, which was enjoyable, but also one of the most edges-sanded-off things I've ever read.

Erica's wanted to play Splendor a bunch this week, and she's getting quite good at the game, but is frustrated that she can't win consistently. (Played six games this week, and she managed to win one, but most of the others were quite close, including a tied-at-15 game where I won by having one fewer development cards, basically the closest score possible short of an actual tie.)

I've been enjoying the new Magic set, Foundations, a core set of sorts that will be in Standard (the "just recent sets" variant of the game) for an extended time. It seems like the game will be changing quite a bit in the coming year, and not just for that reason. More about that later maybe if I get to writing about it.

Continues to be busy, but Julie's taking Erica today (after Erica swim lesson, they're going to watch some of the Head of the Charles Regatta and check out an acquaintance's art exhibit) so I have a few quiet moments to do laundry and write.

Last weekend was a long weekend. Saturday, Andrew and Min got married, the ceremony was at the Science Museum out back on the Charles River Promenade, and they got beautiful fall weather, too. On Saturday, we went to visit Xave, Sarah, and baby Adair (who's now mobile and rather communicative, though not talking and walking quite yet), was great to see them. Erica was really excited to get the chance to meet Adair for the first time.

On Monday, saw an early-afternoon showing of the Pharell Williams documentary Piece by Piece with the family. The movie's animated-in-Lego style brings a lot of creative verve and visual metaphor to what would otherwise be a rather straightforward interviews-and-archival-footage structure. Was really fun and interesting, Erica enjoyed it, too. Afterwards, I took Erica to the aquarium and we had a snack at Lakon Paris and spicy noodles at Yume Ga Arukara in the Seaport.

The short week went by real fast. Lots of work meetings and work social stuff with the new person a few levels up from my team.

I finished S a few weeks ago, it was interesting but it's not like there's some neat conclusion that brings it all together in a very satisfying way. I thought I'd enjoy deep-diving video essays about the content of the book after finishing it, but most of what I found was just people arguing about the best way to read it and discussing whether that worked well for them or not. So I guess tentatively recommended if you really like Lost or ergodic literature in general, and I definitely did appreciate the book for being an interesting example of the unusual sort of thing it is.

I also finished Scavengers Reign. It's masterful, recommended if you like animation or science fiction.

There's something really great about school drop-off in the fall. While the weather is good, more people show up on foot and by bike and bring the dogs and the babies, there's a real sense of community . It's getting a bit chilly in the morning (awkward when midday is still way too hot for a jacket), but otherwise the weather is really good.

The Presidential debate this week was something, too. Heartening to see Harris do well at highlighting Trump's unpreparedness and petty narcissism. Trump looked so tired and sad throughout, though it didn't prevent him from insisting on the last word on every topic. It is a bit alarming to see the that the top of the Republican party has gone all the way to "immigrants are going to abduct and eat your pets". (People are really still supporting this straight-outta-4chan candidate whose plan re inflation is "raise the price of almost everything 10% immediately" and whose plan re healthcare is "I've got concepts of a".)

Last weekend was a good weekend. I took Erica to the aquarium on Saturday, and in addition to getting to touch one of the sharks and one of the giant leopard rays (who usually stick to the farther-away parts of the touch tank), we had great views of all three of the sea turtles in the giant ocean tank. Then there was a street festival in Union Square. On Sunday, I took Erica climbing, then we went to the Greek festival at Dormition Church in Somerville.

The work-week was pretty busy. Julie had a conference trip from early Wednesday to late-night Friday. Which she didn't tell me about until last Sunday night. :-/

But things are pretty organized when I'm handling things solo, even if it's tiring to have that level of focus and be the only one on-call. Did some decent cooking, too, including lamb meatballs in the air fryer. Erica liked all of it.

Erica was anxious about her first "test" in school today (one of the i-Ready Assessments), but apparently it went fine (wifi issues aside).

Some other stuff has been going on.

I had my second date in court on condo business last Thursday. Same stuff, but this time with the case recaptioned and served again against the association (plus the same individuals "as an agent of" etc.). A three-hour wait for a fifteen-minute hearing. At least the hearing itself was quick, the testimony was all done last time. Will see what the ruling is when they send it. (Small claims does not rule from the bench, except in the case of a default judgment.) Nothing's up on the docket yet, but there's probably some time set aside periodically for case review.

1369 had a jazz night on Friday, a bit of a throwback to the 1369 Jazz Club days. And a more recent throwback to when cafes were sometimes open at night. The music itself was interesting but confoundingly avant-garde.

On Saturday, I did a bunch of cooking, including a project with Erica that Erica suggested: We made homemade cheese and bean papusas. Made the dough from scratch, filling was all-but-store-bought (that is, it was a can of seasoned refried beans and a bag of shredded cheese, which we mixed). Erica shaped them by hand and I cooked them in the cast iron. Turned out pretty good! Maybe I'll try making homemade tortillas some time.

Sunday, I spent the day out with Erica. We went climbing and got new shoes. And we dropped by the new Beard Papa on Newbury Street for cream puffs. They're new at that location (and newly back in town) and the weather was great so the line was out the door.

Julie has been sick early this week, but seems to be on the mend. So far Erica and I seem to have dodged it. Fingers crossed.

Busy, busy week. The solo parenting is going swimmingly. Erica went to a friend's birthday party Sunday, and I got to catch up with my favorite bartender, Fred Yarm, who's now at Josephine, right in my neighborhood. (Unfortunately, this week also came with the news that Fred's previous venue, top Boston cocktail bar Drink, closed abruptly, along with Barbara Lynch's other Fort Point restaurants, amazing counter-seating fancy Italian diner Sportello and try-hard French-cuisine Michelin-in-exile Menton.)

There are more layoffs at my employer today. I'm still employed (for now lol), but there are more dismaying cuts on my former team.

The election year buzz heightens as the prospect of another four years of Trump madness approaches, capped off with a debate between the two final also-rans. The January 6 rhetoric was also quite a bit louder this year, with Trump all but saying he'd do it again, and even a bunch of Republicans reversing course on very obvious truths said January 7 three years prior. We're in an election year where the one remaining anti-Trump Republican on the ballot is running on a blanket pardon and total impunity for Trump.

And the sort of person who can't state the extremely obvious when it's politically inconvenient, as a brief aside to another Republican scandal of the week. But of course she's speaking to people for whom it's inconvenient what their ideological predecessors were fighting for freedom to do. (Hilariously, the discourse about Haley's "gaffe" led to this response by Trump, for whom nothing is politically inconvenient.) Anyways, the Confederates have truly had their revenge on the Republican Party. I suppose if you told them the way that had come about was "strange coalition politics", they couldn't be too surprised.)

Speaking of Confederates, it's extremely strange (and seems extremely perilous) that the application of Section 3 of the 14th Amendment might have an impact on this year's election. Sort of blame the drafters of that amendment and also I guess of the Amnesty Act of 1872 for not being more forward-thinking on this one. Poorly drafted legislation is always the trouble of the courts. But in a sane world, it would be irrelevant as Trump would have been impeached, convicted, and removed and barred from office in emergency sessions of Congress on January 7, 2021. (Putting aside that in a sane world he would have been convicted and removed earlier, and also not elected in the first place.)

It's an odd situation that the President of the United States, having exhausted all legal methods of challenging those elections, sought to just throw out the elections from whichever states were his closest losses, as many as it takes, whatever it takes to get there: Maybe get Congress to ignore the states' duly cast votes, or the Vice President unilaterally, maybe it legally counts as "disputed" if you put forward some other election results that are just fake (!), or like maybe if stuff gets delayed other stuff can be done (???). Raise a mob to be there, some voicing nebulous willingness to kill someone, if that helps. (The mob never got the chance to drag Pence or whoever to Schrodinger's gallows, so it remains somewhat un-collapsed how serious that plan was.) Shambolic is the word of the day when Trump's around, but as shambolic as that coup attempt was, it was an attempt. And our nation is politically unable to deal with such an attempt when it's short of success. Still. (An attempt that comes less short is, of course, not going to be "dealt with".)

It's madness. The lack of imagination. I wish Republicans could imagine what if Gore (as VP and candidate) or Clinton (as incumbent President) did anything even remotely like that in 2001. These people will pretend they can't or say it was like that. It's deranged. Why are we doing this again?

This Friday and Saturday, I went to Olin Alumni Weekend (15 year reunion for my class). Took Erica on Saturday. They were trying to make it a kid-friendly event, but there weren't quite enough kid activities for the day, I thought. She had a good time nonetheless and enjoyed seeing the school. Julie was able to join us in the evening after a cycling event Saturday morning. She'd been expecting to be busy all day originally, but her event was shortened due to weather.

Erica went to a friend's birthday party at SkyZone trampoline park Sunday morning. Julie and I had a light lunch at a Moroccan bakery nearby (CasaBlanca Pastry), then dropped by Night Shift. (Viva Habenera is back!)

Sunday afternoon we went to Union Square's annual Marshmallow Fluff Festival. This had been postponed to the predicted to be less rainy (but maybe actually significantly more rainy) day of the weekend. Which was fortunate for Erica, since she actually got to attend.

Masala Square's fluff samosas were pretty good, but Carolicious served fluff arepas so tasty I think they need to put dessert arepas on the menu. Counter Culture Coffee was serving some delicious drinks (including one made with their new coffee concentrate) out of their Union Square coffee school. It was fun despite the wet weather, and there were definitely a lot of people out in the rain.

Enjoyed watching an episode of the second season of Is It Cake? with Erica in the evening, though she really didn't want to go to bed after.

Summer isn't done with us yet.

I've got this Nest thermostat, and if you're not familiar with that sort of "smart" thermostat, it does two things re AC in the summer:

1. Try to learn what temperature you like it.

2. Set it to much warmer than that temperature to save you money.

The feature that sets it warmer when you're actually not in the house is fine, but the "rush hour" feature that sets it a little warmer at "peak" times (i.e. when you, too, most want your air well conditioned) is a bit more aggravating. This year especially. It seems to me like in past years it would set things a few degrees higher, but when my schedule says 73 and the thermostat is like "how about 79?" that seems a bit much.

Actually, there are a lot of ways I wish Nest was a bit smarter. There's no way for it to look at my calendar and pre-cool/warm the house when I get back from a vacation. Or even have me tell it when I'm getting back manually and have it take that into account. It doesn't adjust the schedule to my preferences that well. It supports multiple temperature sensors, but only supports looking at one at a time and only can switch between on a fixed schedule. It can't do anything based on the difference in temperatures (in particular, I'd like it to run the fan if only some of the sensors are as cool as I want). The fan can be run automatically if it wouldn't otherwise be on, but only on a fixed schedule.

All right, enough rambling on that topic. Summer is coming to an end one way or another. My mom brought Erica back to town, had a wonderful time doing stuff together, she got to go to school dropoff for Erica's first day of second grade. Then she got COVID after returning home. At least she's feeling better after a prompt course of Paxlovid. We haven't gotten sick yet, but school year's started and stuff is going around.

Had a good long weekend with some extra climbing and a trip to the Science Museum. Also took Erica to the Boston Tea Party Ships and Museum (touristy, but educational, hadn't been in ages). Erica -acted very closed-off and shy, but then said she enjoyed it.

This week, some of the computer systems are down at kid's school after some sort of security issue (a ransomware attack, maybe, they haven't been real forthcoming with the details).

I had one of Erica's friends over on Tuesday and Erica's at his house today. Nice to have a break, but sometimes I get stressed out when I have a break. So much to do, so little time. (And yet I manage to get to some things, like hammering some words onto the virtual page here. It's good.)

I'm enjoying the new Magic set, though I feel like I haven't figured out a deck to do well in new Standard. Want to play some limited of the new set, haven't had the time.

Also been really enjoying the Netflix One Piece. I'm not real familiar with the anime or manga, but people more familiar seem to think it's a good adaptation in addition to being generally good. Amazing how well you can do with that sort of thing when the people doing the adapting clearly like the source material and understand why it's good.

I was up a bit late with Erica last night after Julie ducked out for early bed, and Erica was very upset about something about a game; big feelings about little problems. But eventually she helped me finish cooking a batch of beans (which I enjoy because I'm finally figuring out how to get those really good in the Instant Pot). I appreciate her help on that, she's the #1 fan of beans in this household, so I really want to be able to make them up to her standards. We had some good conversation about all sorts of things, including how to describe different kinds of spices and computer security.