terriko

The snow is gone at this point (now it's all "risk of flooding" and "high winds" out here), but I thought I'd share a photo from last weekend:



This mailbox has a little spotlight above it (presumably so people don't drive into it or so that the mail carrier can find it), which always amuses me. I personally refer to it as "photogenic mailbox" because of the spotlight. Photogenic mailbox is apparently also photogenic in the snow, not just the dark.

I imagine I'll use photogenic mailbox in a presentation about GNU Mailman, someday!

Note: you can actually see the spotlight, or evidence of it, if you look at the photo carefully. I should have photoshopped that out, but it turns out photoshop was installed on the hard drive that died, so I haven't sorted that out and gotten it re-installed yet.

With all the noise about google switching away from XMPP, I was pretty concerned when Pidgin stopped connecting to Google Hangouts (aka gtalk or xmpp) with the following error:

"Server does not use any supported authentication method"

I wasted some time updating things hoping that would solve it before I finally figured out my problem: It wsn't google changing things at all; it was me. I'd changed the hostname of my (relatively new) laptop. But what I hadn't done was put the new hostname into /etc/hosts under 127.0.0.1. A quick edit later, and the newly christened laptop is back on the air.

I found the solution here, but I had to dig for it a bit so I'm puting up this post that shortcuts to the answer without the debugging, just in case anyone else runs into this one and needs help.

I'm mildly discombobulated since my flight got in quite delayed last night and I swear, there wasn't enough time between travel even though I had more than a week, but here's updates:

(1) GSoC Mentor Summit was amazing, filled with open source folk who were also passionate about mentoring. It was cool having lots in common with every person I talked to all weekend.

(2) I have pictures, largely of playing powerpoint karaoke yesterday. Also of some of the guys playing rugby in the hot tub. ;) (Well, okay, just tossing a ball around, but still!) They need some serious culling so expect most of them later in the week. Arc pulled the best ones off my camera and they're here: https://plus.google.com/u/0/109741359399131092509/posts/VHbodBCsBPJ (Thanks to Denis of Gentoo for being our photographer!)

(3) Oh yeah, the big announcement is that I'm going to be the Org admin for the Python Software Foundation next year. Doomed! So yeah, I go from managing my 3 students, 7 mentors for Mailman (and backup managing another 3 students from Systers), to around 30 students spread across a pile of sub-organizations. Should be fun. Or terrifying. :) I'll probably write more about this later once it's had more time to sink in.

(4) I need to also make time to encourage folk to come to Pycon. There is financial aid available and the application is up. I'm going to be sending more personal notes out to my new contributors from GHC12 and my GSoC students from Systers and Mailman. The Mailman sprint last year was probably the most satisfying hacking event I've ever attended, and I want others to have that experience. :)

(5) I did get all my GHC12 pictures up before I left: https://secure.flickr.com/photos/terrio/sets/72157631687919350/

(6) My last official GHC12 blog post (about the open source day hackathon) is pending now that I have photos to go with it. I've got notes for a few more, but not sure I'll have time to write them.

In theory, I'll be home in New Mexico and not traveling again 'till December. Which is good, because I need to put together academic applications, write a paper with my remaining thesis research (the tech report got cited twice already, which is a sign that I should have something more peer-reviewed out there), and get the research done for my next paper. Plus, you know, squash all the open bugs/add all the missing features in Postorius, make sure the port of dynamic sublists to Mailman 3 is finished, and purchase flights for my trip home in December.

I feel like I should be a lot more stressed about all that I've got on my plate, but after a weekend with open source folk, I'm feeling pretty relaxed and pleasant and like it's all going to work out somehow. And to be honest, that feeling may be the most important thing I'm bringing back from Mountain View this week. :)