Even for those of you who don’t think it’s good immigration policy, it’s still good career and life advice.
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OpenHack Ybor’s August gathering at New World Brewery.
Click the photo to see it at full size.
If you’re in the Tampa area tonight and would like to get to know your fellow developers, show off your current passion project, find out what their passion projects are, and enjoy some pizza and beer (or whatever beverage you like) in a friendly, convivial atmosphere, you might want to come to tonight’s OpenHack Ybor meetup!
Another scene from the meetup at New World Brewery.
OpenHack Ybor, held once a month at one of Ybor City’s many beer-dispensing hangouts, is run by local Ruby developer Tony Winn for software developers of all stripes who want to get to know other local developers, see what they’re up to, and enjoy some free pizza. We’ve already had two OpenHack Ybor meetups — the first at the new pub at Coppertail Brewing, and the second at New World Brewery. Tonight’s meetup, which starts at 6:30, takes place at the Brass Tap in Centro Ybor.
Tonight’s meetup location: Brass Tap in Centro Ybor.
If you’d like to attend, RSVP on OpenHack Ybor’s meetup page (there’s no admission, the pizza is free, you’ll have to buy your own beer) so that Tony’s got an idea of how many will be there and can order pizza accordingly. It’s fun, it’s friendly, and it’s one of my go-to geek events. I’ll be there, and I hope to see you there too!
This article originally appeared on my tech blog, Global Nerdy.
Those of you outside Canada may not be aware that there’s an upcoming federal election on October 29, 2015. Compared to other countries, our elections campaign periods are relatively quick; at eleven weeks, this one’s will be the longest and most expensive in modern Canadian history. Canadian elections are also typically dull affairs compared to those in America and other places, but this one’s turning out to be somewhat different.
The latest candidate for the incumbent Conservative Party of Canada to stumble is Jerry Bance, who’s running in the contested Toronto riding (that’s Canadian for “electoral district”) of Scarborough Rouge Park. When he’s not running on behalf of Canada’s most dickish party, he owns and operates XPress Appliance Service, which will soon be Canada’s least-wanted home repair company. That’s because he was caught on hidden camera peeing into a customer’s mug while on a service call.
Here’s the video:
The footage was shot in 2012 for the CBC television show Marketplace, a “consumer watchdog” show that airs the sort of pieces you’d expect, from product tests and safety to exposing the bad practices of shady businesses. According to Wikipedia, Marketplace has helped influence changes in Canada, from the banning of urea formaldehyde foam insulation and lawn darts, to the creation of new regulations for less-flammable children’s pajamas and safer baby crib design, to the successful prosecution of retailers for false advertising.
The video appears in “When the Repairman Knocks,” a special one-hour episode of Marketplace that aired on March 2, 2012 that looked into the “skills and ethics of home repair services”. They set up a house with hidden cameras, called a number of home service companies to work on simple repairs and watched what happened. They probably expected to be overcharged a couple of times and see some half-assed jobs.
They probably didn’t expect to see a repair person do the following:
- Do a quick check to confirm that no one was in the kitchen
- Grab a mug from the dish drying rack
- Pee into it
- Empty the mug into the sink
- Give the mug a quick rinse
- Leave the mug in the sink
When contacted by CBC news for comment, Bance made this statement:
I deeply regret my actions on that day. I take great pride in my work and the footage from that day does not reflect who I am as a professional or a person.
To which I must reply:
Bullshit. It absolutely reflects on who you are as a professional and person. Character is what you do when you think nobody’s watching.
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Back to the Florida
It’s funny because it’s true:
Based on a meme posted on Florida Street Scene that I found
via Monique Guggino.
Found via Porkbones’ Facebook account. Click to see the source.
Erika downgraded, but still may cause flooding
Erika, which has caused death and destruction in Dominica, the Dominican Republic, and Haiti, has weakened from a tropical storm to a “low pressure trough” over the weekend, but it still means heavy rain in the area. Once again, Accordion Bay avoids another hurricane thanks to its fortunate location. A flood watch for central Florida is in effect today, and you should expect that traffic will be worse than usual today. With this summer’s wet weather, we’re poised to break some records.
It’s okay to fail
Sanders Memorial Elementary is a new magnet school in Land O’Lakes (where Edward Scissorhands was filmed!), and it has four core principles:
- Students first
- Learners have voice and choice
- Positive relationships lead to positive outcomes
- Failing forward
That last one may have jumped out at you, and not just because I put it in bold text. It also jumped out at district communication director Linda Cobbe when Sanders Memorial Elemntary’s principal Jason Petry announced them, but to his credit, he stuck to his guns.
Click the image to see it at full size.
The idea of embracing failure is a popular one the world of tech startups that I come from, where the risk of failure is high. While failure is unpleasant, we also know that it’s a good teacher. That’s why the startup world has slogans like “Fail fast!” and events like FailCamp. The idea is to deal with failure, take whatever lessons you can from the experience and try again, armed with that new knowledge.
If you take the opposite task and teach outright fear of failure, you get lessons like this classic one from Homer Simpson:
“Kids, you tried your best…and you failed miserably. The lesson is: never try.”
Public works admin behind the St. Pete “Poonami” retires to “spend more time with the wife and family”
When someone decides to suddenly leave or retire from a job to “spend more time with the family,” you know that they’ve been “voluntold” to vamoose in the wake of a royal screw-up. This is most likely the case with suddenly-retiring Mike Connors, now former public works admin for St. Pete. A series of literally shitty decisions to discharge untreated sewage into places where it should not go, including Clam Bayou and Frenchman’s Creek, places where people boat and swim, is the most probably cause of Connors’ sudden surplus of free time.
As the folks at local paper Creative Loafing put it: “We’d also like to wish Connors well in whatever he does next, just as long as he doesn’t have any control over human waste or its final destination.”
Here you go: it’s the video from my Florida Man and Woman: The Heroes We Need presentation at Ignite Tampa Bay 2015!
My fantastic wife Anitra shot the video at the event, which took place at the Cuban Club in Tampa’s Ybor City neighborhood on Thursday, August 27. I was one of 20 speakers to make a presentation in the Ignite format, where you have only 5 minutes to get your point across, and you’re backed by a 20-slide presentation where the slides advance automatically every 15 seconds. It’s challenging, and for someone like me, who feeds off speaking to crowds, it’s a thrill!
We speakers didn’t know our order of appearance until 5:00 that evening, and that’s when I’d discovered I’d been scheduled to be second last. I took this as a great compliment — at a long public speaking event, you want a strong finish and should save a couple of really engaging speakers for the end. My thanks to organizers Sean Davis and Joy Randels for believing in me!
For the super-curious, I’ve posted my slides and notes in an earlier article on this blog.