News from the Front

June 03, 2011 at 02:00 AM | Tags: europe, flood, telecomix, osbridge

I'm currently in Stockholm visiting some of the other Telecomix agents. Stockholm is beautiful and the days are incredibly long - there's almost 18 hours of sunshine. The agents I've met are smart, funny and politically engaged. I head to Brussels next and then the UK, where I've been invited to give a talk about activism at the Sheffield Doc/Fest film festival. The ironic twist is that I don't watch moving pictures (films, TV, etc.) at all, but I'm happy to speak about the work Telecomix has done in Egypt, Syria and elsewhere to anyone who will have me.

I head back to the States for a few days at home before going to Portland, where I'll be giving a keynote at Open Source Bridge. Expect a zinger - I'm aiming for around 250 slides in 45 minutes. I'll cover a range of topics: Internet activism, software for distributed mirror networks, a theory of communications censorship. And bicycles.

I've also started a twitter feed for Python tips. Follow @dailypyzen for a daily dose of Python goodness. I'll be posting weekly summaries to Planet Python via this blog. Currently a little sparse due to travel and other drama (see below).

In other exciting news, the only road to our house in rural Washington washed out in a flood two weeks ago. After three days with no power or (drinkable) water, we had to evacuate with the help of our neighbors. Everyone was ok and no serious damage, but a giant PITA when time was already short. Afterwards was do-ocracy in action, as neighbors stepped up to put things back together - building foot bridges, filling in for emergency services and contacting the post office to get mailboxes replaced.