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OUTSPOKEN INTROVERTS AND SHY EXTROVERTS

2023-05-23 jer_

Some months back I left my last employer and started a new gig, and as a result
I am back at zero in trying to overcome my innate introversion for long enough
to meet and integrate with a whole new team. It’s a lot. It also is an
opportunity to reflect on the misunderstanding a lot of folks have about the
nature of being an introvert.

Continue reading Outspoken Introverts and Shy Extroverts →
mepseudointellectualismwork


2022 XMAS MOVIE ADVENT CALENDAR

2022-12-29 jer_

I watch a distressing amount of Christmas movies during the season, so this year
I thought I’d share my awkward obsession with you all in the form of a Christmas
Movie Advent Calendar! Starting on December 1st, I posted a new holiday movie
each day until Christmas Eve on social media with the tag
#XMasMovieAdventCalendar. Below is the list of ESSENTIAL(ish?) Christmas flicks.

Continue reading 2022 XMas Movie Advent Calendar →
Christmasme


2022 LANCE FAMILY HOLIDAY CARD

2022-12-05 jer_

Happy Holidays from Ger, Bowser, Yoshi, Koopa, and Jer!

Both Ger and I fondly recall playing the games on the backs of cereal boxes (or
looking on with envy at the much cooler games on the backs of sugar cereals were
were not allowed to consume, in some cases!!), so this year’s card theme is a
cereal box replete with games and nutritional information!

The card can be found below, and below that, the answer key to the games, so be
careful scrolling if you don’t want spoilers!

Continue reading 2022 Lance Family Holiday Card →
Christmasfamilyhumor


LEADERSHIP, EMPATHY, AND BURNOUT

2022-10-03 jer_



First, a thread on management, empathy, and burnout. You should read this before
(or instead of?) this post



I first ran across this thread in early 2021 a couple of months into the COVID
pandemic response (and all the stress that came along with that), and I doubt a
week has gone in the year since that I haven’t thought about it. It lives in the
top of my consciousness, and I highly suggest you give it a read before (or
instead of) this post.

The question that kicked it off is an astute one: is burnout for management
inevitable for people who actually care about the wellbeing of other people? I
have thoughts.
Continue reading Leadership, Empathy, and Burnout →

leadershiplifemanagementmetwitterwork


THE NEW LEADER’S BOOKSHELF

2021-01-31 jer_ 1 Comment

It will come as no surprise to anyone that knows me that books have played an
incredibly important role in my leadership growth. The only thing that I can
think of that has had as much an impact has been finding opportunities to be on
both sides of mentorships, but books have been the most consistent throughline
on my journey. <shameless plug> If you’re so inclined, you can listen to Dawn
and I talk about leadership books, even.</shameless plug>

Even as much as I love books and learning, I freely confess that “self help”
books—especially those devoted to professional development or leadership
skills—are a mixed bag, and that mixture is not weighted toward quality. The
field is rife with trite, repackaged ideas; facile derivations of more
established works (do we need more Zen and the Art of Leadership or The Art of
War for Managers?); incredibly vague pap; or dangerously misguided approaches.
However, there are gems out there.

It was while sifting through some of that morass to recommend such gems to a
colleague that I had an idea: putting together a “bookshelf” of sorts for the
new leader. My goals are simple: a manageable number of books that would guide a
leader from “I am pretty sure I want to lead” through “oh shit, I have a team
now what” without being overwhelming or excessively jargon-y or attempting to be
overtly clever—oh, and without breaking the bank.

This is the result. A dozen books that divided themselves naturally into three
discrete phases of becoming a leader that, if you bought them all at once, would
set you back roughly $200. The intention is that these books can be read in
order at a comfortable pace—usually around one every month or two—and that their
lessons can be put into practice by leaders and aspiring leaders alike.

Continue reading The New Leader’s Bookshelf →

booksleadershipmanagement


MY DIMINISHED UNIVERSE

2021-01-09 jer_

As is true for most of you, I didn’t start 2020 with the intention of spending
most of my waking hours in the same room in my home for months without end. My
home office was, therefore, very much set up to accommodate my normal
usage—playing video games, recording podcasts, and occasionally hobby coding—and
to be “good enough” for the day or two each month I worked from home.

It did not take long to establish that what was sufficient for a few days a
month was less than ideal for every day use. I believe my exact quote roughly a
month in was “okay, this is about some bullshit right here.”

What followed has been an iterative process of tweaking my setup until it
manages to satisfy my needs for work and for personal uses. All in, it’s taken
about 8 months of calendar time, but that has amounted to probably one full day
a month spent making significant changes to experiment with how things can be
improved. I thought, then, I’d share with you!

Continue reading My Diminished Universe →
lifetechwork


THE BEST CHRISTMAS ALBUM OF ALL TIME! (VOLUME 3)

2020-12-05 jer_

It’s been five years since I first posted a playlist that I humbly referred to
as the Best Christmas Album of All Time. The following year I, with nary a whiff
of irony, posted a new playlist that also purports to be the Best Christmas
Album of All Time, albeit a second volume. Doing a third entry seemed positively
indulgent, so I didn’t…for a while. But Christmas music—for some reason that I’m
sure years of therapy would help me uncover—is a thing that makes me happy, and
if ever there was a year in need of a little happiness this is it.

So the Best Christmas Album of All Time has grown one volume larger and, as a
result, one album better. Feel free to listen along on whatever Google has
foisted off on us as this year’s music platform as you read (or just listen and
don’t read)(or hey, don’t read OR listen, I’m not your supervisor).

Enjoy! (or not, again, not your supervisor) Continue reading The Best Christmas
Album of All Time! (Volume 3) →

Christmasmusic


SUPPORTING THE PROTESTS

2020-06-01 jer_

All in this weekend you donated nearly $1300 and I am humbled by your generosity
and your empathy. Based on the distribution of the donations (and given the
guidance from the Minnesota Freedom Fund and the fact that the Black Visions MN
fundraiser ended on Saturday) we are allocating our matching funds roughly
proportionately to each of the following:

 1. George Floyd’s Family GoFundMe
 2. Detroit’s The Bail Project
 3. Reclaim the Block



If you haven’t had a moment to donate, please take the time to support these
worthy causes (or similar causes in your area).

Alongside these donations were messages of hope, of support, and of relief at
being able to do something, even if merely donate.

There is more that you can to, though. It is important that our slacktivism
doesn’t end at writing a check and walking away. Become an active voice in your
community about how policing happens, about how our judicial system fails black
citizens, and in support of minority candidates whose qualifications don’t
percolate into visibility in our society.

But also, become educated. Add black authors and directors to your repertoire.
Read about history beyond the whitewashed (I learned late in life to my utter
horror) facts they taught in school. While you’re bringing diversity to what you
culturally absorb, encourage your social circle to do the same. Talk about what
you learn. Don’t let misinformation float uncorrected.

These are general ideas, but there is a great list of specific action items that
I am starting to work my way through.

I do want to respond to one particular brand of message that came through:
messages chastising me for “celebrating”, “cheering”, and “applauding for” the
riots. I want to be entirely clear, I do not pleased about these rights. I find
this situation tragic and horrible. I find it horrible that we as a society have
failed our black fellows so abysmally that they have turned to destroying
property. I’m saddened by it, and I’m upset by it.

It’s also depressing how much our schools have failed those of you that cite the
black civil rights movement’s non-violent nature as the reason it “succeeded”
(and success remains locked behind scare quotes like a disproportionate number
of free black men and women remain locked behind bars). You forget that our
government responded to growing fear that violence unrest would spread out of
the South as much as to stirring words and acts of non-violent civil
disobedience.

If you’re outraged about the property damage, I invite you to read The New
Inquiry’s article “In Defense of Looting” and perhaps grow a bit of perspective
as to why I support the looters, rioters, and protesters even as I wish they
weren’t in a position that they feel it’s necessary.

Thank you all for your generosity and please keep that spirit alive as you dive
into additional, impactful things you can do to help our fellow citizens.

charitypoliticsslacktivism


DONATIONS TO HELP MINNEAPOLIS PROTESTERS

2019-04-23 jer_

UPDATE: WE’VE JUST PASSED $500! YOUR GENEROSITY IS HUMBLING, THANK YOU ALL SO
MUCH, AND KEEP SPREADING THE WORD!

If you’re feeling as helpless as we are, you’re probably looking for what to do
to help the protesters in Minneapolis. This weekend, my wife and I are matching
the first $1,000 in donations to any of the following organizations:

 * MN Freedom Fund: https://minnesotafreedomfund.org/donate
 * Black Visions MN: https://www.payit2.com/fundraiser/98548
 * Unicorn Riot Ninja: https://secure.everyaction.com/zae4prEeKESHBy0MKXTIcQ2
 * George Floyd’s Family GoFundMe: https://www.gofundme.com/f/georgefloyd
 * The Detroit Bail Project: https://www.detroitjustice.org/the-bail-project

Here’s all you have to do…send us a redacted copy of your receipt to (me at
jerlance dot com). That’s it!

Every little bit helps, so please spread the word and donate whatever you can
afford.

charitypoliticsslacktivism


THE END OF AN ERA

2019-02-02 jer_

How’s that for a melodramatic title? “The End of an Era”? My narcissism knows no
bounds!

Today I have opted to resign from the Penguicon Board of Directors, ending more
than a decade of service to the convention nearly half of which as a member of
the Board. There are numerous reasons for this, but as much as I will discuss
publicly is described in my letter of resignation, reprinted below. Suffice to
say, this isn’t a “rage-quit”, it’s not a call to brigade those who may or may
not have done wrong, and it’s not the start of some battle. The direction of the
Board and my direction are no longer aligned and so I am distancing myself from
them; no more, no less.

I wish the Board and Penguicon both the best, and I will see you all at this
year’s event!

> Fellow Directors:
> Several years ago we as a group met with members of our community to discuss
> the concerns those members had about the direction of our newly expanded code
> of conduct and that of the extension of those guidelines by the convention
> committee. Their apprehensions were and remain valid: certainly the policies
> outlined could be abused and over-applied; similarly, these policies could be
> misapplied as zero-tolerance mechanisms for antagonism by those so inclined.
> All behavioral policies carry risks, and–without strong stewardship and
> careful oversight–ours could as easily become tools for abuse as they could
> empty words. We knew this then, and we promised to provide that stewardship
> and oversight.
> 
> I made assurances then as I did over the ensuing years that the purpose of
> those policies was not to allow such abuses and that those of us on the Board
> of Directors considered it our responsibility to ensure that these policies
> were applied evenly, intelligently, and judiciously. I made a personal promise
> on that call–a promise that I have reaffirmed numerous times in the years
> since–that I would fight overreaches of these policies as strenuously as I
> would fight to see them applied where needed; that I would not be a part of a
> governing body that allows our codes of conduct to fail to be applied nor
> would I watch them be maliciously applied. I would resign before I would be a
> part of either type of misconduct.
> 
> Since that time, I have had numerous opportunities to honor that promise
> alongside many of you. I have fought to apply the code of conduct to
> situations requiring it and I have wrestled with those that would use the
> policies as a star chamber to punish or expel those they found undesirable. I
> have found it simultaneously exhausting and fulfilling to do that alongside a
> board membership that was largely like-minded. Even when we have personally
> disagreed with one another, I have genuinely felt that we were doing the right
> thing and fighting together in the direction of that judicious, intelligent
> application of our guidelines.
> 
> Today, however, I come to the end of a much more exhausting and much less
> fulfilling period. One member of the Board seems to have decided that their
> agenda is more important than our shared mission and that any attempts that
> aren’t in alignment with that agenda are to be met with hostility and
> subversion. More recently, I have watched with some disappointment the
> formation of cliques within the organization that overlap significantly with
> the Board and that member. Those cliques, in turn, have started to leverage
> the guidelines in order to push this singular agenda and–especially since the
> January 2019 Board meeting–actively abuse the harassment guidelines with the
> goal of engineering a convention committee of their liking. I remain firmly
> devoted to our code of conduct, so much so that I cannot abide by the willful
> abuse of it; an abuse that undermines and lessens the authority of it. With
> those potential abuses now coming from within our numbers, I find that I must
> honor the second half of my promise and tender my resignation to the Board of
> Directors, effective immediately. I cannot prevent the abuses that are on the
> horizon, and I will not be a part of an organization promoting such
> malfeasance.
> 
> I wish you all well and I know that this year’s convention will be another
> amazing year. I can only hope that the remaining Directors can find someone
> with more time and energy to ensure that this mismanagement doesn’t continue
> to grow.
> 
> Thank you for the opportunity to serve,

Signed by…you know…me :)

consfandommepenguicon


16 YEARS OF GRATITUDE

2018-10-19 jer_ Leave a comment

Periodically over the years I have taken the opportunity to reminisce on this
date, the anniversary of my first day without drugs and alcohol. There are
several posts to that effect, and I’m sure there will be several more in the
future. On today’s “clean date”, I want to focus on gratitude.

I am married to a wonderful woman who is my peer, my partner, and one of my
favorite people in the world. After years of unhealthy, codependent, and
manipulative relationships, I am a part of one wherein we both make each other
better.

I have a fulfilling job that I enjoy, that I feel that I am especially good at,
and for which I am well suited. I work with a group of people that are
supportive and challenging and always help me to grow. Across the board—the team
I lead, my peers and colleagues, and the team that leads me—collectively and
individually they inspire me to do my best work and provide a nurturing
environment where a deeply flawed individual such as myself can improve and
develop.

Financially, I am grateful to be in a stable place for once in my life. In the
past I’ve made much more than I do, but at the expense of my integrity, my self
respect, and my general happiness. I have also worked an honest job for an
honest day’s pay that left my family on the brink of (and at times even beyond
the confines of) financial ruin. They say that money can’t buy happiness—and
they’re right—but a baseline amount sure can buy your way out of certain types
of misery. Today, we have the gift of comfort without sacrificing the things
that are actually important to us.

I am incredibly thankful for the relationships with my children and my (gasp)
grandchild. It was not always a given that we would have any meaningful
relationship, and the fact that I can be a witness to both my son and my
daughter as they start new lives as adults is awe inspiring (and more than a
little confusing…I cannot be old enough for this to be happening).

All of these newfound areas of stability in my life have resulted in my wife and
I becoming homeowners for the first time last year. For my entire adult life
I’ve resisted owning a home in favor of the ability to cut and run whenever the
mood suits me. For most of the last decade, I’ve kept one foot out the door,
ready to say “to hell with it all” and take on a sexy, Silicon Valley job at any
time. That’s never been what I’ve wanted, though, it’s what I have felt like I’m
supposed to want. So I’ve put down roots and nestled more firmly into what makes
me happy.

Today I have friends and acquaintances that I love and respect that love and
respect me in return. My personal relationships are not transactions and are
especially not rooted in who owes who what. I’m thankful for the ability to shed
unhealthy relationships and nurture those that are healthier. Together, we can
celebrate life’s joys and support one another when needed and simply be on this
journey together.

It is very easy to slip into cynicism, frustration, anger, or sadness today—the
world is a trash fire being hosted inside of a dumpster fire during a gasoline
monsoon, and somebody keeps playing free jazz at full volume—so I wanted to use
this anniversary of mine to remember some of the myriad reasons I have to be
grateful for my life at this time. Thanks for bearing with me during my
uncharacteristically maudlin moment, I’ll be back to dick and fart jokes soon
enough!

addictiongratitudelifeme


SOCIAL MEDIA MUSINGS

2018-09-17 jer_

It is with a degree of trepidation that I return to Twitter after a month-long
hiatus. There are numerous reasons, but my primary justification is that they’ve
finally started banning shitbags like Alex Jones, and you reward good behavior,
even if it’s late and reluctant.

A more direct reason, though, is that for all of its faults, Twitter fills a gap
that neither Facebook nor Mastodon can yet manage. Facebook is obvious; from a
ethical standpoint it is no better than Twitter (and might manage to be worse in
many ways). More impactful to me is Facebook’s lack of topic muting coupled with
it just being the wrong crowd. Facebook is where I’ve aggregated friends,
family, colleagues, and acquaintances for life updates and event planning. It
turns out that the politics of many people in those groups tends toward
horrifying.

Mastodon though, in my experience, is almost worse. Whereas Facebook and Twitter
are those racist cousins that you visit briefly until they drop an n-bomb in
front of your kids, Mastodon is that seemingly polite aunt or uncle that seems
sweet until you find out that 20% of their income goes to the Westboro Baptist
Church and they lobby to keep “certain types” out of their neighborhoods. The
former gives you the option of beating a hasty retreat or standing your ground
and fighting. The latter just makes you wonder how much your presence in their
life is advocacy of their beliefs.

Mastodon just feels uncomfortably like everyone is wearing their most
presentable mask…but as Wil Wheaton saw, the faces beneath look awfully similar.
Sure, it’s nice when it’s your “side” doing the dogpiling, but when you think of
the ramifications it does cool the enthusiasm a bit.

But Mastodon is supposed to be safer than Twitter, so at least everyone is
protected from that abuse, right? While Mastodon bills itself as more like a
roll-your-own, artisanal social media experience–just pick an instance with
whose ethos you’re aligned today, and if they abuse your trust you can just cart
it all to a different instance–but that merely serves to distribute the burden
simultaneously too broadly and not broadly enough. Wil was dumped from his
instance because he was getting dogpiled and it was excessively burdensome on
the admin. Mastodon, in a nutshell.

I hold out hope that we as an electronic community can come together and figure
out a solution to the egregious abuses, but I’ve come to believe that the
problem isn’t the network; the problem is the people. We have to solve our
social problem, not our technology problem.

Until that time, I won’t cut off one potential abuser in favor of another, this
time…although if we do run the into the problem of failing to ban painfully
obvious abusers again, it’ll again be time to go.

memetasocialtwitter


THE CLEVERNESS OF INTENT OVER CONTENT

2018-07-15 jer_

I tweeted the other day about some quizzes I had taken that yielded results that
were…unexpected. Resulting conversations ran the gamut from the relative merits
of requiring leaders of technical teams to be technical folk to simply
commiserating about the “impostor syndrome”-triggering nature of failing even a
badly done test—and I fully intend on writing about some of these—but that’s not
this post. This post is about a different concept that the assessments made me
think about; the incredible difficulty of making good testing materials and one
strategy for making better ones.



The fact that teaching people is a tricky and difficult thing should come as no
surprise, but what I found only when I had been doing it for a couple of years
was that the hard part isn’t the actual teaching itself—that part is actually
fairly simple if you know the topic really well and can communicate with any
degree of clarity. The hard part is honoring your initial intent with all of the
materials, but especially exams and the like.

I started my undergrad—well, the final time I started my undergrad—a working
software developer fully a decade into my career. By the time I sat down to take
one of my first exams in a class purported to be an introduction to programming
logic, I had been writing programs for double that time. That test bothered me
to such a degree that it haunted my thoughts for years to come as I continued my
career both as an instructor and a developer. Why was it such a terrible exam?
How could a fantastic teacher create an such a bad evaluation tool?

More than half of the test was comprised of questions best described by the
following template:

> What is the definition of {word}?
> 
>  1. Obviously wrong answer
>  2. Answer that looks right save for one very small error
>  3. Answer that could be correct, but is clearly wrong
>  4. Correct answer

Of the remaining questions, most only deviated from this formula by not
specifically requesting a definition. My favorite example from this particular
type of question (presented to you by virtue of the fact that I’m a digital
hoarder with decades of bullshit on my hard drive):

> An array is:
> 
>  1. A collection of values stored in one variable referenced by index 1 to n
>  2. A collection of values stored in one variable reference by index 0 to n-1
>  3. A single beam of light
>  4. A list of similar but unrelated items

There is a host of problems with this question, but for someone who spent some
time programming in Pascal and Fortran both in school and professionally in the
years prior to this exam, this question was really galling.1

The crux of the problem is, there wasn’t even any point in the latter half of
the text of the “correct” answer. It’s clearly very clumsily tacked on as a
counter to the “trick” answer. Getting this question “wrong” by answering (1)
doesn’t indicate that you don’t understand the material—at best it indicates
that you were unclear on a nuance. More importantly, answering this question
“correctly” doesn’t even indicate a fundamental understanding of what an array
is—as evidenced by the lackluster results of the first practical exercises when
we used arrays.

The instructor took their eyes off the prize and forgot what their intent was in
giving the exam in the first place. So many tests make this exact mistake. The
purpose of this exam was stated in print at the top of the first page:

> The purpose of this exam is to demonstrate a basic understanding of how [to]
> use the foundational components of a computer program…

In most applications, simply knowing the definition of a word—especially to a
pedantic degree—does not afford one any more ability to be proficient in a thing
that not knowing the definition.2 Wouldn’t the following question have better
suited the purpose?

> For the following questions, use an array defined in C as follows:
> 
> char letters[5] = {“h”, “e”, “l”, “l”, “o”};
> 
> What index would you use in C to request the letter ‘e’?

Rather than the definition, if you correctly answer this question I now know if
you know how to USE this foundational component of a computer program. It’s
still an imperfect question, but already it is more aligned with my exam’s
intent. But wait! What if you need to ask a vocabulary question in order to
satisfy the intent of the exam? This isn’t uncommon, but the vocabulary question
should be phrased in a way as to satisfy understanding over recitation.

In the bad array question above, the language used in the potential answers was
directly from the teaching material. This is often done for a very rational,
well intended reason: to AVOID tricking students by changes in wording. The
problem is that it doesn’t really prove that the student understands the concept
which—again—was the stated intent of the exam. It provides evidence that they
can recite the verbiage that you provided already, not that they know what it
means. Validating understanding of vocabulary in a way that is quickly and
easily gradable (read: non-short answer) is tricky, but there are a number of
strategies that have been shown to have success.

Most commonly, multiple choice (as above) but with the actual correct answer
being a derivation of the textbook answer and the other answers being
derivations of other vocabulary items in the material being taught. This can be
done in the single format (again, as above), or it can be done in a many-to-many
format (as in “draw a line between the word and its definition”). Asking the
respondent to select synonyms and/or antonyms can also be valuable in some
cases.

Strategies notwithstanding (and if you’d like more in depth information on
strategies like these, I highly recommend How Learning Works by Abrose, Bridges,
et al), all of this is secondary to resolutely ensuring that you choose
mechanisms for evaluation that adhere to the reason that you chose to evaluate
the student to begin with.

It is challenging. Even with this knowledge, and even after taking numerous
courses on pedagogy, I still struggled with making my testing materials valuable
to students. Some time after I had taken this fraught exam, I found myself
giving exams that were in no way better than those I am describing here. During
one frustrating exam creation session, I got up, walked to the dry erase board
in my office, and wrote the following3 in huge letters directly in my line of
sight:

> I want to know that students that pass this exam will know exactly how to use
> the things I test them on here in practical ways, and that students that get
> questions wrong will know exactly what they need to study to be able to use
> those things.
> 
> I want no students that know the answer to a question to get it wrong.
> 
> I don’t want my exam to be clever, I want my students to be clever.

Simply, I wrote my objective statement where I could see it. I made my
intent…well…intentional, and I did so in a manner that increased the likelihood
that it would impact my actual behavior. The positive direction that this pushed
my teaching and my students was palpable. The test that I was writing at the
time immediately felt more “right” to me than any I had created before. Each
subsequent quiz and exam moved closer and closer to the ideal I had in mind
because each time I looked at my material I found new ways that it wasn’t
honoring my intention. As my skill as an instructor improved, so, too, did my
ability to find ways to meet those objectives.

The results weren’t simply gut feel, though. Exam scores improved, but more
importantly so did the results of all project work and labs. My sample was
small, but my pass rate went up by a small-but-measurable percentage. Better
still, the students that came out of my classes started being lauded as
particularly “well prepared” for higher-level courses to follow. In short, I
hadn’t made the tests easier—I had made them more effective.

Years after this epiphany (and I use that term very loosely, here), I had the
pleasure of getting positive feedback from a student at the end of my course.
She was switching careers from a decidedly non-technical field to that of a
developer, and among the things she said one that stood out to me was the
observation that her test anxiety and impostor syndrome did not manifest so
intensely on my exams; that, as she opined, the exams “didn’t try to make her
feel stupid.” Her software career has surpassed my own at this point and I
delight in the idea that this change in course might have played some small part
in that.

In my experience, there’s no magic bullet that creates great exams. It is only
through conscious, mindful attention to the goals of the exercise that you can
hope to end up with the desired result. Conscious, mindful attention…and a
ridiculous amount of practice. As an aside to the armchair quarterbacks out
there mean-spiritedly snarking about “shitty tests” I extend this invitation:
create an exam about something you know very well and see how difficult it is to
make something of which you can be proud. I think you’ll be surprised.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

1 The “correct” answer was 2, but Pascal, Fortran, and numerous other languages
start their indices at 1 rather than 0. Further, most modern languages (even at
that time) allow for non-numeric indices, making the question even more grossly
inaccurate.

2 There are exceptions, obviously—knowing what “flammable” or “caustic” means
could be pretty important in a lab setting, for example.

3 In reality, it was probably something very similar, it subtly mutated over
time, but this is pretty close to what I wrote.

presentingteaching


PENGUICON 2018 PANELS

2018-03-26 jer_

I began planning for this year’s Penguicon with the best of intentions. I put
together a handful of panels that I wanted to do and submitted them on time,
like a proper planner. Then I agreed to be a panelist on a couple that seemed to
be a good fit. Of course, I forgot about the recurring board panel. So now my
current load for Penguicon is 6 sessions. I’ve done worse, but, I’ve certainly
done better :) I don’t know exactly when they’ll be at the moment, but this is
WHAT they’ll be: Continue reading Penguicon 2018 Panels →

conferencesconsmepresenting


“THANKS FOR YOUR SERVICE”

2017-11-11 jer_

I’ve always felt a little uncomfortable being thanked for my service; typically
I wave it off with some reference to the wasteful, frivolous, and dangerous way
that I spent much of my enlistment. I don’t like to talk much about what my
service meant to me, and there are so many amusing stories to tell instead that
I tend to just focus on those. Continue reading “Thanks for your service” →

memilitary


CAUGHT UNAWARE

2017-08-08 jer_

If you’re in tech and you’ve visited social media or read any news sites in the
past week, you’ve probably familiarized yourself with a certain sad and lonely
manifesto that’s been making the rounds. (If you’re a woman in tech and you’ve
somehow avoided reading it thus far, it’s probably a good idea to continue
skipping it; nary a new idea to be found.) Continue reading Caught Unaware →

developmentfeminismmanagementranttech


MOVING SALE

2017-07-30 jer_

As part of our move, Ger and I are getting rid of a number of things we no
longer need. Our plan is to put a list below, if you want any of this, let one
of us know and make an offer: we will accept the first reasonable offer for each
item provided you can pick it up on the weekend of 8/12-8/13.

Anything that doesn’t find a home with one of y’all gets donated to Goodwill
that weekend.

The items:

 * Leather Futon: great shape, barely used
 * Countertop Dishwasher: this works surprisingly well, connects to the sink
   directly (no need for plumbing work) and served admirably for a family of 2-3
 * Server Rack: 5′ tall and 3′ deep with cable management, a few shelves,
   removable sides and doors, and a power strip…note, it’s fairly heavy SOLD
 * Shoe Cabinet: the Hemnes cabinet from Ikea near our front door… holds 12 pair
   of shoes  SOLD

I’m sure I’m missing some that I’ll add here as I come across them.

lifelocalmoving


BEING A PROFESSIONAL

2017-05-21 jer_

For the past 20 minutes or so, I’ve been sitting at a table at a professional
conference—an impostor in the natural habitat of the Business Professional.
Continue reading Being a Professional →

conferencesconsmesocialwork


CURRENT EVENTS, RUSSIA, AND CONVICTION

2017-05-13 jer_

It has been quite a week for politics, hasn’t it? In case you haven’t been
paying close attention, allow me to catch you up to just some of the goings on:

On Tuesday, Trump fired the Director of the FBI, James Comey. He did so citing a
letter from Deputy Attorney General Rosenstein recommending Comey’s removal. The
American people are to believe that the testimony from the day before by Sally
Yates (the former Attorney General that Trump fired for not rubber stamping
illegal activity) about the Trump camp being well aware of Flynn’s problematic
association with Russia is mere coincidence.

More coincidence? The request Comey made to Rosenstein for additional funds to
expand the FBI investigation into Russian interference in the election that
ultimately won Trump the presidency that happened just days before Rosenstein
recommended—and Trump executed—Tuesdays firing. Continue reading Current Events,
Russia, and Conviction →


ON THE NEED TO MAKE GREAT THINGS GREAT AGAIN

2017-05-01 jer_ 1 Comment

Among my plans for the day, today, was to put together a quick writeup
congratulating the staff of Penguicon for throwing an undeniably successful
convention—the 15th in a series! Instead, I’d like to take a moment to respond
to a long-time attendee’s paen to modern divisive politics; a blog post with the
snappy title “Make Penguicon Great Again.” In his post, Jay “Tron Guy” Maynard
makes the assertion that Penguicon has fallen to the “leftists” and resulting
event is no longer one that is comfortable for people like him.  Continue
reading On the Need to Make Great Things Great Again →

consfandompoliticsrant


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