Last Week

4 minute read

Life

I got to go on about the only trip I’m scheduled to go on this year. It was a trip to Detroit for Self.Conference, which was my favorite conference from last year. I love that it’s very tech-focused, but nearly every talk also includes a decent amount of empathy, and so did the hallway conversations. This year was no different. And I gave a talk (see below).
I’ve been at the new apartment for 3 months, and I’m starting to finally go through the pile of stuff in the living room. Trying to sell several things, give away others, trash others.
I announced The Rest of Us in Tech, the “secret project” I’ve been working on since December. The goal is to amplify the voices and stories of underrepresented people in tech. The first part of it is a podcast, and the first episode is on YouTube now. The near future will be on iTunes/Play Store/Microsoft Store.
… then I lost my voice from either being sick or a bad allergy attack. (Not sure which.) And I cancelled 3 interviews for the podcast because of it. It sort of bummed me out, but I’m slowly getting better. Hopefully can reschedule those this week. But nothing like releasing a new thing then not being able to do much work on it after that. Also it’s embarassing to go into the world with a barely-working voice.

I implemented several pieces of a larger chunk of the module rewrite. Mostly just making some forms and making sure they save with the correct other data.

I completed Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess HD. I was trying to get through the Cave of Ordeals, a 50-floor cave where each floor gets just a little bit harder. The second-to-last floor killed me 3 times (and it’s a pain getting there). Finally beat it on the 4th try. Then did the final castle and beat the final boss the first time I tried. Who knows how that works. But another game in my attempt to play them all down. I probably won’t pick up the next one for a bit.
I started Buffy the Vampire Slayer, and am now up to part of season 4. It’s pretty good, if not super 90s. Lots of interesting nostalgic feels from my high school days too.
I’ve started catching up on SNL after seeing some funny skits referenced. And honestly, this year’s SNL season has been one of the funniest I’ve seen in a while. They’ve been on point (Melissa McCarthy’s portrayal of Sean Spicer) and the right amount of weird (backpack dance party) and just random hilarity (Chris Pine’s “Not That Chris” sung to Uptown Girl’s music about all the (Chris’s? Chris’? Chrises?) in the movie industry).
I also have been catching up on John Oliver’s Last Week Tonight. Youtube has about everything online. Besides being hilarious, it’s very well researched and always feels very enlightening, even when I know about the topic already. And I’m always impressed at what they can pull off in a week.

I decided to cancel my talks in Code PaLOUsa, mostly due to financial reasons. I don’t have the funds or vacation time to make the conference work.
I did give my “Power of Secrets” talk at Self.Conference in Detroit. Interestingly, the room was about half full, and it grew to nearly full by the time I ended. Also interestingly, the Friday at 11 slot was all women speaking in every track. How awesome! (And another Sara spoke in the slot!) Perhaps the best comment was from @daniel_davis who tweeted “You know it’s a powerful session when you bounce back and forth between laughing and crying. @geekygirlsarah #vulnerability #selfconf” [Tweet link]
I went to several good ones, and hope to have that written up in a post soon.

[Space] There’s lots of buzz about Juno, NASA’s spacecraft that’s orbiting Jupiter right now. It’s made 6 passes around Jupiter so far, and there’s now reports from the first two rounds. Bad Astronomy posted “We knew Jupiter was weird. Now we’re finding out HOW weird.“, Gizmodo posted “NASA’s Juno Mission Just Dropped Its First Huge Pile of Results“, and of course NASA continues to post their own info (including the initial pics from the 6th pass now). Space never ceases to fascinate me.
[Funny] Alamo Drafthouse movie theater is having a showing of Wonder Woman, but only for people who identify as women. So a bunch of men got mad on social media, and this post shows how the theater brilliantly responded back.
[Electronics] This guy decided to take a laptop from 1983 and make it work on today’s internet. And of course the thing is sloooooow. But it’s amusing anyway.
[Silly] Rompers are in style for women, so this Kickstarter campaign started the RompHim. A romper for men. And I’m equally laughing at it and thinking it’s kind of amazing at the same time.
I know there’s more great things but decided not to try to weed through my tweets as I’ve posted tons in the last little while.