Farewell friend.
Marcus & Claire
I can't quite recall the last time we met. Was it at the Auction Rooms in North Melbourne, just before you joined RMIT? No - it was after that, you were at RMIT and we were talking about some Drupal sites you'd inherited. Or perhaps we just spoke on the phone? I wish I could remember that moment, now that you are gone.
I keep thinking about the opening lines of HG Wells' War of the Worlds.
So I grabbed it from Project Gutenberg (yay for the public domain) and read it out loud and recorded it.
Linked below if you want to hear it too.
Decision making is hard.
I often worry if I'm making a good decision, or a snap judgement.
There's an itchy tickle in the back of my throat.
I saw a doctor. She confirmed that yes, I probably have an upper respiratory viral infection, and no, I probably don't have COVID19. As I've not been overseas, or been in contact with anyone confirmed to have the novel coronavirus strain causing this global pandemic, I don't need to be tested.
For now.
Doc says rest, fluids, and stay at home. The usual prescription for colds and flu. But if it gets worse, or doesn't improve in a few days, come back and get another check up.
Speaker notes from my keynote at linux.conf.au 2020
Who is watching?
Why are they watching?
Why does it matter?
Why does it matter to you?
Why does it matter to us ?
And why might it matter to me?
This week, I'm in Brisbane participating in the solemn Red Hat ritual known as NHO: New Hire Orientation. I will receive my Red Fedora. I'm excited.
It's also NAIDOC week. For those that don't know, NAIDOC stands for National Aborigines and Islander Day Observance committee. It's grown to become a week long celebration of first people's stories, achievements and ongoing resistance in the face of a colonial, genocidal denial of their existence, and their rights.
Not quite 2 months ago, I joined Red Hat as an Engagement Lead in the Open Innovation Labs.
It's the beginning of a new journey. I feel a bit like I'm stepping carefully in to a rowing boat. I'm being mindful, and cautious, so as not to overbalance. I don't want to tip arse over tit into the river. So far, it's been fun, interesting, perplexing, and exciting. At times I've felt utterly joyful, at others, overwhelmed by doubt I could do what I said I'd do.
It was easy!
Ok - I did have help from cafuego, so there's some bits of the process that were just magic to me. But once I had access to the environments, I enabled the migrate modules, and followed instructions on drupal.org and hey presto it was done!
I did need to do manual clean up - re position blocks into differently named regions, and recreate some menu items for taxonomy.
I also got stumped for a bit about why I could no longer free tag, but that turned out to be a simple setting change.
How do we take the war out of our words? Sharon Strand Ellison's Powerful Non-Defensive Communication approach highlights our natural defensive reaction to feeling unsure, anxious or attacked when communicating with others.
She outlines these six different defensive reactions:
