Author: Ruby Sinreich

Visual problem-solving: 5 diagrams

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As you probably figured out if you follow me on Twitter, I had the pleasure of attending South by Southwest Interactive this year. (Only my second time, and the first since 2006.) I went to over 15 different panels and talks, and most were excellent. I did a lot of live-tweeting of the good ideas from them as @HASTAC (a shared work alter ego).

Only one session inspired me to actually take notes and it was the shortest one I attended. Visual Problem Solving: 5 Diagrams in 15 Minutes was led by Dean Myers who quickly demonstrated the use of 5 techniques for visualizing thought processes. I consider myself a mostly-visual thinker, but I’m also pretty linear/logical in my thought (and I can’t draw at all) so I’m a big fan of diagrams. I was familiar with most of these examples, but I really appreciated how they were presented as a toolbox, with the different advantages and features of each.

So with no further delay: here are my notes from this session. Sorry I haven’t had time to illustrate it visually as I should, so I am scanning in Dean’s hand out… Continue reading “Visual problem-solving: 5 diagrams” →

Do you play Spore or Little Big Planet? Friend me up!

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My Spore thingThanks to the MacArthur Foundation’s partnerships with EA and Sony for the Digital Media and Learning Competition, I am learning more about the games Little Big Planet (on PS3) and Spore: Galactic Adventures (on Mac or Windows).

I haven’t had as much time as I’d like to play them (of course) but I have been dipping my toe in the water. In Spore I have graduated from the primordial ooze on up to “creature stage,” and in LBP I have been exploring The Savannah and unlocked the tools to make my own “level” in the game.

Ruby GBeing the social network junkie that I am, one of the features I tend to check out first are the profiles and friends. But sadly, I don’t have any friends on either network! If you play one of these games, would you friend me up? Of course I’m rubyji in both My Spore and the the PlayStation network.

Also, what are your favorite sources of information about these games and communities of game players? I ask especially because I have also been tasked with reaching out to LBP and Spore players around the competition to let them know they can submit content they make (or plan to make) in these games for awards of up to $50,000! Please pass on the web site DMLcompetition.net to people who might be interested, and/or tell me where to follow up.

Celebrating at 7 months

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Last weekend, I was looking at Izzy and he seemed to age before my eyes. On Saturday, I took him with me canvassing door-to-door for my old friend Mark Kleinschmidt who was running for Mayor of Chapel Hill. Izzy enjoyed it most of the way, and I figured it couldn’t hurt to entice voters with an adorable, friendly baby. It seems to have worked, because on Tuesday Izzy turned 7 months old and he also attended the victory party of the next Mayor of Chapel Hill! (He had already gone home to bed by the time the picture below was taken.)
UNITAS posse Continue reading “Celebrating at 7 months” →

Official Ruby Sinreich Voting Guide ™ for 2009

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Also posted at OrangePolitics, where you can get lots of people’s endorsements.

This year is full of races in which my choice is either quite obvious or not at all clear. For those who want it, here is the official Ruby Sinreich Voting Guide ™ for 2009. I’ll link to the OP profile for those who have accounts, but note that all the candiates’ web sites are available on the OP election page.

I’ll start with the easiest ones: Mark Kleinschmidt for Mayor of Chapel Hill, and Mark Chilton for Mayor of Carrboro. Both are people I have known for nearly 20 years, so I can say with a lot of confidence that they are smart, ethical, brave, and skilled leaders. But don’t take my word for it – they have extensive records as both elected officials and as activists for social, economic, and environmental justice. Mark Chilton’s record as Mayor and his participation here on OP speak well for him. Mark Kleinschmidt has rightly been called "the conscience of the Council" but he is also a practical policymaker and consensus-builder who knows how to get things done.

I have a hard choice to make for Chapel Hill Town Council because I have concerns about every candidate in the race, including incumbents. With some hesitation, I will be voting for Penny Rich, Ed Harrison, Laurin Easthom, and Gene Pease. In spite of my concerns, I believe they are all knowledgeable about town government and are reasonable people who will work together with their colleagues to find the best solutions to our collective problems.

If I lived in Carrboro, I would have an easy choice and vote for Jacquie Gist, Randee Haven-O’Donnell, and Sammy Slade. Carrboro is doing a pretty good job (although I don’t get the hysteria over 5-story buildings) and these three are well-equipped to continue this work. Sammy is an example of one of those activists who is frequently rabble-rousing and you wish they would put their money where their mouth is and do the hard work. Well that’s exactly what he’s doing by running for Board of Aldermen and I’m glad to see him doing it.

The hardest of all this year is the School Board. I like what I know of nearly all the candidates, and from what I know about School Board issues, I have trouble distinguishing many of them! Joe Green has the strong support of the local NAACP (via the Breakfast Club), which is a voice I trust on school issues especially. I was impressed with him when he applied for Town Council last year, and I’m glad to see he’s remained involved. I honestly don’t know which two will get my other votes, so I will refrain from commenting until I figure it out.

If I lived in Hillsborough, I would vote for the incumbents because the lone challenger hasn’t offered any reason not to, and his solitude in that race seems like a statement of satisfaction from Hillsborough voters.

For more suggestions form other voters, visit http://www.orangepolitics.org/2009/10/the-most-important-endorsement

Incompetence defined?

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I’m removing any identifying information (at least for now) to protect the guilty, but I just need to vent about what a frustrating experience I am having with one of the many people that is working on one of the many Drupal sites that I am currently responsible for. I have been asking for RSS feeds to be enabled for months. I recently got a message saying that this was done and to view an example post on the test site. Below is the actual reply that I had to write in response.

____, this does not work at all. For example, on the link you sent, the RSS icon links the ENTIRE SITE’S BLOG feed instead of the feed for THAT POST, and if you go to that blogger’s archive, there are two feed icons (one next to each blog entry) linking to the feed for the ENTIRE SITE’S FORUMS, when that page should have ONE icon at the bottom with a link to THAT BLOGGER’s feed.

All I want it to do is the default Drupal behavior!

Sometimes I’m amazed that I even have words to explain that I want X to function as X. How am I even explaining this to someone who gets paid to make web sites?

Tweets from 2009-08-10

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Tweets from 2009-08-09

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  • Grandma at home with Izzy, parents on the way to #BarCampRDU… #
  • So far most of the sessions pitched at #barcamprdu are too technical for me. Thinking about pitching a mini #predevcamp session. #palm #pre #
  • . @ncho I’m bummed that you’re not here, too! #barcamprdu in reply to ncho #
  • Looking at http://developer.palm.com in preparation for my #BarCampRDU session on #PalmPre development for noobs. #
  • RT @moonshark: learning about the < ieCanSuckIt > tag Clinton claims will be in HTML5 Hrmmm… #BarCampRDU #
  • Promise I will blog my list of way to make the #PalmPre better. Thx to the guys who came to my #predevcamp for noobs at #barcamprdu #
  • Thanks especially to @mgkimsal and @moonshark for making the #palmpre discussion at #barcampRDU much more useful & interesting. #
  • Now in @snoopdave’s session on #opensocial and wishing Facebook would get with the program. #barcampRDU. #
  • @hariharank12 Hi, I’m a person, not the language. Just FYI. #wrongruby in reply to hariharank12 #
  • @DJDAZMIX I’m not a cafe, and I’m not in Santa Barbara either. Have fun tonight! #wrongruby in reply to DJDAZMIX #
  • Looking forward to hearing the report out of @brianr’s #geekdad session at #barcamprdu. Pls tweet if yr in there. #
  • RT @dgtlpapercuts: In #geekdad session by @brianr He wants to get his 4 mo old son in front of command line ASAP. #barcamprdu #
  • @steveburnett Aw. Best of luck with yr plumbing. 🙁 You will be missed at #BarCampRDU. in reply to steveburnett #
  • Save some for the rest of us. 😉 RT @lazyphiphi: Mmmm…this JQuery koolaid is tasty. #barcamprdu #
  • Thanks @SteveBurnett for the reminder about the awesome Sun-Ra-inspired event in Durham today. http://is.gd/288B8 #
  • Cool – the women’s room at RedHat has a private room for nursing! (Nice place for pumping as well.) #lactation #motherhood #barcampRDU #
  • Debated attending sessions on #productivity or #polka at #barcampRDU. Chose the former, but reserving the right to go dance instead. #
  • Finding that the submariner model may not work as well for non-programmers. Or may be better In diff intervals (per @timross). #barcampRDU #
  • RT @kanter: #tcamp09 mentions IBM four eyes – visualization site – here’s a wealth of resources on the topic http://bit.ly/flUOv #
  • Kick butt, Dave! RT @dcm: about to lead a discussion on transparency in financial regulation…. yes, you read that right #tcamp09 #
  • Some good suggestions from participants about how to be a submariner (ie: focus) when your coworkers don’t support it. #barcampRDU #
  • Finally going to check out Google Wave (@ #barcampRDU) b/c @BrianR keeps telling me I will dig it. Is everyone here b/c they want invites? #
  • @BillHiggins I’m watching you type. 🙂 #barcamprdu #googlewave #
  • Note the Wave demo is being done in Chrome browser. Another way for #Google to suck us into the Borg… #barcampRDU #thenextMicrosoft #
  • http://twitpic.com/d6n93 – Google Wave tries to answer the Q “what would e-mail look like if i t was invented today?” Demo @ #barcampRDU #
  • @BillHiggins Cool. Is Google committed to making Wave work on other browsers? in reply to BillHiggins #
  • Thk U, Dave! Rtwt @snoopdave: thanks for attending my #barcamprdu OpenSocial session; here’s the link to my slides again http://bit.ly/bbinA #
  • Hey, when did @Twitter change search? It’s themed with my account and I can save searches in my sidebar. eg: http://is.gd/28eUS #
  • Really should have gotten off my ass and gone to @vintagedance’s polka session at #barcampRDU. #do-overs #
  • I think the robots in Google Wave are going to take over the world. #beafraid #planetfthebots #
  • @spader I’m a person, not the language. Stick with the #ruby hashtag. 😉 #wrongruby in reply to spader #
  • Oh right! RT @rossgrady: We call it ManyEyes: http://manyeyes.alphaworks.ibm.com (#tcamp09 mentions IBM four eyes – visualization site) #
  • Ten Ten Chinese Buffet in Raleigh FTL. 🙁 It was my own bad idea, but I hope I never eat there again. #
  • @chillnc That sounds like a pretty nice way to spend a day. And spend an hour catching up on Twitter and it’ll be almost like being there. in reply to chillnc #
  • (Sort of) wishing I had the time to do something like learn javascript and create Palm Pre apps. #

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