I decided after all to give that lightning talk on PyStage at PyCon. I planned on using the same talk I did at ChiPy, just significantly shorter. I did not plan on a key getting stuck on my keyboard halfway through the talk, essentially grinding it to a halt.

Well, a number of people told me that I recovered really well by turning it into a humorous situation. I ended up smacking the heck out of my old T23 Thinkpad trying to find which key was stuck. Heck, it might have been for the best, for at least it ended up forcing me to finish my talk in a reasonable amount of time. I'm actually looking forward to seeing the video of it go up on YouTube: that way I'll have one video where I did really well and where the concept was well received, and another where I'm literally pounding the keyboard with my fist to humorous effect. Too bad the former was in front of the 60 or so people at ChiPy and the latter was in front of the 1000 or so people at PyCon.

Even so, the whole situation was embarrassing, and built upon a number of other frustrations I've had with that laptop: broken wireless and a video card for which I haven't been able to figure out how to get direct rendering with OpenGL. These things have made a number of frustrations for me, particularly at nerd events like ChiPy, PyCon, or even while sprinting at PyWeek, and in an impulsive moment I made a significant financial decision (without consulting my fiance): I bought an Eee PC.

There were a lot of people with these things at PyCon, and I found them appealing to me on a number of different levels:

• Cost: Pre tax and shipping, it was only $350
• Portability: It's incredibly tiny and cute, and easy to carry around.
• Functionality: Despite being so small, it still has a fully functional (albeit tiny) keyboard.
• Power: It's strong enough to be able to play some reasonably impressive games. I won't be using it for that, but if it's powerful enough for that, it should be able to handle PyGame, Pyglet and SuperTux development.
• Freedom: It ships with GNU/Linux off the bat, albeit with a shitty distribution. That's okay, it's able to run the distros I like.

I've been interested in a super small computer with working wireless for a long time. I don't really need or want a laptop that can replace my desktop, as I enjoy doing most of my work on a machine that's persistently on. This is why I've invested money into the old Zaurus I bought several years ago. Unfortunately, I never got the networking on it working well (that might have been partly due to my inexperience with networking at the time) and thus was never able to get the environment to the state that I wanted it in. Also, the keyboard on it was fairly decent for what it was, but it wasn't a real keyboard. This thing has a real keyboard.

The only thing I feel bad about with purchasing this device is that I feel like it distracts from the One Laptop Per Child project. Unfortunately, neither the Give One Get One nor the developer programs are running right now, so I don't think its possible for me to get ahold of one before Flourish.

There's also a possibility that I won't end up achieving what I want with it, but I'm quite optimistic. If nothing else, at least I'll be able to finally have a machine with working wireless access, which seems pretty critical for a geek in modern society.

In the meanwhile I'm refreshing the UPS shipping page constantly. It's scheduled to arrive tomorrow, which is almost a shame because we're off of work tomorrow and I had it ship to the office. Well, maybe I can drive to the UPS store myself to pick it up, because honestly tomorrow can't come soon enough.

Pycon, day one! (Or that is, day one if you didn't attend tutorials yesterday.) Best day of my life? Well, no. One of the best days of my life? Oh yes, certainly.

Anyway, summary is:

• Lots of cool swag
• Looks like Python 3.0 and 2.6 are going to be developed nicely so that the transition will be really easy.
• Django 1.0 coming soon, possibly after this upcoming sprint
• Met a lot of interesting folks. Was surprised to meet some people whose writings and work I've followed in my spare time. Kevin Kubasik, whose blog I've seen a bit on Planet GNOME stopped by our booth.
• That whole stalking Phil Hassey thing was a joke, and I didn't expect to actually spot him in the crowd, but I did and I somewhat rudely and awkwardly interrupted a conversation of his, and didn't recover. So the whole joke of me looking like a stalker probably actually did make me look like a stalker. Oh well.
• Brian Fitzpatrick, an acquaintance and head of the Open Source department in Google's downtown engineering office, gave me a sticker that said "My other computer is a data center". The irony induced by the context of my previous employment didn't strike me until several hours later.
• Massimo Di Pierro, professor at DePaul's CTI department, physicist, web framework author, and all around cool guy, gave me a Web2Py hat. I didn't see him give anyone else one of these hats, so I'm pretending it's just because I'm awesome.

Also, as to whether or not I'm giving a talk tomorrow, I'm not really sure. I signed up, but I signed up in the special first-grabs sponsor talk sheet, and I think I might have done so too late. So not sure if I'm going to get to speak, but I'm preparing anyway.

Oh hey, and if you are there, stop by Imaginary Landscape's booth in the break sessions! I'll probably be around.

So I said I was going to have the gallery done by the end of the weekend, and that didn't happen, because smash brothers was released for the Wii![1] But I did say I'd have pystage released by the end of this coming weekend, and that might happen, because I might give a lightning talk about it at PyCon! But that will only happen if I finish things tonight!

By the way, have I mentioned how excited I am about PyCon? This year is extra cool because:

• It's in Chicago
• I'm going
• We did work for PyCon at my job, and even released our first open source application, which is running on the pycon site right now (the company has open sourced other software before, but it's all been developer-oriented, whereas this is an actual application).

I'm extremely stoked. There are a lot of really great looking talks to look forward to. Also, cool people like are going to be there, including Phil Hassey. I've already informed that guy that I plan on stalking him. (Does it count as stalking if you inform the person in advance that you are planning on doing so?)

[1] (To be fair, Jeff and I did bet together and do some concept work for the game, but we also played a lot of smash brothers)

And now for a post that isn't me whining about politics.

It's recently become apparent to me just how many projects I have floating around. Some of them are right on the brink of completion, some of them in the earliest stages. Since I'm trying to figure out exactly what I'm going to be working on at the moment, I figure I'll list them out here, along with priorities and completion levels, as I see them.

+------------+--------+------+-----------------------------------------+
| Project    | Comp   | Prio | Status & Description                    |
|            | letion | rity |                                         |
+============+========+======+=========================================+
| Blog       | 80%    | me   | For the most part, the blog is in a     |
|            |        | dium | good spot. It works, obviously, but it  |
|            |        |      | still lacks a drafts and                |
|            |        |      | save-preview-publish workflow.          |
|            |        |      | Currently I'm posting posts in my test  |
|            |        |      | environment to make sure they're        |
|            |        |      | working before I take them live.        |
|            |        |      |                                         |
|            |        |      | There are a couple of other features    |
|            |        |      | I'd like to add, such as tagging and    |
|            |        |      | "edit logging", but those can wait.     |
+------------+--------+------+-----------------------------------------+
| Image      | 0%     | high | I haven't even started on this, but     |
| gallery    |        |      | it's definitely critical for the        |
|            |        |      | success of my site. I do a lot of       |
|            |        |      | artwork, and one of the main reasons I  |
|            |        |      | wanted to even start this website was   |
|            |        |      | so that I could have a place to show    |
|            |        |      | off all the things I'm working on.      |
|            |        |      |                                         |
|            |        |      | In fact, I've had a few projects that   |
|            |        |      | I've been wanting to show off on here,  |
|            |        |      | but its not really possible until I get |
|            |        |      | the gallery up and running.             |
+------------+--------+------+-----------------------------------------+
| Web based  | 2%     | me   | A while ago I wrote a frustrated email  |
| media      |        | dium | at my work complaining about the awful, |
| player     |        |      | repetitive music we play on the radio   |
|            |        |      | there. I proposed that I would build a  |
|            |        |      | web-based music player where we could   |
|            |        |      | all upload music and collaboratively    |
|            |        |      | set playlists, vote for what songs we   |
|            |        |      | like, et cetera.                        |
|            |        |      |                                         |
|            |        |      | It sounds like an overly ambitious      |
|            |        |      | project, but I think it *will* happen,  |
|            |        |      | since I'm being told that, while I      |
|            |        |      | can't work on it on-hours at work,      |
|            |        |      | they'd be willing to fund for           |
|            |        |      | late-night hacking pizza, etc. One of   |
|            |        |      | my coworkers, Tamas, is down for        |
|            |        |      | collaborating with me on this one too.  |
|            |        |      |                                         |
|            |        |      | I've paper-prototyped the whole thing,  |
|            |        |      | I've learned the basics of gstreamer,   |
|            |        |      | and I already know how to do web        |
|            |        |      | development, so I expect that all will  |
|            |        |      | go well with it.                        |
+------------+--------+------+-----------------------------------------+
| Ble        | 60%    | low  | This is something I've just been doing  |
| nder-based |        |      | for fun in my relaxation time. I'm      |
| fanart     |        |      | doing a fanart for a [comic that I      |
|            |        |      | like](http://okk.keenspace.com). It's   |
|            |        |      | surprisingly coming along really well,  |
|            |        |      | but it doesn't take any sort of         |
|            |        |      | priority. Still, I don't want it to     |
|            |        |      | totally fall off the radar.             |
+------------+--------+------+-----------------------------------------+
| Getting my | 70%    | high | I'm actually able to make calls with    |
| Openmoko   |        |      | this every now and then... or I was,    |
| phone to   |        |      | until I updated to a broken image.      |
| work       |        |      | Maybe this wouldn't take as high of     |
| nicely     |        |      | priority except that I paid a good deal |
|            |        |      | of money for this thing and I continue  |
|            |        |      | to pay for service for it. Well, I knew |
|            |        |      | it was a developer version when I       |
|            |        |      | bought it. Mostly I wanted to support   |
|            |        |      | the project. However, I hear that there |
|            |        |      | are Python bindings coming soon, which  |
|            |        |      | would make this a whole lot cooler.     |
|            |        |      | Maybe I'll blog a bit more about my     |
|            |        |      | experiences thus far later.             |
+------------+--------+------+-----------------------------------------+
| Web-based  | 1%     | low  | This might raise in priority soon, but  |
| game       |        |      | my friend                               |
|            |        |      | [Jeff](http://blog.codexile.net) and I  |
|            |        |      | have worked on some game development in |
|            |        |      | the past, and are meeting up this       |
|            |        |      | Sunday to talk about some new           |
|            |        |      | development soon.                       |
|            |        |      |                                         |
|            |        |      | Currently I'm putting the priority here |
|            |        |      | as low because we haven't agreed on any |
|            |        |      | specifics, and it isn't clear how far   |
|            |        |      | this project is going to make it yet.   |
|            |        |      | Who knows? It might become              |
|            |        |      | significantly higher in priority soon.  |
+------------+--------+------+-----------------------------------------+
| Lingo      | ???    | ???  | My long dead comic,                     |
|            |        |      | [Lingo](http://lingocomic.com)... oh    |
|            |        |      | how I miss working on you. :(           |
|            |        |      |                                         |
|            |        |      | Unfortunately, I just don't know where  |
|            |        |      | I should go with this comic at the      |
|            |        |      | moment. I'm not as happy with the       |
|            |        |      | original storyline I sketched out for   |
|            |        |      | it, and overtime I've come to regret    |
|            |        |      | having named the characters after me    |
|            |        |      | and my friend.. it just seems far too   |
|            |        |      | egotistical.                            |
|            |        |      |                                         |
|            |        |      | That being said, I've sketched up some  |
|            |        |      | new ideas that I would actually be      |
|            |        |      | fairly enthusiastic about pursuing. I   |
|            |        |      | just really don't know what to do about |
|            |        |      | the characters, and that's really       |
|            |        |      | largely why nothing has happened since  |
|            |        |      | I've graduated.                         |
+------------+--------+------+-----------------------------------------+
| Blob       | 40%?   | low  | Jeff and I produced a [demo of          |
| bit/Gloopy |        |      | this](ht                                |
|            |        |      | tp://www.pyweek.org/e/the_sticky_bits/) |
|            |        |      | during the last                         |
|            |        |      | [PyWeek](http://pyweek.org/) sprint.    |
|            |        |      |                                         |
|            |        |      | I think if we revisited the collision   |
|            |        |      | code this could be a feasible project,  |
|            |        |      | but I don't feel any momentum for it at |
|            |        |      | the moment.                             |
+------------+--------+------+-----------------------------------------+
| PyStage    | 95%    | high | Now here's a project which I could      |
|            |        |      | almost kick out the door this weekend   |
|            |        |      | (and maybe I should).                   |
|            |        |      |                                         |
|            |        |      | PyStage is, as the name might suggest,  |
|            |        |      | an animation system for python. Not     |
|            |        |      | only that, but it *already works in its |
|            |        |      | present state*. In fact, I've already   |
|            |        |      | [given a talk about                     |
|            |        |      | it](htt                                 |
|            |        |      | p://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-9 |
|            |        |      | 06354546937878632&q=chipy&total=278&sta |
|            |        |      | rt=0&num=10&so=0&type=search&plindex=0) |
|            |        |      | at [ChiPy](http://chipy.org). (I show   |
|            |        |      | up about 32 minutes into the video.)    |
|            |        |      |                                         |
|            |        |      | So why haven't I released it yet?       |
|            |        |      | Partly a fear that nobody else will     |
|            |        |      | find it useful, and partly because I    |
|            |        |      | haven't put up any sort of page for it. |
|            |        |      | Maybe I should just get over my fears   |
|            |        |      | and put up some page for it on Google   |
|            |        |      | Code or something.                      |
+------------+--------+------+-----------------------------------------+

Well that's about the summary of things. I guess there's a lot more that I've put on my plate than I even realized. This isn't even considering the volunteering I've been hoping to do. But this weekend, I'm going to limit myself to working on the gallery code, finishing the blog code here on dustycloud, and exploring that web game idea with Jeff a bit. And next week I'll really, honestly kick PyStage out the door.

For serious.

Not much that I'm going to say at the moment other than I've been keeping busy. I've helped my sister move, I've been working on an interesting art project, I've been trying to get my OpenMoko phone to work nicely, and I'm learning how nodes work in Blender (which is, surprisingly, a lot of fun).

Hopefully tomorrow I'll have a bit more time to get into details. In the meanwhile, go look at Project Peach if you haven't already, as there's a lot of interesting stuff to read on there.

I go to bed now, hoping that Obama will pull through in Texas as he has with Ohio.

I've been feeling a lot lately that I haven't been making enough of a social contribution as of late. I'd like to give back in ways that I feel best use my talents, and I've been thinking a lot about open source and all the good that comes with software freedom.

So this last Sunday I took a trip along with a friend of mine to the Chicago Free Geek (which is just one of a larger family of Free Geek groups). The Free Geek movement is one with a quite noble cause; volunteers there take donated old computers and construct working computers out of the old parts, salvaging what works and recycling what doesn't. The new computers they build from the old parts are then installed with the Xubuntu GNU/Linux distribution. (Xubuntu is really just Ubuntu with XFCE as its default desktop. XFCE's a bit faster and leaner than GNOME, the otherwise default Ubuntu desktop). These computers then make their way mostly to people who couldn't otherwise afford them, either by being sold for ultra-cheap (the money then goes toward recycling the unusable parts and upkeep) or through a program where individuals can earn computers by helping with the recycling and building for a number of hours.

In short, it's a damn cool group, and I really enjoyed being there. The location's a bit grungier than I expected (even though I expected grungy). It's in the middle of a bit of a basement, and it was a bit cramped, but it seems that it wasn't always that way; if I understand what I was being told, the gate surrounding the work area was only recently put up by the landlord (I wasn't told why... funding?). Not all the computer parts were moved into the gate yet, and I'm not quite sure how they were going to get it all in. One of the volunteer staff pointed to a large pile of parts, informing me that, once they recycled those, they'd be able to fit more within the space, but they needed to raise more money before they could do so.

Despite things being a bit cramped an grungy, I really did enjoy the work. It was very much so hardware related. That's not outside my area of knowledge... I was a datacenter monkey at my previous job... but I must admit that I much prefer the area in which I currently work, that of software development. I'll probably be coming back for some more volunteering, but I can't help but feel that my skills are better suited for a much more software-oriented approach to activism. I really do believe in the empowerment that free software brings, and I'd like to spread that empowerment to more people. I've been thinking quite a bit that the bringing free software to education is probably the most important and useful route I could follow.

I am considering contacting some of the more underfunded schools in the area to see how I can help. Not too long ago, some other volunteering led to discussions with a principal who seemed interested in taking this route. I am going to try to contact him, and see where that takes me. When more happens, I will write about it here.

In the meanwhile, that friend of mine has been volunteering at a local community computer center, and has begun to install Linux there. Perhaps I will visit there and continue to volunteer at the local Free Geek chapter as I continue to figure out this education thread.

If you're reading this, then you can see that dustycloud.org has now launched! Joy of joys.

A lot of stuff doesn't work yet; obviously the art and writing galleries don't. But they will shortly. There are also some aesthetic changes which need to be done, and I need to break the blog-specific CSS out of the main site's css. I wanted to go with something that was nicely textured, but not in a boring web2.0 gradients kind of way. I think I've done a pretty good job at that.

Also note that I know that the captchas aren't working, so you can't post comments yet. My inexperience with mod_python hadn't prepared me for the ugliness that is multiple interpreters clobbering module-level variables. It'll be fixed soon. I promise.

Of course, there's not much else to say on a "site launch" post. More interesting posts are on their way; I've been working on some cool stuff lately.