In case you’re curious about internationalization and/or localization, I wrote a high-level summary of the work I have been doing in the past year.

This is my last post about XOXO — promise!

As we were heading back to the long-term parking in SFO, I asked T. what, if anything, she would like to change after the week-end we spent at XOXO. Many talks hit close to home over that week-end but two in particular were gems of wisdom, if only because they could pack a strong punch into very few words. I’m not a big fan of inspirational quotes but these ones will remain with me for a while:

• “Fuck your dreams” Hank Green
• “Creative recognition is largely a matter of luck” Darius Kazemi
• “You have no obligation to your former self, he is dumber than you and doesn’t exist” (Hank Green, again)

T. said she needed time to process the talks and as far as I can tell, she’s done a lot of thinking. As for me, the talk make me pause and think about the way I work and the way I deliver my work.

I write software for a living. In the same way designers use Dribbble to maintain a portfolio, I use GitHub to put out stuff I’d be proud to show a potential employer, or proud to show my parents — I put a lot of attention and care into those because that’s how I want to be perceived to these groups. Sometimes, I’m not even starting a cool project for fear that it’s not going to be good enough. Almost like a reverse writer’s block.

I have interest in doing these things and I learn a lot in the process — but it’s not entirely fun. And if you’re not paid for something, you should at the very least have fun doing it. So, this is what I’m gonna try to do to remedy this.

##Write more and Publish more

I like writing — even though I don’t read much, I’ve always enjoyed the act of writing, be it for myself of for an audience. Practice doesn’t make perfect, but sitting on your couch is unlikely to get you anywhere. I don’t really care that I write poorly, it’s not gonna get better if I keep dorking around Stellar.io instead of actually typing words and press the Publish button. The dreadful and cathartic green button. Opening this blog and keeping it alive is one thing I am resolved to do. Writing and publishing more code is another.

Haste is okay

There are things that I want to make, and I shouldn’t care to make them to be hired, recognized or rich. So, writing and publishing a half-assed blog post is totally fine – it doesn’t matter if it’s meant for me or the rest of the world. And the same thing goes about software. Ultimately, you are unlikely to succeed (if at all) for the piece of work you are the most proud of. So, just ship whatever you have and someone else might find it decent enough to like it.

S. is leaving the country – she’s going away on a 6 months assignment for work. Her going-away party was tonight. I’ve reasoned about this since the news broke: obviously a sign she’s moved on, that she feels independent. Self-driven enough to make a decision to take a break from her friends and her job. Adding physical distance to of the emotional one can’t be a bad thing, at least from where I stand. I’m no longer going to have to be afraid to show up with a date at a party or be awkward when conversing with our common friends. She came with a guy tonight.

Nothing to do with the fact that I’m binging on Californication right now but I’ve identified with Hank at times. I suppose every cisgendered guy has. Not in the way that he’s a talented writer or have it easy with girls. But in the way he can’t ever manage to get his life together – to the point that he’s almost given up on trying and goes with the flow. I feel like I’ve gone with the flow for a while and I wish there was an obvious way to tell I am better now than I was when we broke up.

I shared a Lyft home with B. and G. and G. was lamenting to the driver it’s going to be hard not seeing her for this long.

You realize I’ve been without her for most of the past year, right?

I think I said that out loud.

This week’s This American Life by Ben Calhoun tells the heart-breaking story of a group of people taking control of a school district and methodically grinding it to a halt, at the expense of everyone else in the community. It’s a very complex and interesting story you should really go listen to.

As a person who went to school and was raised in a centrally-managed wellfare state, this is a really hard situation to wrap my head around of. Public institutions and services are not meant to serve a simple majority, they are meant to serve everyone. Justice, education, police, transportation, defense – those should be shielded from the whims of 50% + 1 people. Other parents in that district, mostly black and Latinos, keep attending the board meetings, worried sick about the future of their kids and powerless to change the course of history:

They’re not shooting our kids with guns. They are stealing their education. And we are acting as if it is normal. We are acting as if it’s OK. We are allowing them to sit in another room and let the men then come out and speak. Who is the problem? We are the problem! We need to get angry about what’s happening with our kids!

To that frustration, the head of the board throws replied with accusations of generalized anti-semitism and suggests they should go away – all in the name of democracy:

To suggest that we lack the moral authority to sit in these seats? Let me tell you right now, you don’t like it, find yourself another place to live. Because this is the United States of America.

Sickening.

XOXO made me go to Portland for the first time ever. After seven years in the Bay Area hearing how Portland is supposed to rock, my actual knowledge of the city was pretty much limited to having watched every episode of Portlandia ever. Which is both a whole lot and very little.

Let’s start with the most futile of things: the weather. We were prepared for a week-end of good weather and were told this was unusual but it turned out absolutely fantastic. Not a cloud in sight, temperatures in the 90’s and evenings warm enough that, unlike SF, you can comfortably walk around without carrying a light sweater (wink if you recognize where this reference came from).

I’ve been paying regular visits to Trouble Coffee in the past few months and I find there are some troubling similarities between Judah and Portland. Fewer people in the street, a generally calm and soothing environment, older and shorter buildings, odd commerces and, in the case of Judah, a poorer population than the rest of SF. Judah has always felt to me like it’s refused to play catch up with the other neighborhoods in the city.

Portland kinda felt the same – as if it had stayed stuck between the 70’s and 2020. It’s spread out, very green, the homes appear large and comfy. XOXO could not have happened in an evironment like SF, it’s really at home in Portland. The stereotypes are what they: very true and not quite accurate at the same time. But I wouldn’t say I found the city weird. It’s not entirely welcoming either but I think the fact that we pressed to go to as many places as we could in a limited time contributed to that feeling. I want to go back and take the time to spend a few days exploring the city on a bike.

Either way, it’s still nice to find a town in which there is a real old-school arcade. It almost felt like I had to steal yet another dollar from my father’s wallet to play TMNT. Also worth a visit: a book store so big that you can lose yourself in it. Restaurants and food places are plentiful and we made the best of it:

• We crashed Voodoo Doughnuts on our very first night in Portland
• City State Diner served us a heart-attack-inducing breakfast
• Stumptown Coffee welcomed us after a day of walking around town
• It’s Fried Egg, I’m in Love was at the festival
• I spent an hour hanging out at the Deschutes Brewery
• The White Owl Social Club makes a mean bacon burger
• I chilled for an hour on the outdoor patio of Cascade Brewing Barrel House
• Last but not least: a delicious pork sandwich and monstruous portion of garlic friess from Lardo

Drawing an honest map of Louisiana is proving more difficult than ever before. The state is essentially sinking: it has lost 1900 square miles of land over the past 80 years, and is projected to lose another 1750 in the next 50:

“Louisiana has perhaps the most complex coastline of any state in the union. It’s not just a coastline but a coastal zone that has many inland lakes that are part of coastal change,” said Snead. “Any map you make of the Louisiana coast is obsolete the day you make it. It’s an exercise in futility.”

Louisiana Loses Its Boot by William Widmer is a remarkable deep dive into the world of cartography in the wake of the global sea-level rising and the transition from paper to digital media.

It’s a little hard to explain XOXO to the people who ask you about it before you’re headed there. This year was my first and I realize I’m not any better at explaining what it is after having attended it. Luckily, Casey Newton does it better, so I can spend a bit more time explaining how it felt:

There are those times and places where all the things in the universe align and you leave with a blissful high and the hope that it will happen again. The ALC is one of those things that I’ve experienced before – people call it the ‘love bubble’. XOXO is like my non-cycling love bubble, and I’m starting to get withdrawal symptoms just two days after it ended.

• Erin McKean talked. She just talked and nothing more was needed. Only listening to her was enough – her words picked meticulously, her phrasing to the point and impeccable diction. She talked about her parasite son and how it’s possible to tell people to go to hell and still get them to enjoy the ride.
• Justin Hall talked about his past 20 years of having a personal website where he writes about his life and how the increasingly broad distribution and his relationships have changed the way he writes and the content he shares.
• Rachel Binx talked about the financial and mental toll of being independent
• Darius Kazemi spent 20 minutes fucking up with everyone’s brain, then did it again. He wins the conference part of XOXO.
• Anita Sarkeesian’s was the one I expected the most and the double standing ovation it received from the crowd made me quite cheerful.

Much of my time in the evenings was spent hanging out at Holocene. Pomplamosse put out a mad show – a lot more raw than I expected it to be. I mistakenly jumped on stage at what I thought was a request from Jack Conte, jammed there for half a minute then quietly stepped down in shame. Nerf Herder played the Buffy theme, which they only did because everyone expected them to and which lasted all of 45 seconds. They retweeted me, and the bass player started following me, and now, if you’ll excuse me, I’ll just go and try my luck seducing Rosemarie DeWitt.

The Andys were very clear that XOXO isn’t meant to naturally repeat itself. This isn’t a tech conference, this barely is a conference. If I had to define it, XOXO is a deliberate attempt at getting incredibly talented and somewhat introvert people to spend as much time as possible waiting in line for their breakfast sandwich, and hoping they will start chatting. By that definition, it was a full success.