From dan at thecsl.org Fri Mar 6 15:51:45 2009 From: dan at thecsl.org (Dan MacNeil) Date: Fri, 06 Mar 2009 15:51:45 -0500 Subject: [Cadre-politics] micro status / pair programming / parking Message-ID: <49B18CE1.8000506@thecsl.org> My new strategy keeps status messages very short. The limit is one main idea, one funny story and (ideally) one screen of text. As JG observes, short and frequent works for Seth:[1] MD finished a MS in CS at UML in December. She has a year to gain practical experience and hunt a H1B visa [2]. To remain in the country she needs to be working or volunteering. This week, my mornings were spent pair programing[3] on MVhub. (yay!) As a bonus, MD fixed the parking issue. Our official university contact said he couldn't get us a permit. Despite my pessimism, MD asked the parking people directly for a permit and got it. No special juice required. (yay!) So far, we've made a bunch of small, useful tweaks. For example, the automated clicking and typing tests now work on the main development server. (http://mvh.omacneil.testing123.net). Before they ran only on my laptop. We are focused on the automated tests because they found more bugs and are simpler to write than the unit tests [4] we've written. We're using Test::WWW::Mechanize, which is great once you realize you have to $mech->get($url) before you can $mech->submit_form_ok(%params); We're working to pull test data (buttons to push, text to type into fields,etc) out of the Perl and into easy to read data files. This is not as easy as one would think. For example: XML isn't human readable. There are 39 pages of results for the google query "xml sucks". I've asked the monks for guidence.[5] [1] http://sethgodin.typepad.com/seths_blog/2009/03/direct-from-consumer-marketing.html [2] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pair_programming [3] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/H1B_visa [4] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unit_testing [5] http://perlmonks.org/?node_id=748952 SHORT (tech) PROJECTS for the helpful 1) Run the all servers first checklist on Lenny running under xen 1a) Investigate xen / AMD64 / Lenny compatitbility 2) Investigate launchpad vs trac 3) Investigate svk vs bzr 4) get backuppc running From dan at thecsl.org Fri Mar 20 17:30:50 2009 From: dan at thecsl.org (Dan MacNeil) Date: Fri, 20 Mar 2009 17:30:50 -0400 Subject: [Cadre-politics] status: mission Message-ID: <49C40B0A.8020105@thecsl.org> Two status messages in a single year is a record for 2009. (yey me!) Next week, I'll write about our struggle against Goliath and how we're rooting for the big guy to win. The week after, I'll probably write about formal parameters in Perl or how people are reacting us ending our hosting service. La Presidenta KZ and I are just back from a http://JerichoRoadProject.org board training cleverly disguised as a focus group. I learned (duh!) of research that says that easy to recruit board members tend to do more and better work than hard to recruit board members. Another useful bit was that many non-profit board members don't know the mission statement of the organization they govern. It's a bit embarrassing to admit how true this last bit is. In the last two months, (2) CSL board members approached me and said approximately: "I think we're doing great work, Here is a $150 check. What is it that we do again? I know don't host websites any more." Part of the problem is that sensible people would rather eat a plate of live cockroaches dipped in rat poison than attend a retreat to develop a mission statement. See: http://web.mit.edu/jcb/humor/scott-adams-mgmt-consultant My brief period of bitterness with http://Habitat.org started when I learned the official mission statement was **not**: Eliminate poverty housing from the face of the earth, by making simple decent housing a matter of conscience. ...which was what founder Millard Fullar kept telling people. It was something a lot more complicated which I still can't remember. Anyway lately at conferences, bars and weddings, I've been telling people: We write open source software to run web directories of social services. You search on food, you get the locations of food pantries, food stamps and WIC. ...This seems to go over a smoother lot better than the previous mumbo jumbo about how Richard Stallman: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richard_Stallman ... is the greatest prophet since the old testament. Still this lacks vision. I'm thinking our medium term mission: (new! I'm just making it up now!) is: To exploit talent that would otherwise be ignored. We've had our share of privileged, white, male programmers, but most of them have been a little bit out of the mainstream. (College dropouts, jobless, juvie jail alumni, "at risk", medicated, vegetarians,etc) We've always been about 50/50 male/female which is way more PC than tech industry as a whole. In the last 2 years 4/5 of our programmers have been Indian women. --not a group traditionally known for their position of power and influence. The use of the word "exploit" is deliberate. The goal is to get stuff done. Most of the people with talent that isn't ignored want $50/hr. It sure is nice to build skills and help move on to market rate jobs, but that is a side effect not a goal. Longer term, our secret mission/ulterior motive is of course to bring about the post scarcity society: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Post_scarcity ...by making the values of the hacker sub culture (transparency, meritocracy, generosity, etc) the values of the entire culture. I suppose this will do until we hire an expensive consultant to obfuscate it. From joshua.bonnett at gmail.com Sat Mar 21 18:22:08 2009 From: joshua.bonnett at gmail.com (Joshua Bonnett) Date: Sat, 21 Mar 2009 15:22:08 -0700 Subject: [Cadre-politics] status: mission In-Reply-To: <49C40B0A.8020105@thecsl.org> References: <49C40B0A.8020105@thecsl.org> Message-ID: <4cfc7a210903211522o501b488fqcf7547833756ca83@mail.gmail.com> ? ?I actually think that you would be less effective at helping people develop job skills and move into the job market if that was your stated goal. Part of what some people need to learn is that the job isn't about them (lord knows i did). Or that most tech work isn't about the tech skills of the individual, but the workflow of the group. Working for the csl was a very enlightening experience, even if those lessons only really sunk in years later. ? I do, however, think that what the csl is capable of developing is greater than just a directory service or hosting. I have a few ideas, but I don't have the time or the manpower to execute on any of them. The best I can do is to try to provoke other people to do them. Ideas: ? ?A reporting/tracking system for social services. Currently, social workers carry around reams of poorly organized papers. I personally had documents lost repeatedly during my dealings with them, appointments missed by them, etc. if the paper copies stayed home and the workers carried a eee or the like, things could be better organized and it would be easier to keep tabs on kids. Yes, you would probably need to hire some more experienced folks, if only to do the security for this, but this is big enough that a largish grant could possibly be gotten. Also you would have to fight with them to provide computers, and outfit said computers with enough encryption to protect such sensitive data, but just the copies these people make in a year would get you a eee, retail even. ? ?A town meeting system. Right now, in much of the country, young, busy people are underrepresented in local governments because of the town meeting system, which is set up such that only people who have nothing to do at 2pm on a weekday can make their opinion heard. A simple local governance tool kit with some sort of simplified polling with a ip geo data lookups to verify location to some degree Also a digg like article system with the same geo data lookup, to fill the idealized role of the quickly deteriorating local news paper system. Make it easy and cheap to roll out for a given town, like setting up a meetup is, then set it up in Lowell and try to get other people to set one up for their town. ? That's all I can think of right now, but the opportunities to make a difference are out there for someone who is looking to write software for the common good. If you think big and get proposals into the right persons hands, then you might just get to build something great. On Fri, Mar 20, 2009 at 2:30 PM, Dan MacNeil wrote: > Two status messages in a single year is a record for > 2009. (yey me!) Next week, I'll write about our struggle against > Goliath and how we're rooting for the big guy to win. The week > after, I'll probably write about formal parameters in Perl or how > people are reacting us ending our hosting service. > > La Presidenta KZ and I are just back from a > http://JerichoRoadProject.org board training cleverly disguised > as a focus group. I learned (duh!) of research that says that > easy to recruit board members tend to do more and better work > than hard to recruit board members. > > Another useful bit was that many non-profit board members don't > know the mission statement of the organization they govern. > > It's a bit embarrassing to admit how true this last bit is. In the > last two months, (2) CSL board members approached me and said > approximately: > > ? "I think we're doing great work, Here is a $150 > ? ?check. What is it that we do again? I know > ? ?don't host websites any more." > > Part of the problem is that sensible people would rather eat a > plate of live cockroaches dipped in rat poison than attend a > retreat to develop a mission statement. See: > > ? ? ? ?http://web.mit.edu/jcb/humor/scott-adams-mgmt-consultant > > My brief period of bitterness with http://Habitat.org started > when I learned the official mission statement was **not**: > > ? Eliminate poverty housing from the face of the > ? earth, by making simple decent housing a matter > ? of conscience. > > ...which was what founder Millard Fullar kept telling people. It was > something a lot more complicated which I still can't remember. > > Anyway lately at conferences, bars and weddings, I've been > telling people: > > ? We write open source software to run > ? web directories of social services. > > ? You search on food, you get the locations > ? of food pantries, food stamps and WIC. > > ...This seems to go over a smoother lot better than the previous > mumbo jumbo about how Richard Stallman: > > ? ? ? ?http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richard_Stallman > > ... is the greatest prophet since the old testament. > > Still this lacks vision. I'm thinking our medium term mission: (new! I'm > just making it up now!) is: > > ? To exploit talent > ? that would otherwise > ? be ignored. > > We've had our share of privileged, white, male programmers, but > most of them have been a little bit out of the mainstream. > (College dropouts, jobless, juvie jail alumni, "at risk", > medicated, vegetarians,etc) > > We've always been about 50/50 male/female which is way more PC > than tech industry as a whole. In the last 2 years 4/5 of our > programmers have been Indian women. --not a group > traditionally known for their position of power and influence. > > The use of the word "exploit" is deliberate. The goal is to get stuff > done. Most of the people with talent that isn't ignored want $50/hr. It > sure is nice to build skills and help move on to market rate jobs, but > that is a side effect not a goal. > > Longer term, our secret mission/ulterior motive is of course to bring > about the post scarcity society: > > ? ? ? ?http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Post_scarcity > > ...by making the values of the hacker sub culture (transparency, > meritocracy, generosity, etc) the values of the entire culture. > > I suppose this will do until we hire an expensive consultant to > obfuscate it. > _______________________________________________ > Cadre-politics mailing list > Cadre-politics at lists.thecsl.org > http://lists.thecsl.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/cadre-politics >