My What?

Everyone who knows me really well also knows that around Christmas time, shortly after returning from an extended surfing trip to Costa Rica, I became a fan.

Yes, a fan. Of a TV Show, about football and feelings.

I, who had sworn to never watch TV again, had somehow fallen under the spell of Friday Night Lights (aka FNL), the little show that could, if only more than fifty people would start watching it.

I’d like to blame my “intense appreciation” on the fact that I was introduced to the show while holed up with a fever in my hotel room in Costa Rica. And, although I’m sure that had something to do with it, not to mention my long-standing appreciation of Kyle Chandler and Connie Britton, I really have to blame it on the fact that the person behind music direction at FNL honed in on my achilles heel: Post-Rock.

I think you could show me an entire hour of a football sitting on a field beside a bottle of beer, and as long as it was scored to anything by Explosions in the Sky, I would watch it. Many times.

Throw in Kyle Chandler’s voice, Connie Britton’s acting, a little bit of football, an awful lot of feelings and Zach Gilford’s nice-kid-on-the-verge-of-a-nervous-breakdown good looks, and well, you’ve got a dedicated fan in me. I even signed online “Save the Show” surveys. Yes, it’s true.

Post-Rock and Me

I was not an Explosions in the Sky fan before I saw FNL, but I was enough of a post-rock fan to rejoice when, in my fever-induced stupor, I really believed, as the football team approached Texas Stadium, that the soundtrack was by the cutest Japanese Post-Rock band ever, Mono.

Mono? you ask. If Explosions in the Sky played with guitar strings that were actually ramen noodles, they would sound like Mono. Well, maybe not quite. But, I’m sure you get the idea.

After scratching my head for a couple minutes, wondering how anyone had ever been so out-of-their-mind goofy as to use Japanese Post-Rock to score a television show about football in Texas, I came to my senses and realized that it had to be another band.

But, it didn’t matter. I was already hooked.

Is there Life After Explosions in the Sky?

I could go on and trace my post-rock/shoegazing history way back into the last millenium, but I’ll finish off with a few comments about the post-rock/math-rock/future-funk/just-plain-awesome-good band that I finally had a chance to see live a couple weeks ago at the Starlite Room: Battles.

Now, I realize I might be violating some cardinal law of coolness that restricts mentioning Battles and Explosions in the Sky in the same blog post. I’m sure the law exists, but I’m over thirty, so it doesn’t really matter.

If you’ve never heard their music before, you should definitely check them out. Maybe even start with their most popular song, Atlas.

Somehow, Battles manage to deliver endlessly satisfying tracks that are both organic and complex. Yes, the vocals sometimes sound like Will Ferrell on speed. But, it works.

In some ways, Battles sound like what I imagine Joanna Newsom would sound like if you put her in a proton accelerator, wrapped it up in ten rolls of duct tape and shot her into Outer Space. I won’t link to any of her music here. Trust me. It’s for your own good.

Some Battles-Inspired TV Show Pitches

I must admit, however, that it is quite possible that my standards have changed overnight. I haven’t tested it out yet, but I suspect that my blind love affair with Explosions in the Sky might have come to an end.

The main problem for me now: waiting for the powers-that-be to come up with the kind of ground-breaking ratings-repelling TV show that could only be scored by Battles.

Here are a few of my TV Show ideas. Cue the music.

• A women’s water polo team on tour in Siberia. Broken down buses, snow, vodka, some water polo, a lot of feelings, more vodka. And dancing bears. Lots of dancing bears.
• An underdog team of cricket-playing leprechauns from the forrest just outside of Dublin. I’ll just let that one speak for itself.
• A high-school drama about ostracized zombie teenagers who form a chart-topping band, thus gaining the admiration of their peers, until they turn around and eat everyone in site.

Hmmm. Maybe I should just leave that kind of thinking to the pros. But, I’m pretty sure there’s a perfect show out there just waiting to be scored by Battles. And, I can guarantee this much: I will be watching.

I’ve been helping put together a Data Sharing Workshop and Summit, as part of an ongoing collaboration with DataPortability.org.

The Data Sharing Workshop

As a first step, the Workshop will provide a gathering space for different groups to have in-depth discussions about emerging data sharing standards and initiatives, and continue ongoing work by establishing Action Items to be carried out at subsequent events.

The Workshop will be on April 18th and 18th at the SFSU downtown campus in cooperation with the SFSU Institute for the Next Generation Internet.

The Data Sharing Summit

The Summit will take place a month later, providing enough time to further develop the ideas discussed at the Workshop while still being able to track progress. With the larger venue, participants from the Workshop will be able to share their ideas with a broader audience.

The Summit will be on May 15th at the Computer History Museumy in Mountain View, Ca, immediately following the Internet Identity Workshop.

As with the previous summit, which was facilitated by Kaliya Hamlin, aka Identity Woman, both events will follow the open space (un)conference format.

Sign up

You can register for both of these events at eventbrite.datasharingsummit.com. Additional information is available on the Data Sharing Summit Wiki.

Get Involved

We are looking for volunteers and sponsors to help support this community, so that we can create real value for everyone involved.

If you have any questions about these events, or would like to get involved as a volunteer or sponsor, please contact me at laurierae@datasharingsummit.com.

She’s Geeky was a bit of a whirlwind for me. Kaliya did an amazing job facilitating the event, and I heard a lot of positive feedback from many of the attendees.

I was not able to attend as many sessions as I would have liked, but I had many amazing conversations with some fascinating women, especially Roxanne Darling, Open Source Grrl, Jen Silva, the women from Creative Maven, Anda Abramovici, and Sally Applin.

We’re looking forward to planning another She’s Geeky in New York in the New Year. More information to come in upcoming weeks.

Only six more days until the She’s Geeky (un)conference.

Monday Sessions

A lot of people have signed up this week, and we have a lot of interesting sessions planned for Monday afternoon, including:

• The Future of Technology: Melanie Swan, Christine Peterson from Foresight and Liana Holmberg from Linden Lab.
• Dealing with Analysts — The Good the Bad and the Ugly: Charlene Li , Rachel Chalmers, Julie Ask.
• Owning Your Power — Making it as a Leader: Susan Mernit is coordinating
• Nonprofits and Technology: Beth Kanter and Katrin Verclas
• User Experience Design: Kaari Peterson and Dee Adams
• Online Video / Vlogging: Cheryl Colan, Roxanne Darling, Ryanne Hodson
• Technology and Privacy: Violet Blue
• VC panel: Mary Hodder is coordinating
• How to Lightening Talks: Danese Cooper
• Public Speaking Practice: Lura Dolas

Check out the agenda at shesgeeky.org for more information.

Tuesday Sessions

Tuesday will follow the (un)conference format, and the agenda will be created at 8:30 am on Tuesday. Check out the proposed topics at shesgeeky.org.

Volunteer

We’re still looking for volunteers to help out with food set up and clean up. If you’d like to help out, please contact me at shesgeeky@gmail.com.

If you live on the West Coast, it is still October 15th, so I might just get this post up in time.

Then again, I’m in Alberta right now, which is why my post about the environment is, well, about the environment in Alberta. Or more specifically, the oilsands in Alberta.

I grew up in oil country and was still a child when earlier oil booms led to the creation of architectural wonders (or blunders) such as the Butterdome and the manmade waterfall coming out of the High Level Bridge.

In other words, in my experience, oil money has always represented extravagent spending and limited longterm planning.

After being away for eight years and then returning to Edmonton earlier this year in the middle of the housing boom, I was shocked to see how much the city of my childhood had changed. Yes, the Butterdome and the manmade waterfall are still there. As is “The Mall”. But, the feeling had changed.

Edmonton was suddenly about money, in a way it had never been before, or at least not in a way that I remembered. New housing developments were popping up and so many McMansions were being built that you could not go anywhere without getting into a conversation about real estate and money and oil and economic growth vs. the inevitable collapse.

Today, shortly after reading about blog action day, I happened to read Oilsands’ newest project: a greener image.

FWIW, I thought it was a fitting link to share today.

Okay, She’s Geeky might not be coming to all the computer history museums near you, but if you are a woman in technology who can be near Mountainview on October 22nd and 23rd, She’s Geeky is an event to check out.

What on earth is She’s Geeky?

Well, it’s an (un)conference designed to provide an agenda-free gathering space for women who self-identify as geeky. The event will provide women from various technology-related domains with the opportunity to exchange ideas, create new connections, and find new ways to support and learn from each other.

I’ve been working with Kaliya Hamlin, Susan Mernit, Mary Hodder, Julia French and many others to put this event together.

To find out more, please check out the She’s Geeky wiki.

Sponsorship

We are looking for sponsors to help make this event as affordable as possible. To contribute, please contact us at shesgeeky@gmail.com or post to the wiki.

Current sponsors include Google, the Nonprofit Technology Network, Atlassian, Purple Tornado, and Citizen Agency. DevChix and LinuxChix have also come on board as media sponsors.

Today is She’s Geeky Link Push Day

We welcome you to support us by blogging about this event today and linking back to this post, Susan’s post, or Kaliya’s post.

When I attended MIX07 at the beginning of May, I had the opportunity to talk to a couple members of the Facebook team. In addition to providing me with a chance to air some of my “issues” with Facebook, the conversations I had also offered some insight into what I will call the Facebook worldview.

When Two Worlds Collide

Aside from being informed about Facebook’s “canonicalized tagspace” (identified as a key differentiator wrt Flickr), I was also told that they did not believe in handles.

At the exact moment that the Facebook developer was telling me about their “no handles” approach, Kaliya Hamlin (a.k.a. Identity Woman) walked up and handed him her card.

I wish I could recall the exact details of the conversation that followed, but it went something like:

He was, to say the least, incredulous.

A Name is a Name is a Name…Or is it?

I planned to blog about the above exchange in a longer post about social networking and identifiers, but in the following weeks, I was suddenly distracted (as were many others) by the sudden explosive success of Facebook.

Prior to attending MIX007, I had eight Facebook “friends”, four of which lived in the Bay Area. With one exception, they were all social networking veterans. When I returned home, I was shocked to discover how many of my other friends had suddenly joined Facebook.

Unfortunately, some of my friends were unable to join with their actual name. One girl, whose last name is “Gay”, received the following message when she tried to register:

“Please enter a legitimate name.”

She decided not to bother.

A couple weeks later she told me that her mother, whose last name is “Kiss”, also received the same message when she tried to register.

A Metablog Moment

Note: I drafted most of this post a couple weeks ago after my friend told me she couldn’t create a Facebook account with her legitimate last name. I then left it to marinate in the special blog-post purgatory where far too many of my drafts have gone to die.

Earlier this week, I read Facebook blocks ‘Gay’ as last name, but don’t push panic button, which includes the following:

After reading the above, I decided to resurrect my over-marinated draft, not because of any visceral reaction that I might have to Facebook’s alleged homophobia, but because of the broader issue around any company placing it’s own restrictions on what is and is not considered “legitimate”.

Legitimate What?

I spent some time going through Facebook’s impenetrable Help files, searching in vain for more information about “legitimate” names. I eventually gave up, but only after learning that there are 17 Facebook users registered with the word “legitimate” in their name. Twelve of them contain either “legitimate name” or “legitimatename”. The funniest by far was “Francesca Legitimatefuckingname.”

A quick Google search revealed that many others have been wrestling with their apparent illegitimacy. Some examples: Gays are rejected by Facebook and Illegitimate name is legitimate name on facebook but Patrick Lord is not – Mobile Monday Barcelona.

I can’t help but be nostalgic for earlier “web 2.0″ days and sites like Flickr that allowed you to register with any name (my flickr handle is spam0musubi — no real reason; I just happen to like eating spam musubi.

More specifically, I miss the heady sensation of believing in the overall intelligence and responsibility of the “community”.

Identifiers for the People?

To be honest, I kind of like using my real name. spam0musubi was a bit of one off. (Apparently I have my own Identity issues.)

And, Facebook Guy isn’t the only person who doesn’t believe in the need for handles.

There are days when I have to pinch myself to remember that most people don’t think in terms of identifiers. That is, their name is their name; in many cases it was assigned to them. They use it to get through various interactions in their lives. Why complicate things?

I can almost buy the argument against against using handles. Almost.

Then again, I’m not one of the unfortunate few who had to create a “handle” after being informed by Facebook that their name was not legitimate.

I can’t help but wonder how they came up with the criteria for determining the legitimacy of a name. Even if it’s just as simple as using a predefined data set to “prevent people from registering with unsavory or offensive names,” is it a justifiable reason?

Perhaps it’s just me, but I get nervous when random organizations (or individuals within that organization) get to make decisions that render “Legitimatefuckingname” less offensive (not to mention more legitimate) than “Gay” or “Lord” or “Kiss”.

Isn’t this a more serious issue than whether or not Facebook is homophobic?

Of course, what can you expect from somebody whose handle is a Hawaian delicacy involving sushi rice topped with processed meat from a can?

After returning to Edmonton last month, my friend kidnapped me and took me out to a new restaurant in her neighborhood, Bacon.

Yes, Bacon.

A dream come true for vegan carnivores across the planet (okay, maybe just the ones in Edmonton), the restaurant offers a selection of meat, vegetarian, and vegan dishes, to which you can add a side order of homemade pierogies, chapati, and/or bacon.

Yes, bacon.

My friend and I each had a bowl of borscht (beet soup for those of you who were not weaned on Ukrainian food in the ‘Chuck.) Then she had the Vancouver Rice Bowl, an assortment of veggies, tofu, brown rice and miso sesame gravy. I had the Prairie Paella, a non-seafood variation on the Spanish classic with Andouille sausage, exquisite marinated chicken, wild mushrooms, green beans, and chick peas.

Guess what we had on the side?

Two orders of bacon. Yes, bacon!!!

And, none of those late-night post-bar overcooked and far-too-thin 24-hour-breakfast-restaurant slices of bacon. The proud proprietors of this new porcine loving establishment, they serve the real deal. Thick, full-flavored, and lots of it.

Yes, I love bacon.

So, if you ever happen to find yourself driving North along Wayne Gretzky Drive, hankering for some prairie-style vegan-carnivore cooking, be sure to turn right at the 112th Avenue exit and head straight to Bacon.

I’m not sure if it’s a sign of the times or just a sign of my poor packing skills, but after spending Wednesday afternoon running errands in Todos Santos, Baja Sur, Mexico, I’ve learned the following:

For the brave and the bored, here is a description of the events that caused me to acquire the above knowledge.

One Convertidor a Tierra and a Wackload of Wifi

Everyone I asked was able to direct me towards wireless Internet access within minutes.

Minor setback. I needed to recharge my MacBook battery, and I forgot to bring the appropriate adaptor for two-hole sockets.

The gringa running one of the expat art galleries told me to just make the appropriate gestures for two-hole versus three hole sockets. She didn’t know the Spanish for grounding adaptor. To her credit, however, she did direct me to the nearest hardware store.

I found the hardware store and the elusive grounding adaptor within minutes of leaving the art gallery. Turns out the owner spoke English, and my adaptor costs 10 pesos (roughly $1 US). “Convertidor a tierra” is Spanish for grounding adaptor.

Roughly 15 minutes in total were spent in the effort to get my computer up and running.

Looking for a Needle in a Village (with free WiFi)

I ripped a giant hole in my very travel-friendly black capris on Sunday. By the time I managed to find the Convertido a Tierra, I’d already asked six people and gone to four stores in search of needle and thread to fix my pants.

After solving the adaptor issue, I walked up the street to a tourist-oriented ceramic tile shop and asked the owner how to say needle and thread in Spanish. The answer: aguja y ilo. She spent a couple minutes teaching me how to pronounce “Aguja” (the “g” is pronounced like an “h” if you tried to pronounce an “h” with a jawbreaker stuck in your throat; the “j” is pronounced like a normal “h”).

Then off I went in search of farmacias and any other store that might carry the ever elusive “aguja y ilo”.

Armed with my phrase of the day, I walked across the street to the nearest Farmacia. “Tiennes aguja y ilo, por favor?” I asked quietly. The answer: something in spanish which roughly translates to “No, but maybe at the pharmacy down the street.”

The woman at the next pharmacy was not as helpful, and simply answered my question with a curt “Non” and a smile. I stood there for a moment, hoping for more information, but the smile had already disappeared.

Throughout my quest, I’d been rehearsing the broken conversation I would have once I found a place that actually carried needle and thread. Potential questions about color and needle size and possible “package deals”. Like maybe an extra spool or fancy scissors, or one of those little travel kits with 20 different colors of thread, a useless seam ripper, and a couple of dull needles — just like the one I left at home on top of my dresser.

I took a deep breathe. I was ready for anything. Anything except the fact that nobody in Todos Santos seemed to know where I could buy needle and thread.

I went to another four stores, but still nothing. I asked the woman at the hotel. Nothing.

Frustrated and sunburned, I headed back to my hotel, plugged my new “Convertidor a tierra” into the wall, turned on my laptop, and considered surfing the net in search of needle and thread.

But by that point I was hungry.

Maybe the Internet Can Fix My Pants?

After forgetting about my rant and my beloved ripped pants for a couple days, I decided to google “needle and thread” and “Todos Santos”.

At the top of the results, a link to a tripadvisor review for the Todos Santos Inn, including the following:

Loved my lavish Room 6, the care of the fabulous staff, the perfect grotto of a swimming pool. Only 8 rooms and the guests were interesting. John, the owner, saw to my needs, down to needle and thread!

The most amusing part? I actually went to the Todos Santos Inn for dinner on Wednesday and met the amazingly resourceful John. It didn’t even occur to me to ask him for a needle and thread.

If only I’d had my laptop with me.

I went snorkling near La Paz today (in Baja, Mexico), and gave a ride into town to a Brazilian girl who has been studying in Kamloops, BC for the last two years. We talked about some of the culture shock she experienced.

“Canadians are so polite.” She said. Then she laughed and told me that she and her friend had figured out the easiest way to get a Canadian to say “I’m Sorry.”

Just step on a Canadian’s foot.

Warning: Do not attempt this experiment outside of Canada. Results may vary.