IMO - Junk Drawer

OITNB Season 4 Thoughts

nospam@example.com (Jim Jagielski) — Wed, 27 Jan 2016 09:43:24 -0500

I have a great idea on how season 4 of Orange Is The New Black should play out. I think following these suggestions will really improve the show, and drive a whole new larger audience.

In the first episode it is discovered that Piper has escaped! It doesn't matter how... maybe she cut through the fences, or tunneled out ala The Great Escape. The important thing is that it is discovered that she has escaped from prison. The thing is, nobody cares. I mean, at least, nobody cares enough to report her missing. In fact, the entire prison is kind of happy she's gone. And so both inmates and guards decide to maintain the farce that Piper is still in prison, just so they don't risk the fact that she would be captured and returned.

So the first few episodes might have some funny, short scenes where people pretend that Piper is still around. When visitors come to see her, the guards will explain that she has a shot and can't visit, or that she's grumpy and doesn't want to see anybody. After awhile, nobody bothers to come visit her anymore and after the 1st few episodes nobody even mentions her anymore.

Personally, I think this is a winner idea! They get rid of the least interesting and most badly written character of the whole show, plus they get rid of the least talented "actress" of the entire ensemble, no doubt saving lots of money from not having to pay whatever undeserved salary they are paying. It's Win-Win-Win!

And maybe the season 4 cliffhanger could feature a cameo by Taylor Schilling at the prison gates, crying and moping to be let back in (this would require some acting, but maybe using CGI they could make something that works). Everyone just ignores her and, just as she turns to walk away, we see Larry come out of the shadows, and cracks her over the head with a baseball bat. The entire prison cheers and Larry, for once in his life, doesn't feel like a total schlub.

You gotta admit, it's got teeth.

Constructive Criticism

nospam@example.com (Jim Jagielski) — Sun, 19 Jul 2015 09:30:00 -0400

My previous post (Why I won't be going to OSCON this year) generated a lot of twitter comments and a lot of private feedback, mostly agreeing with my points and one actually calling me "brave" for making such a post. I'm not so sure about the "brave" part, but I think I kind of made it obvious that the post was my own personal opinion as well as that shared by many others. It was a grieving for the OSCON that was and a lament on what it has turned into.

One tweet however confused me. In it, I was told that my post wasn't "constructive". I really don't see how that was the case. It seemed to me kinda obvious on what suggestions I was making, but to make it crystal clear, and easy to grok, let's list them, shall we.

The speakers are different:
My complaint is that most speakers were not the actual developers behind the projects. The solution is obvious: have more developers as speakers. When someone is talking about the architecture behind some code, I want to hear about it from the person who designed it.
The audience is different:
Here I was lamenting the skew of the audience away from the technical and more towards the business/marketing point of view. By having parts of OSCON actually be concerned about the tech, the audience might just skew back to something more reasonable.
The speakers are the same:
This one is real easy. With a conference as large as OSCON, and with a conference that obviously gets a huge number of session and speaking proposals, the fact that a large portion of speakers are the same from year-to-year is either laziness or favoritism or fear-of-change. For a conference around open source, which is all about energy, enthusiasm, building community, creating opportunities and the need for change, that mindset is really counter to the core. Solution: Mix it up regarding the speakers.
The cost is burdensome:
Another easy one. Reduce the cost. Make it easier for students and the pure volunteer open source contributors to attend. Use some of the huge sponsorship funds to reduce ticket prices. Help foster the next generation of open source enthusiasts.

As someone mentioned, most people go to OSCON today for the "hallway track" and as a social excuse to meet up with old friends and colleges. These later years, that's why I went, as well as for the occasional worthwhile (IMO) session. And I agree that conferences are a social event, and should be. But when it becomes the sole or primary reason for a conference, then maybe that conference needs to be re-thought (At Apache, we had this some exact issue with ApacheCon, resulting in our changing producers and re-focusing on outreach and info for a larger audience).

In the first post I specifically said that it wasn't meant to dissuade anyone from attending OSCON. It was a listing of why I (and others) don't go, with a specific set of reasons behind that decision. That certainly sounds like constructive criticism to me, at least to anyone actually willing to listen.

Why I won't be going to OSCON this year.

nospam@example.com (Jim Jagielski) — Fri, 17 Jul 2015 09:00:00 -0400

OSCON is next week, but if you are looking for me, I won't be there.

The "why" behind that decision is kind of complicated, but it's a decision that has been brewing for quite awhile.

First of all, however, don't take this as some sort of post designed to convince you to not go; that is not my intention. It's just an explanation of why, at least for me and others, OSCON is no longer one of the "Must Attend" conferences of the Open Source world.

The speakers are different:
Back in the day, pretty much every speaker was one of the core developers behind the open source project they were talking about. This made OSCON a great opportunity to learn about the project from the experts: the people who actually wrote it, people who were intimately involved. Not so much anymore. More than likely, presentations will be made by "community managers" or marketing folks from companies leveraging the project. Ask them a technical question and the answer you'll get is "Give me your name and number and I'll have one of our developers get in touch with you."
The audience is different:
It seems to me that the vast majority of the audience aren't really developers, and if they are, they aren't there as developers. They are there to be seen or marketed by their companies ("Be sure to wear a company t-shirt!"), or they are there to hang out with their old buddies. Few are there to learn (mostly because the content is simplified) or hone their skills. There also aren't many people there who are interested in "learning what this whole open source thing is about" or even "what this open source project is about". No, it seems that most of the audience are marketing people, or people hoping to make business connections.

Now don't get me wrong here. When I attend a conference and my employer is footing the bill, the least I can do is wear a company T-shirt and make sure that my employer gets the recognition and credit they deserve. Nothing bad or unacceptable about that. But when you are there only as a prop, well, something is amiss. And sure, I also understand how the success of open source is based on the acceptance of it by companies (heck, the whole idea of the term "open source" was to make it more palatable to corporate interests), so I have nothing against marketing and business alliances either. It's just that, at least for me, OSCON isn't the place for it, at least to the extreme that it is today. Unless you are in Marketing or Strategic Alliances, what does OSCON actually hold for you?
The speakers are the same:
Read through the list of speakers. Now compare it with last years list. Sweet Sassy Molassy that's a lot of repeats! In fact, there are a large number of names that you can be pretty much guaranteed to be speaking year after year. Really? It's become almost a joke submitting a talk; unless you are one of the blessed, your talk must be exceptional and direct and non controversial. The "usual group" can submit anything they want and it'll be selected; the unwashed masses? Good luck.
The cost is burdensome:
The reason why OSCON is mostly a business-related conference is because with the amount of money it costs to attend, it is really out-of-reach for "regular" people. The only way people can attend is if their company picks up the bill. Hardly a good way to build a grass-roots community.

So what conferences do I go to and enjoy? Well, there is ApacheCon, of course. But there are also POSSCON and All Things Open. These are great conferences because they have a true mix of speakers and attendees, where speakers are there to teach, and attendees are there to learn. More than OSCON, these conferences are, IMO, an accurate reflection of the open source ecosystem, as it is and as it should be; they embrace all aspects of the open source community.

So no, I won't be at OSCON this year. But if you do attend have fun and drink a pint for me.

That's billion with a B

nospam@example.com (Jim Jagielski) — Wed, 24 Sep 2008 08:28:52 -0400

So Wall Street will get a bailout of $700 Billion. It must be nice knowing that no matter how badly you screw up, you can count on your friends to completely cover you. Of course, that is a simplification and the deal as currently defined will almost for sure not pass. The major sticking point seems to be that even though the companies are in woeful financial state, and the gov't need to step in with $700B of taxpayers money to shore things up, the executives of those companies will walk away with tens-of-millions (at least) of compensation and... wait for it... BONUSES! I have no idea in what Alice-In-Wonderland universe these things happen, when an executive expects and receives bonuses for basically being a greedy, selfish tool, but I obviously don't understand The Financial Market. Of course, we are told, that the bailout can't add limits or restrictions for these types of things, because it would prevent executives from taking the bailouts to "save" their companies. If there is any clearer indication that the executives' priorities are screwed up, I don't know what it is. "Screw the company! I want what's coming to ME!" And what is even worse is that the main people in the gov't behind this bailout have no idea why we feel that this is somehow wrong...

Harder than it should be

nospam@example.com (Jim Jagielski) — Fri, 22 Aug 2008 10:15:00 -0400

Before I even start, I want to note a coupla things. First of all, I have never really owned a Windows system. Not to say I haven't bought them, but mostly for my sons and never for myself. I do run WinXP, but under VMWare Fusion on my Mac. Secondly, I have performed tons of upgrades of systems, from FreeBSD to OS X, but the upgrade from XP to Vista was a new one for me. And finally, I've built quite a few systems (physically) from the ground up. Sometimes it's even fun. But even with all that, the recent full upgrade of Jon's computer from a Pentium 4/WinXP system to a new Quad/Vista system was, to put it nicely, painful. Much more so, IMO, than it should have been... Continue reading "Harder than it should be"

10.5.3

nospam@example.com (Jim Jagielski) — Fri, 30 May 2008 08:53:04 -0400

I went ahead and upgraded my Macs to 10.5.3 yesterday (using the Combo Update, of course). Unfortunately, even though many things are better, the most annoying bug in Mail has NOT been fixed... doing a search causes Mail to forget the field width settings in the Message Viewer window. Ugg!

Internet Freedom

nospam@example.com (Jim Jagielski) — Tue, 27 May 2008 09:43:29 -0400

Will someone please explain to me this "Internet Freedom" that Viacom's challenge is supposedly threatening? What freedom is that? The freedom to steal copyrighted data? How did all that is good and noble about the Internet get somehow associated with the concept that "as long as I can make a copy of something, I should be able to do whatever I want to do with it whether I have permission or not." Yes, the Internet is all about sharing information, but it doesn't also mean that copyright now flies out the window. Let's be clear, if I create something (music, video, code, whatever) and I *choose* to share it, then great! If I also decide to let others share it as well, even better! But the sharing of that information is *mine* to choose, not yours. Don't lump my exercising my rights in protecting my property, with your perceived "rights" to take what is mine and do whatever you want with it, without my permission. Really, that sort of mentality is totally embarrassing.

Twitter

nospam@example.com (Jim Jagielski) — Thu, 08 May 2008 14:42:01 -0400

Although I've been "on" Twitter for awhile, it's only recently that I've really used it. For me, I find it much easier to take a minute or 2 to write up a short 1-2 phrase tweet regarding something on my mind, than spent more time to craft something larger and longer to "warrant" a blog post. A blog post seems like just too much work. A tweet is just fun. If you want to follow me, my Twitter ID should be pretty obvious.

Still one bothersome bug in 10.5.2

nospam@example.com (Jim Jagielski) — Sat, 16 Feb 2008 08:23:31 -0500

There is one bug in 10.5.2 which is still there and still quite irritating. It's in Mail. It keeps on forgetting the width of the columns in list view all the time. I've setup Mail so that in list view it shows the thread cluster, the status, flags, From, Subject, Date Rec'd and Attachments. I then spend time adjusting the width of those columns so I can see the data I want. In particular, I want the Status column wide so I can see how many unread messages there are in the thread. And, without fail, every time I close Mail, it loses those settings, and I need to readjust the column widths again. What a pain.

Ports

nospam@example.com (Jim Jagielski) — Fri, 08 Feb 2008 12:15:18 -0500

With my transition to Leopard, I've gone ahead an pretty much dropped Fink. Except for all those packages I compile and build myself, I'm baselining MacPorts. For one thing, it was getting problematic supporting 2 porting implementations and for another, well, Fink's kinda been slipping for awhile, as far as the timeliness of some updates. So right now, I'd say about 75% of my local additions are home-built , 20% via MacPorts and the remaining 5% are some one-off builds of some standard tools (like Wireshark). Oh, yes... I am very much looking forward to OS X 10.5.2... The various bugs and "issues" in 10.5.1 are starting to get quite annoying...