Category: arts and letters

Revisiting Saddleback

I haven’t watched any the presidential debates because I sort of like my LCD television set and don’t want to damage it just yet by throwing things at it. Plus, other people do a more amusing analysis by counting tongue juts and generating word clouds.

This explains why I’m furiously googling what the hell a “Joe-the-Plumber” is (not that it mattered).

It also explains why I base my opinion on word-based transcripts and not strange body language.

And it occurred to me just how different the transcripts on McCain’s end seemed between this and the Saddleback Forums. You remember that? It was the debate at a evangelical Christian megachurch in which to be fair the same questions would be asked of both candidates with the latter being in a “cone of silence” which McCain won handily.

Continue reading about On comparing Saddleback to the debates after the jump

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Presentation-Fu (Making Frameworks Suck Less Part 1)

People ask me all the time how I make such awesome conference talks, so I decided to give you the gory step-by-step. Along the way I’ll even include my top-sekret speaker notes which I never share! It’ll give you an idea of the intense mental preparation it takes to be a top conference speaker in the PHP world and general PHP hero.

Rated R again!

“Rated R again!

“Making Frameworks Suck Less”
by Terry Chay
– howto/controverse
– Rated: R (Drama, Sex, Language, Vilence)

I thought I was done with speaking for the year. I have milked my last talk for over a year now and it was time to retired it. Since I had used this talk at the conference last year, that meant skipping ZendCon. In fact, I was a little worried because I hadn’t had a clue what my next talk (to milk) was going to be about so maybe I’ll just sit out next year.

That was because I had forgotten Keith had asked me to give an unconference talk there and I had said Yes. Then, a week before said conference, I get this e-mail asking if I’d be willing to move my slot to a different day.

Doh!

I had better find out what my talk was supposed to be about. When I did, my heart sank, it was a new topic and one I had no clue what to say.

Continue reading about preparing presentations and the introduction after the jump (click)

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I CAN HAS BOOKZ?

I got a mysterious package and opened it. No, it wasn’t a unabomb, but some megalulz instead:

I CAN HAS BOOK?

I Can Haz Cheezburger?:A LOLcat Colleckshun will be released October 7, but I got a copy in the mail today.

The book is from lulzftw, and is a best-of collection of lolcats—slightly disappointed that there are no lolgeeks. 😀

Mai awesum benny faktor tells me they’re having a book release party and photowalk later this month in San Francisco.

I think I’ll make one and give my book to the first person who asks (and I have it on me).

Make the events and you can has (mai or ur) bookz, too! 🙂

(Follow them on twitter.)

kthnxbai

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Two shoes

I have a friend who loves Sex and the City and recently moved into San Francisco. “Glad to hear you’re enjoying ‘the City.’ Now on to the ‘Sex and…’ part 😀 ,” I wrote her.

Her reply: “I am already loving the city so much. But the “Sex and” part won’t be quite as exciting. I’m very much a goody two shoes you know. 😉 ”

My reply: “The only people who say they’re goody two shoes are ones who probably have a closet full of bad shoes.”

…

So imagine the irony when I found out she just started a blog about shoes. If you like shoes, subscribe to her blog!

Continue reading about [Bonus story after the jump]

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The Truth

Robert noticed that I had the Bible Verse app installed on Facebook. I installed it when Jia mentioned it, but haven’t touched it since the first verse that came up was…

Bible Verse of the Day

John 8:32: “Then you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free.” The motto of my alma mater is: “The truth shall make you free.”

Back when I went there, you could get a shirt that looked just like the ones sold in the Caltech bookstore: With the torch logo and the true motto of that Institute: “The truth shall rape you over.”

Thank you, Caltech, for taking my entire last year there to secretly indict me for an honor code violation which you only resolved seven days before my graduation. (Tip: if you call in 20% of the student body as KGB informants on me, it isn’t going to be a secret.)

The truth…

*laughs*

The truth will rape you over.

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Ogres Select Consumption Over Networking (OSCON)

It’s weird how worlds intersect. Here is some lobbycon dialog:

“I don’t know, but if you plot the points, there aren’t many intersections. I’ve noticed it on my Facebook: The Open Source world has different geeks, and then the Web 2.0 world is mixed up. Priorities are f’d—people like X, who are big in the Web 2.0 world, nobody knows here.”

“Web 2.0 is…not even geeks really.”

“If it were, every party would be like the Ars Technica/Gizmodo WWDC party.”

“Haha.”

Continue reading about [More OSCON dialog after the jump]

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Unfortunate names

In college, I had a classmate and friend, Richard Chiu.

It hurts me to confess it, but it was two years before I dawned on me he had been given a most unfortunate name.

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The boxes we are

A random post on my stalker feed brings me back of the last party

…

“Are you single?” It’s the second time at the party, Alex has asked that. The internal dialog is now in fine form.

This is San Francisco, shouldn’t you ask if I’m gay first?, “Stop trying to fill out my social networking registration page, Alex”

Somewhat less emphatically: “You are single?!” Then slightly more emphatically: “Terry is single”—as if repetition makes it true.

I’m in a relationship with my Nikon and it’s complicated. “My status is not some box you can check off,” I retort.

“Wait, you are single, aren’t you?” decidedly less emphatically.

That’s thrice! Damn Canon photogs! “You couldn’t even shoot my D3.” I laugh.

“Terry is single,” Alex declares to anyone who was interested. (Nobody was.)

Nelson Muntz voice: “Ha ha!” Maybe if you were a Nikon-toting hottie, I’d have given you a straight answer.

Party photography Q&A tree

Now, in my defense, when it comes to that senseless brand war, I have to represent. But I admit that it was a bit harsh, especially since, as an event photographer himself, he must get asked my most-despised geek-party conversation starter an awful lot: “Who are you with?” (i.e. “Who are you shooting for so I know if I should do a posedown.”)

We hates it, my precious, yes we do.

Coincidentally, just that day, I devised a customer support answer tree to turn this question into a lethal conversation-killer:

Party photography Q&A tree: “Who you with?”

…then give them that dismissive look, like they just said something incredibly stupid.

Continue reading Boxes and banter after the jump

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