Planet Nonado

Top notch nonsense from Team Seamie and Andy, enlightening the unwashed ignorant masses as to the inadvisability of trusting ‘Stone Cold Mulhearn’ with your personal safety during a zombie attack, and informing us that “You’re not going to be happy in a bucket of your own sweat.” Quality stuff, gentlemen. Keep up the good work.

Sophisticated Ignorance is a delightfully whimsical waste of 10 minutes each and every Wednesday morning.

Warning: Some of the language is unsuitable for children. And adults. And probably most pets.

Soon, it will be Ciara and Ben’s Big Day. I look forward to a fun day and many entertaining speeches. And Ciara and Ben living happily ever after, of course. Hurrah!

Due to illness I had a little down time this week. As I recovered, rather than attempt to focus on anything actually critical / work related, I devoted some time to migrating all my old blog posts from their heavily customised blosxom roots to this new shiny WordPress instance.

A little PHP code and a dash of XMLRPC later I had a passable file parser and importer, though I failed to work out what magic incantations are required to set the category in WordPress. Fortunately, it was simple to bulk-edit the posts once they were imported and change their category from ‘Uncategorised’ to something more appropriate.

All in all, 602 historic posts imported and no planets or blog aggregators spammed (that I’m aware of.) Success!

…delicious, nutritious and absolutely definitely one of the finest fusion food items I have invented this weekend. I was going to add a photo, but I eated it. (The Chicken Jalfrezi Baguette, not the photo.)

Once again security theatre strikes Gatwick Airport in the UK. My walking through the metal detector set it off, prompting the lady supervising to indicate I had been “chosen” to walk through the new millimeter wave scanner. I fly regularly, and am reasonably certain I had no metal on my person, though I understand the metal detectors periodically alert on a random passenger as a control case. I’m now fairly used to asking to opt out of millimeter wavelength scanners, and did so – something they deal with regularly and simply in the US by performing a slightly more intrusive pat-down. I have no problem with this. Pat-downs are unlikely to have a cumulative medical effect.

This time, however, the lady informed me that once I had been chosen, there was no option to opt out, and indeed my only option was to leave the airport and not board my flight. She helpfully offered to call her supervisor, who confirmed that this was indeed the new law – a law enforced (or enacted – I forget his exact words) by the Department of Transport. No pat-down could be offered; no personal search could be considered; no alternative verification of security could be countenanced and my only option was indeed to not board my flight.

In between his assurances that this ‘new’ scanning technology was safe, and emitted less radiation than a mobile phone call (“one tenth of a second of a mobile phone call”), he announced that new regulations meant Gatwick airport was getting fully fitted with these millimeter wavelength scanners and that it would be impossible to avoid them in the future.

I explained that I quite wanted to get home and if being scanned was my only option for boarding I would certainly go through with it, but would greatly appreciate if he could provide me a method to formally note my objection, which he did.

Throughout, the staff of the airport were friendly, but unwilling to consider the possibility that this rule of passing through the scanner could be waived under any circumstance. Several of the comments regarding safety, the quantity of radiation emitted and vague references to it being ‘the law’ (without letting me know what law, though I didn’t press very hard) gave me the impression that they have been trained in security theatre rather than any meaningful understanding of how security works. I reeled in particular at the supervisor’s comment that people were not allowed to opt out if they were chosen since they then would be considered to have something to hide.

I’ve been meaning to write about my new job for a while: in fact, almost a year.

Fifty-three weeks ago today, I got permission to work in the US. The following Monday, my Social Security Number arrived in the mail, and I started work at Eucalyptus Systems. A year ago today, I flew down to Santa Barbara to get oriented, meet (some of!) my team, and start in on what’s been an absolutely fantastic adventure.

Eucalyptus’s official tagline is “open source software for building AWS-compatible private and hybrid clouds”. I describe it to my techy friends as “open source, Amazon-compatible, private/hybrid cloud solution, fully buzzword compliant”. I describe it to my non-techy friends as “the dullest technology I’ve ever worked on, with the best people”. If you’re not working in infrastructure or operations, it might not be obvious, so I follow that up by explaining that in this case, dull is a Really Good Thing. If you’re working on consumer products, sure, “exciting” is great. My ops friends, on the other hand, would rarely choose to work on “exciting”, given the option!

My introduction to Eucalyptus was through Anne Gentle, who I worked with at the Doc Sprint Summit, so I started out favourably inclined. I talked with Scot Marvin, who was already working there as a writer (you’re a startup? Looking for a second writer? How fast are you growing!?), and it sounded good.

Before I went to interview in person though, I looked at their Team page. I freaked out. This was not going to work out. Scot recently described what I’d been wearing when I first met him as a shibboleth. I had to ask him what I’d had on, and we agreed that unintentional as it was, it really was: a test of whether these were my people. And looking at the team page, I was pretty sure that they weren’t.

My flights were bought, though, and I was mostly killing time waiting for US immigration, so I went down. I met almost the whole office that day, and was reasonably impressed. They made me an offer before I even had work authorization, and after negotiating on the details (and getting my work authorization!), I accepted.

It definitely wasn’t love at first sight. There were problems, there were stumbling blocks. But for the first time in my professional life, none of them had anything to do with my gender. None of them even had anything to do with the fact that I was writing documentation rather than code. And all of them were handled. They were handled in a timely manner, they were handled well, they were handled with care, and respect, and a view to a resolution that worked for everyone.

And as I read (and nod along with!) what Shanley has written about culture, as I see what continues to go on in our industry, I fall more and more in love with my employer and my colleagues.

I work with truly excellent people. We hire the very best people, even if it means going without or finding a backup or substitute for a while. We’re able to do so in part because we’re not just open to remote workers: we’re set up, and we work hard, to do distributed teams and do them well. It’s not always easy: working with people who mostly appear as words on a screen just isn’t. It’s not necessarily cheap: if we need to meet up in person, we’re encouraged to do so. It’s probably not the most efficient: I know I spend time trying to figure out who to ask, or writing up a question, that would just have been a matter of shouting out in a busy open-plan space at previous jobs. But it’s really, really worth it. Every single person I work with, I would choose again given the chance. I’m one of the few who hasn’t worked with any of my Eucalyptus colleagues previously, and when I first started, that seemed a little odd. Now I understand why: these are really great people, and I’d follow them to the ends of the earth.

I work with people who have passions, and responsibilities, outside of their jobs. Some are parents, certainly, but those whose outside activities are not family-oriented are equally respected. We recognise, and appreciate, that these things are important. Much of our recent All Hands meeting was made up of lightning talks from people across the company, on everything from children (and story books!) to provision management systems, from the Honor Flight Network to storage area networks. And many of the best-received, the ones we were talking about for days and weeks afterwards, were not the technical talks.

I work with people who care. And in caring about each other, and the people around us, we create better software. We work reasonable hours, take time off when we’re sick, switch off on vacation. We’re expected to do these things, we’re encouraged to do these things, and we’re supported by our colleagues when we do these things. And in return, we bring our very best to work.

These qualities don’t come from the top down, or the bottom up. I think they come from the inside out. Our software came out of a research group, was built by people who believe in these things, and that has been written into our DNA as a project, a community, and a company. Our CEO talks eloquently about managing a distributed organisation, and how important it is to manage through vision and culture. Simon Sinek talks about the Golden Circle. And at Eucalyptus, we live in that. We believe challenging the state of the art, we believe that we can do better, and we care enough to try.

My CV has a lot of recognisable names on it. I’ve worked at Microsoft and Google, at MIT’s Media Lab Europe and Trinity College Dublin. But I can say, hands down, Eucalyptus is the best place I’ve ever worked.

Music was provided in the Blanchardstown Shopping Centre today thanks to Frank McNamara continuing his efforts to raise €100,000 for Temple Street Children’s Hospital. My two small girls danced and my wife and I emptied our pockets for a great cause.

My two girls were in the inaugural Leixlip St. Patrick’s Day parade, marching with Brennan Performing Arts. The weather had deteriorated since the earlier parade in Maynooth, but while everything else was dampened, spirits were not. Congrats to all on a great first parade and I look forward to an even bigger (and hopefully drier) event next year.

If you were in the parade and would like a high-resolution copy of any of the pictures below, just drop me a mail (or add a comment) and I’m happy to provide the original full-resolution JPEG file.

Edit: Here’s the official unofficial facebook page for the Leixlip St. Patrick’s Day Parade.

The unseasonal snowfall died back to a light drizzle for the parade in Maynooth this year, but spirits seemed hardly dampened as the local groups turned out in force for the 2013 parade.

If you were in the parade and would like a high-resolution copy of any of the pictures below, just drop me a mail and I’m happy to provide the original full-resolution JPEG file.

The latest batch of ACK or NACK mugs have arrived from Zazzle. I’ll run them through the dishwasher so they’re ready for Saturday morning. Hurrah!

Once again my attempt to use so called ‘online banking’ and the ironically named ‘Open 24‘ is foiled by Permanent TSB‘s inability to provide a working online banking service. This maintains their 100% perfect record of preventing me from adding a new payee using online means, and I’ve been banking with them for some 5 years.
I followed the instruction to call their customer support, but was met with a recording of their opening hours, which are closer to 24 hours per week than 24 hours a day.

At least their online service ‘works’ on Linux and OS-X. Anyone care to recommend a bank with online services that really work? Banking from Linux is a requirement.

With much pomp and circumstance, the 2013 AGM of the Irish Linux User Group (ILUG) was held at TOG‘s workshop last week. Many thanks to all who attended, those who spoke at the event, the outgoing committee for a fine year’s work, and those who volunteered to take part in the incoming committee.

The full incoming committee for 2013, as nominated and elected are:

• Chair: Tríona (proposed by Rachael, seconded by Frank)
• Secretary: Nick (proposed by Tríona, seconded by Frank)
• Treasurer: Niall (proposed by Tríona, seconded by Rachael)
• PRO: Paul O’Malley (proposed by Rachael, seconded by Tríona)
• Ordinary Committee Members:
  • Mark Cunningham (proposed by Niall, seconded by Frank)
  • Julie Pichon (proposed by Gareth, seconded by Tríona)
  • Rachael Eason, née Holt (proposed by Gareth, seconded by Tríona)

Other business of the day included a proposal that puns be banned on the IRC channel, with immediate effect and to be policed by Kevin (kevin) and Christian (m1.) This was met with wide approval, though with an acceptance that given the population of the channel, this was doomed to failure.

Finally, there was a general call to update the website. The committee assured the assembled that this would be looked into.

Thanks to all for making the effort to attend and participate in your Irish Linux User Group.

I should not be surprised by how many archaic CD-ROMs and DVD-ROMs I have collected through the years, but I must confess that I am, a little. These are the ones I’m throwing away…
Before they go in the bin/recycling, does anyone have a use for somewhere north of 300 CD/DVD-ROMs?

One of the reasons for moving my blog to a new platform is that readers have been asking for the ability to post comments. Achievement comprehensively unlocked!

Of course, now the unending battle with automated spammers begins. So far, despite this blog being live (with comments) for only about 8 hours, it has received five spam comments (of five total comments submitted.) I am disappoint! Do you bots on the internet not have anything better to be doing? Seriously?

Also, all you readers who asked for comments to be enabled on my blog: use it or lose it folks.

I’ve been a very naughty boy – and used the absolute link to my blog’s CSS file on a number of other sites. Now that I’ve rejigged my blog and re-pointed the blog.signal2noise.ie domain at a different server those sites no longer have CSS. Whoops! Naughty me and my laziness. Naughty!

Fair warning: ranty rant ahoy!

Not only does the Irish Times no longer feel it needs to stand up to legal pressure and print actual news, but it also appears to no longer be bound by the rules of the English language.

Today’s article about an estate agent demonstrates that the inimitable (“So good or unusual as to be impossible to copy; unique”) is allegedly eminently imitable, with an Irish estate agent supposedly imitating the hitherto ‘inimitable’ style of Roy Brooks, an honest estate agent 40 years dead.

Language matters – just not to our national newspaper of record, apparently. *sigh*

Due to the frustration at £15 per night mobile internet charges at the hotel, I went exploring the possibilities of mobile internet in London, to see if I could find something useful, cheaper than £15 per 24 hour period and preferably that worked in more locations than just that specific hotel.

Thanks to T-mobile‘s £5 per 500MB for a 30 day period, and a shiny and functional Huawei “Mobile Wifi” device, I’m now able to work in the UK from the airport, on the train to and from the airport, and of course in any of the hotels that I frequent here. Hurrah! No more unproductive time for me in the UK ;-P

Once again I find myself in a hotel, and once again I find myself battling the vagaries of over-expensive, under-performing hotel internet. Half a month’s internet fee for a home, and a further phone-call to reception to get a second username and password to try, I’m somewhat online.

I was going to write a blog entry full of hope that the hotel industry would recognize the criticality of internet access, and suggestions about how hotel internet could be made better and simpler for no extra cost (and indeed less capital expense.) I was going to finish up with how I would give that hotel my business and recommend them to others, but I’ve spent too long just attempting to get online so I’m tired now…

So… I’ve tried to ‘Debian-ise’ my WordPress installation as much as possible, using the excellent multi-site wp-config.php. It allows the addition of more blogs and sites at the touch of a proverbial button and some DNS and apache configuration – all very shiny and good.

However, I still cannot upload media to any of the test blogs created. Any attempt to upload media gives me

“Photo.jpg” has failed to upload due to an error
Unable to create directory /srv/www/wp-uploads/tblog.signal2noise.ie/2013/02. Is its parent directory writable by the server?

I’ve tried every combination of permissions I can think of, and attempted to implement a number of the suggestions of other WordPress users from forums, but no dice. It’s a sad blog indeed that cannot have any pictures

Got married here recently. It really is a beautiful church.

The girls have dug out a Rainbow Brite DVD, reminding me just how one-dimensional cartoons in the 80′s were. Still, the bright colours and simplistic storyline (The antagonist aims to perfect a ‘misery machine’ to make everyone unhappy… I suppose it’s good to have goals in life, at least) are appealing and I no longer have two girls running around the living room in circles and screaming for no apparent reason.

I’m definitely getting the impression that I’m not the target audience.

Time to upgrade things from the old blog system and put something more modern in place. WordPress it is, along with some extra functionality to attempt to minimise comment spam. On the plus side, the blog now allows comments – hurrah!

(I’m spending my birthday in hospital, and on regular doses of opium. No really! This may not be as entertaining to you as it was to me.)

‘Eucalyptus’ runs on computers and lets you make pretend computers out of the real computers. You can make pretend computers appear when you need them, and you can make as many as you need. This lets you use your real computers better. You can use lots of real computers, or just a few. You can even use other people’s real computers.

People who want to use your computers can make a pretend computer when they need one, and when they’re finished, they can make the pretend computer go away. They can save pretend computers, so that they can check how things work as they make changes, without having to keep a computer waiting for when they want to check. They can make pretend computers that look different, without having to change the real computers. Other people can make different pretend computers out of the same real computers. People can make a pretend computer that’s as big or as small as they need. You can add more real computers at any time, and it won’t change anything for the people who use your computers.

‘Eucalyptus’ lets you make pretend computers on your computers, but it also works with other people’s computers. If you don’t have enough real computers, you can use computers like the ones that ‘Amazon_Web_Services’ has. ‘AWS’ works like ‘Eucalyptus’, and if you have computer words that work with it, they should work with ‘Eucalyptus’ too.

The computer words that make ‘Eucalyptus’ work are there for anyone to look at, or change. Anyone can make ‘Eucalyptus’ better, or look at how it works and make something that can work with it.

The people who make ‘Eucalyptus’ are nice people, and they want to hear what you think. You can write to them at community@lists.eucalyptus.com. If ‘Eucalyptus’ isn’t working for you, there is a way to tell them what’s broken so they can fix it, at https://eucalyptus.atlassian.net/

Earlier today Hetzner, our host, cut off access to nonado (and my other server with hetzner). Apparently there was a problem with my credit card details, and they had sent me 3 reminders. Unfortunately, those reminders never actually got delivered. I’ve sorted out the billing issue, and we’re back now.

It is a piece of random folky sort of wisdom that lightning never strikes the same place twice. Obviously, this makes no sense. If you look even briefly at the factors that make a lightning strike a statistically higher probability they are all pretty static. Location, material present, height etc. Even in kids cartoons the mad scientist rolls out a giant metal conductor during a thunder storm when he wants to harness a forked lightning strike and make some crazy science magic happen. Not that its so simple in real life or anything, but when I was a kid my dad had to go deal with the IT aftermath of a lightning strike at one of his customer sites not just twice but 3 times in a 2 year period and that wasn’t the Eiffel tower, it was a fish farm on the west coast of Ireland. Lightning strikes all the fucking time.

So I probably shouldn’t be all that shocked that it just struck the plane I was meant to be getting on for my flight to Las Vegas. This is actually a new one. The girls in the lounge tell me it happens all the time though. In any case, routine or not some electrics got frazzled and I am now sitting on my arse waiting for a new plane to appear. On the plus side my arse is currently located in the American Airlines lounge, which while pretty shitty compared to many of the other airline lounges it has been my pleasure to inhabit for a while is nonetheless infinitely better than the main terminal area. At least there are cookies.

I haven’t been in the mood to write for a while, but I’m hoping to drift casually back into it without really noticing. Lets see how that goes…

Wobble has been successfully upgraded from lenny to squeeze. Horrah.

Please let me know (via email or irc) if anything is not functioning as expected.

diamond: your main expected contribution is moral support :)
atlas: OH MY GOD YOU BROKE SMTP
atlas: (Am I doing the moral support right?)
diamond: *giggle*

(shamelessly reusing the text from the last time we did this ;)

To repeat what’s in the subject, nonado will be down for maintenance this weekend (2012-05-26 & 27). Hopefully the maintenance won’t take that long, but it’s not possible to predict. This blog will be updated again when the maintenance is complete, so please check back here. If you don’t care about technical details, you can stop reading now.

Wobble.nonado.net, the nonado host machine, is running debian lenny. Lenny was released in 2009-02. It has since been superceded by Squeeze, released 2011-02. Support for lenny ceased in 2012-02. As such, wobble needs to be upgraded soon. However, as it is the host machine, this cannot be realistically tested/simulated. As such, unexpected issues may well pop up and need to be fixed/worked around on the weekend. For this reason, i’m designating nonado as being offline for the entire weekend. I’m hoping the actual downtime will only be a couple of hours, but we’ll see.

For the extra-interested, nonado is currently using linux-vserver virtulisation to run a few virtual private servers (VPSes), including skip.nonado.net. As linux-vserver is deprecated in Squeeze, we will be migrating these VPSes to a new technoloxy, LXC, over the next few months.

(I recently posted a beta version of this advice to the Google Summer of Code mentors list. By popular demand, it now appears for the first time in public. With thanks to Mary Schmich!)

Ladies and Gentlemen of the Open Source community, PARTICIPATE!

If I could offer you only one tip for the future, participation would be it. The long term benefits of participation have been proved by scientists whereas the rest of my advice has no basis more reliable than my own meandering experience.

I will dispense this advice now.

Enjoy the power and beauty of your community–oh, never mind. You will not understand the power and beauty of your community until they have faded.

But trust me, in six months you’ll look back in your version control system and recall in a way you can’t grasp now how much possibility lay before you and how fabulous your roadmap really was. You’re not as buggy as you imagine.

Don’t worry about the number of contributors you have, or worry, but know that worrying is as effective as trying to fix a bug by chewing bubblegum. The real troubles in your project are apt to be things that never crossed your worried mind; the kind that blindside you at 4pm on some idle Tuesday.

Do one thing everyday that you didn’t think would work.

Document.

Don’t be reckless with other people’s patches, don’t put up with people who are reckless with yours.

Code.

Don’t waste your time on jealousy; sometimes you’re ahead, sometimes you’re behind. The race is long, and in the end, you have all the features you can handle.

Remember the compliments you receive, forget the insults; if you succeed in doing this, tell me how.

Keep your old design docs, throw away your old flame wars.

Test.

Don’t feel guilty if you don’t know what you want to do with your code. The most interesting projects I know didn’t know in ’99 what they wanted to do about the Millennium Bug, some of the most interesting projects I know still don’t.

Get plenty of peer review.

Be kind to your wrists, you’ll miss them when they’re gone.

Maybe you’ll release, maybe you won’t, maybe you’ll be forked, maybe you won’t, maybe you’ll be obsolete by 2015, maybe you’ll be powering the White House in 2052. Whatever you do, don’t congratulate yourself too much or berate yourself either–your choices are half chance, so are everybody else’s. Enjoy your community, use it every way you can. Don’t be afraid of it, or what other people think of it, it’s the greatest asset you’ll ever have.

Communicate, even if it’s only with the two other people who care about your code.

Keep the README up to date, even if no one ever reads it.

Do NOT read IT magazines, they will only make you feel angry.

Get to know your fellow communities, you never know what they’ll be contributing to your project.

Be nice to your fellow contributors; they are the best link to your past and the people most likely to stick with you in the future.

Understand that committers come and go, but for the precious few you should hold on to. Work hard to bridge the gaps in geography and lifestyle because the older you get, the more you need the people you knew when your codebase was young.

Write a web framework once, but quit before it makes you hard; write a parser once, but quit before it makes you soft.

Travel.

Accept certain inalienable truths: code will get tangled, managers will misunderstand, you too will get old, and when you do you’ll fantasize that when you were young code was clean, managers understood tech and your C64 was user-friendly.

Respect your peers.

Don’t expect anyone else to maintain your code. Maybe you have a docs team, maybe you have some great maintenance programmers; but you never know when either one might get carpal tunnel.

Don’t mess too much with your website, or by the time you’re out of beta, it will look like Geocities.

Be careful whose advice you buy, but be patient with those who supply it. Advice is a form of nostalgia, dispensing it is a way of fishing the past from the bitbucket, wiping it off, putting interfaces over the ugly parts and recycling it for more than it’s worth.

But trust me on the participation.

Pick up the nearest book to you. Turn to page 45. The first sentence describes your sex life in 2012.

“Instead, after organizing the transport of water, food and ammunition up the hill, he took a nap.”
–General Warren and the Battle of Spion Kop, in Military Blunders, by Saul David

I LOL’d.

I’m pretty sure I complained about last year’s version too, but I didn’t write it down, so I’m saving this one for posterity.

The BBC has published four “Faces of the Year” articles this week: “the men” and “the women” for the UK and international markets.

Removing gender references, here are the lists:

January	UK: An undercover police officer: infiltrated activists then changed sides. Intl: A produce vendor: self-immolated when produce was confiscated, which sparked riots.	A politician: was shot.
February	UK: An acting professional: won an Oscar. Intl: A screenwriter: won an Oscar.	A singer: achieved two top-five hits simultaneously.
March	UK: A rubbish collector: made a rap video that went big. Intl: A prime minister: resigned.	A protestor: spoke up about being assaulted.
April	A police officer: was killed in a sectarian bombing.	UK: A designer: designed a wedding dress. Intl: A party planner: was part of a wedding party.
May	An admiral: planned the attack on bin Laden’s compound.	A hotel worker: accused a politician of rape.
June	A golfer: won the US Open.	UK: A college administrator: had photos misrepresented as part of an identity fraud. Intl: A tennis player: won a Grand Slam.
July	UK: A news editor: was investigated for scandals. Intl: A right-wing extremist: killed 77 people.	An Olympic athlete: got married.
August	UK: A student: was mugged by people who had initially seemed to be helping him, after he was knocked off his bike by rioters. Intl: A Tottenham resident: was shot by police, which sparked riots.	UK: A campaigner against gang violence: spoke out against looters in the local community. Intl: A politician: won a straw poll in home state.
September	A farmer: suggested that Rihanna and her entourage acquaint themselves with God.	UK: A nurse: was arrested on suspicion of administering poison. Intl: A politician: opened a debate at the UN.
October	UK: A business owner: was accused of exercising undue influence over a politician. Intl: A soldier returned home after being held captive abroad.	A wealthy aristocrat: got married.
November	UK: A football manager: committed suicide. Intl: An economist: became Prime Minister.	A marine: went on a date.
December	A politician: was accused of sexual harassment.	A panda: was a panda.

Now, I’m sure by now you’ve worked out which list is the men and which is the women. In case you haven’t, here are the original articles:
Faces of the Year 2011 – the men (UK edition)
Faces of the Year 2011 – the men (intl edition)
Faces of the Year 2011 – the women (UK edition)
Faces of the Year 2011 – the women (intl edition)

I’m not going to add much more commentary, because the rage is making me less than wholly coherent. But seriously, of the sixteen women featured, FULLY 25% of them are featured for their involvement in a wedding (and that’s assuming you accept the panda bear as a woman). That number is the same for both the UK and the international editions. And, in both editions, one more woman is featured for having gone on a date.

Despite the fact that all of these weddings (and the date), were between a man and a woman, and despite the fact that, across the two editions, more men are featured than women, not ONE SINGLE (or married :-p) man is featured for his involvement in a wedding or date. If you want to count sexual harassment, assault and rape in with those things, which I’d really rather not, we get one man (1/19), and another two women (making 7/16 in total, or 7/15 if you don’t count the panda).

Did I mention that of the 16 women featured across the two editions, 6.25% of them ARE PANDA BEARS!? There are more panda bears on BBC’s “Faces of the Year – the women” than there are women in Open Source. As Schwern pointed out last night, this stuff is much funnier when you don’t have to live it.

As a woman, I hate the idea of being applauded for something that’s just normal when a guy does it. I can’t stand the idea of special treatment. But if the women who are being lauded as “Faces of the Year” are being featured for their romantic lives, or their being a cute cuddly animal, maybe it is time for a women-focused “Faces of the Year: people who actually did cool stuff”.

Anyone want to put that together? I’ll send something nice to the first three people who compile one