Mastodon Feed
"good" uses of `lambda`:
- key= argument to list.sort()
- the argument to 'filter', 'map'
- capturing variables, more flexibly than `partial` (i.e.: lambda x: lambda y: (x, y))
Mastodon FeedMastodon FeedBoosted by aredridel@kolektiva.social ("Mx. Aria Stewart"):
pcalcado ("Phil Calcado") wrote:
> we’ll need senior engineers. People who understand systems end to end, who can debug distributed failures at 2 AM, who carry institutional knowledge that exists nowhere in the codebase. Those engineers don’t exist yet because we’re not creating them. The juniors who should be learning right now are either not being hired or developing what a DoD-funded workforce study calls “AI-mediated competence.” They can prompt an AI. They can’t tell you what the AI got wrong.
https://techtrenches.dev/p/the-west-forgot-how-to-make-things?triedRedirect=true
Mastodon Feedmylist[~0] == mylist[-1]
Mastodon FeedOK going to need to pause for a while my fingers literally hurt, much as I love the next topic ( "Anonymous Functions (and Other Ways to Annoy Your Coworkers)" by @itsthejoker )
Mastodon FeedCIvicBand: effectively a read-only site. Public-facing infrastructure is all one box. Reading scales really far. Fastly FastForward program.
DevProgress: Great project "but we lost". massive open source organization to support the Hillary for America campaign. Doing education and activation. Core team for coordination. [ed: Phil is really taxing my comprehension and typing speed now…
Mastodon FeedStatic pages are the standard unit of exchange on the web. Not just easier to maintain, but easier to get indexed by archive.org and tools like it. Think about ways to embed little bits of logic to decrease your maintenance burden. Example: for VaccinateCA the search was a little bit of javascript glue to an AirTable, not custom server functionality.
Mastodon FeedThink about what language you want to use. For VaccinateCA:
- 28% of californians speak Spanish at home.
- 3% of Californians speak Mandarin or Cantonese at home.
- That's 11.5 *million* people who might not know where to get their shots.
- Localization is a solved problem; we know how to do this. (So do it)
Mastodon FeedVaccinateCA: measured effectiveness by shots in arms. More shots, better. But this raised questions: who are we trying to reach? What devices are they using? Mobile availability vs. web availability? For a technical audience: optimizing for desktop, maybe OK. For a non-technical audience, mobile access is critical.
Mastodon Feed"Technology only helps if your successor understands it."
- what goes on the website?
- WHO puts the data on the website?
- Who owns the social media? Who posts there?
- POSSE (Post on Own Site, Syndicate Everywhere) is a good model for local activism. Systems for doing this: Buffer, hootsuite, Postiz
Mastodon Feed"Mobile users want our hours, location, and menu. Desktop users really want this 10MB picture of a salad."
— Unknown user on X, The Everything AppA lot of groups have bought into the marketing from Meta and have put their info *just* on Facebook or Instagram. By going to that org and putting the info on a website, that helps (and potentially activates) everyone who isn't using Instagram.
Mastodon FeedYou have skills that can help. Start with *basic* stuff.
- Do they have a website?
- Do they have social media?
- Do they have a newsletter?
Mastodon FeedLocal political parties are weird for anyone who hasn't interacted with them before.
Local political parties *only have one goal*: Get their chosen candidates elected.
Other stuff is great but getting those candidates elected and raising money for them but that is the only thing they are set up to do.
Mastodon Feed"Technology is here to serve people, not the other way around"
Many of the other talks have already reinforced this point, so we are not spending a lot of time here.
Mastodon FeedActivation (contd.)
- Running for something
Every layer down this iceberg is good!
Mastodon FeedActivate people! The Activation Iceberg:
- Decision influencing (inform decisions; what products to buy, what people to vote for)
- Indirect action (shares, signatures)
- Direct action - remote (calling, texting, letters)
- Direct action - in person (Protests, speaking at meetings; these don't have the same impact, but they require the same level of activation)If you haven't done this, you will be stunned by how much of an impact you can have by just showing up to local meetings. #NBPy
Mastodon FeedThe Education Data Iceberg:
- Does the data exist?
- Is the data available?
- Is the data searchable?
- Is the data localized: can you look at just your region's data? Your country, your state, your county, your city, your block?
- Is the data personalized? Can you find the data that affects you directly? (This requires the most coding, the most effort, the most data entry, etc)
Mastodon FeedAudience participation time! Turn to someone sitting next to you, and within 90 seconds, tell them something within 50 miles of where you live, that you wish were different. (If you're following along at home, go ahead. Do it now.)
Mastodon FeedBoosted by jwz:
dnalounge@sfba.social ("DNA Lounge") wrote:
♬️ POWERMAN 5000 at DNA Lounge tonight: Sun Apr 26, 7pm!
https://www.dnalounge.com/calendar/2026/04-26.html?utm%5Fsource=sp%5Fma
#dnalounge #powerman5000 #12stones #makesmyblooddance #diamantide #hardrock #metal #numetal #electrometal #livemusic #concert #sanfrancisco
Attachments:
- gifv: b7ec6cf4f7897dae.mp4
Mastodon FeedWhat is "Resistance"?
You want something to be different, for you, for your community, for the people you care about.
What is a "Shoestring"?
Little to know money. The thinnest budget possible. For any of you who have worked for campaigns or activist organizations, you know that there is often no money.
How do we fit what we want to do into that limited time / money budget?
Mastodon FeedWhy is Philip the right person to give this talk?
- Infra Lead for DevProgress; adjunct to Hilary for America campaign
- after 2016, "which was a personal disappointment for me and I'm sure many others", worked for City of Alameda Democratic Club and East Bay Young Democrats
- VaccinateCA, a volunteer open source org to help match people with open Covid19 vaccination slots
- East Bay Civic Data, which became https://civic.band
Mastodon FeedAnd now: "Running Resistance Tech on a Shoestring", by @phildini who, according to his North Bay Python speaker bio, "TKTKTK". #NBPy
Mastodon FeedBoosted by jwz:
RiaResists wrote:
😃I heard shots 😃
Mastodon FeedBoosted by jwz:
noondlyt@hellions.cloud ("LAUREN") wrote:
Whoever coined the term "Nazi Prom" for the White House Correspondents' Dinner should receive a prize from the first level of the prize wall (erasers, fidget toys, packs of gum)
Mastodon FeedBoosted by soatok@furry.engineer ("Soatok Dreamseeker"):
jensorensen ("Jen Sorensen") wrote:
Latest comic: The post-human economy
Mastodon Feeddysfun@treehouse.systems ("gaytabase") wrote:
ah boeing, still can't take the speed brakes off automatically when a pilot applies max thrust.
Mastodon FeedBoosted by soatok@furry.engineer ("Soatok Dreamseeker"):
martin_t ("Martin Taibr") wrote:
@tante Eevee described it best:
"Content" is how you refer to the stuff on a website when you're designing the layout and don't know what actually goes on the page yet. "Content" is how you refer to the collection of odds and ends in your car's trunk. "Content" is what marketers call the stuff that goes around the ads.
Mastodon FeedBoosted by mbrubeck@mefi.social:
gardevoir@glaceon.social ("gardevoir, pokégirl!") wrote:
NARRATOR: In fair Verona, where we lay our
BEASTIE BOYS: SCENE
Mastodon Feed"""
Saying 'no' is hard and feels bad. But it's much easier if you've clearly defined the scope of your project.Saying 'yes' feels great. But it can have a real cost over time.
"""…and …you should also *write down* the scope of your project.
Mastodon Feedaredridel@kolektiva.social ("Mx. Aria Stewart") wrote:
One thing I don't see anyone talking about that we probably should is the proliferation of captcha-busting anubis-busting browser-as-a-service services.
It's not that the big model companies are scraping the web and ignoring robots.txt. (Some are, almost certainly, but there are datasets to train on already and they're not scraping random sites so much)
It's that agent _users_ and the people serving them have a very large demand to access information with semi-automated systems. And they're building whole armies of ways around blocking.
Mastodon FeedI am enjoying the shout-out of the original version of Docker Swarm which successfully hid the multi-node nature of a Docker cluster, as opposed to current Docker Swarm which is "just Docker's clone of Kubernetes". For operational security reasons I cannot disclose why but IYKYK