Found: a photo of some clever public washroom hand dryer graffiti…
Mmm…treyf-a-licious!
Yesterday, Boss Ross sent me a stack of presentations from Evans Data
Corporation’s 2005 Developer Relations Conference. Seeing as my job is
developer relations, I feel a little silly for having been unaware of
its existence and have adjusted my radar accordingly.
I went through the presentations — mostly outlines of the developer
relations techniques used by various companies — looking for ideas
that could be incorporated into Tucows’ developer relations strategy.
One slide in
particular caught my attention. Its title was Who is the Developer? and
its bullet points outlined the average developer, based on a study by
the Evans Data’s 2005 study of the developer market:
- Male (over 90% of respondents)
- 40 years old
- Married (nearly two-thirds of respondents)
- 15 years’ experience
- Loves programming and isn’t in it primarily for the money (two-thirds of respondents)
- Enjoys logic and puzzles (57% of respondents)
- Skills picked up mostly on the job or self-taught (75% of respondents)
My own experience is not the norm (in fact, the master of
ceremonies at my friend Rob’s wedding introduced me as “a guy whose
life was engineered to be offbeat”), having spent most of my career at
start-ups and oddball companies. I expected that the average developer
would be thirty and single with closer to five years’ experience.
Upon further reflection, I realized that as of a month ago, I match
those stats. That’s a little frightening. Confronted with
this realization, a lesser man might admit defeat, program an “easy
rock” station into his radio, buy a Ford Taurus and restock the
wardrobe with golf shirts and elastic-waistband slacks.
But me? I’m cool.
(Alternate title: In which our hero shows that he’s been reading too many articles about these new–style web applications)
The scene: the Tucows offices, early afternoon.
Co-worker: Hey, Joey! How’s married life treating you?
Me [making finger quotes, a.k.a. “sarcasm tongs”]: “Married life?” What is this, the twentieth century? It’s now called Life 2.0.
Categories
“Something Positive” on Anne Rice
The webcomic Something Positive has its own take on Anne Rice’s change of subject matter (which I wrote about in this entry). Here’s a sample:
Click on the image to see the whole comic.
My friend and former housemate Paul Baranowski is a developer with Campware, an organization whose purpose is to “develop, distribute, support and implement useful tools for independent news media in emerging democracies.” As such, he keeps up with the literature on Open Source, such as O’Reilly’s book-in-progress, Open Sources 2.0: The Continuing Evolution.
The book’s introduction [link leads to a PDF file] covers the spirit of open source by describing the vibrant gift economy that exists within the annual bacchanal Burning Man, which takes place in Black Rock Desert, Nevada. I attended in 1999 — the year I took up the accordion — and as a result, make a blink-and-you’ll-miss-it appearance on page XXXIV:
Unfettered from monetary exchange, however, most denizens of Burning Man gravitate toward a gift economy. Acts of giving range from the mundane to the extravagant: the accordion player who serenades those in the porta-potty line with his renditions of AC/DC; the massage therapist volunteering her services; the water-gun brigade, spraying people down for a moment of cool relief from the midday sun; or the man who brings along a week’s supply of dry ice so he can serve cold ice cream every day.
Categories
R.I.P. Rosa Parks
Rosa Parks get processed after breaking the law by
refusing to give up her seat for a white guy. Click to see the photo at
full size.
Rosa Parks passed away yesterday at the age of ninety-two.
Thanks, Ms. Parks — because you refused to give up your seat for the wrong reason, I don’t have to, either.
(Mind you, I’m an able-bodied relatively young man, and I still give up
my seat for ladies, older folks and really-tired looking parents with
young children.)
Sometimes when things come down hard on you — like being razzed by
your own supporters for your choice of Supreme Court Nominee and
members of your posse getting indicted — you have to go for whatever
little victories you can get. In this case, the victory in question is
putting the smackdown on The Onion. The New York Times reports:
“It has come to my attention that The Onion is using the
presidential seal on its Web site,” Grant M. Dixton, associate counsel
to the president, wrote to The Onion on Sept. 28. (At the time, Mr.
Dixton’s office was also helping Mr. Bush find a Supreme Court nominee;
days later his boss, Harriet E. Miers, was nominated.)
Citing
the United States Code, Mr. Dixton wrote that the seal “is not to be
used in connection with commercial ventures or products in any way that
suggests presidential support or endorsement.” Exceptions may be made,
he noted, but The Onion had never applied for such an exception.