> So the other day — right over there — I saw a bum playing some buckets and another guy right next to him accompanying on an iPad. And, I was like… “This is the future.”
>
> — K3, Senior Jedi Program Coordinator, Wikimedia Foundation
Sunrise over Jefferson
Sunrise over Jefferson
National Mall, Washington, District of Columbia
National Mall, Washington, District of Columbia
Nikon D3, Nikkor 24-70mm f/2.8G
9 exposures (+1 to -8ev) @ ƒ5.6, ISO200, 70mm
[Erik][erik moeller] finally wore me down. I decided to start [contributing my images][upload wizard] to Wikimedia Commons because, you know, I like work here on features and stuff. (**[Download or link the above image on Wikimedia Commons here][sunrise on commons]**.)
The license is mostly compatible with the way I currently release images as an amateur phtoographer. But since I prefer people contact me for derivatives or commercial work, I down sampled to 1024px JPEGs as a head nod to the more liberal Creative Commons license that Wikimedia uses.
[erik moeller]: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Erik_Möller “Erik Möller—Wikipedia”
[sunrise on commons]: http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Sunrise_over_Jefferson.jpg “Sunrise over Jefferson—Wikipedia Commons”
[upload wizard]: http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Special:UploadWizard “Upload Wizard—Wikimedia Commons”
[PediaPress]: http://pediapress.com/ “PediaPress: Create Your Custom Wikipedia-Book”
As I start taking photos again, I’ll release more images to commons… I promise! 🙂 (Oh yeah, they’ll be 2048px images in the future, so that [PediaPress][PediaPress] can use them.)
The new MagSafe
In nearly every review of the new MacBook Air or MacBook Pro Retina, a big list on the minus column has been the new [MagSafe][] 2 connector.
Mostly because this necessitates the purchase of a $10 part for all ones other’s adapters that is (admittedly) easy to lose.
But overall, I feel this deserves a big plus. Since I’ve had my MacBook Air, I have not once put my USB cable into my MagSafe outlet. This was an almost daily occurrence, so much so that I noticed I unconsciously nurtured a habit of using the right USB port first.
Now if they can only bring back the low profile connector and license MagSafe to third parties. Well that, and create a FindMyMagSafe2Adapter app. Because I seemed to have lost one of mine already.
[MagSafe]: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MagSafe “MagSafe—Wikipedia”
Crunched
There’s a [Crunch Fitness][crunch soma] next to Wikipedia that has got to be the unhappiest Crunch fitness in the world.
On most days, there are trainers standing outside it trying to convince you to join. But mostly they looked pissed off because the masses queuing up for Sushiritto are blocking their entrance. Sweaty overpriced gym vs. sushi in a giant flour tortilla? It’s simple math really.
I started wondering how that Crunch was still in business. Then it started to wonder why I wondered.
Finally, I came to the conclusion is that you can’t see anyone one of the treadmills from New Montgomery street. I think 90% of the reason people go to gyms is because they want to be seen. Even my local YMCA (which looks like it was built to double as a fallout shelter) situations the treadmills next to street side windows.
This [introvert][] then realized a gym membership is not for him.
It would be interesting to give a personality test to gym rats and home workout DVD people.
[crunch soma]: http://www.yelp.com/biz/crunch-san-francisco-27 “Crunch – Soma – San Francisco, CA — Yelp”
[sushirrito]: http://www.sushirrito.com/ “Shushirrito San Francisco: A Fresh Way To Roll”
[introvert]: http://terrychay.com/article/my-personality.shtml “My personality”
The neighboring McDonald's
My co-workers are constantly amazed and appalled about my obsession with [McDonald’s trivia][stuff i should know]. Most common comment once I get started: “How are you **not** writing the Wikipedia article about this?”
One of the weird talents is the knowledge of every McDonald’s in San Francisco (I’ve been FourSquare mayor of most of them). There aren’t that many.
Because of this, one of the strangest pairs are the two McDonald’s on Market Street which are less than a half block from each other. You can actually see the one from the other.
I thought about this while I stopped by one as I picked up [breakfast][mcmusings] at one and walked passed the other on my way to work. Are people so lazy that they need to put two McDonald’s right next to each other? In fact, there are four McDonald’s within a few blocks of each other here, but there are none north of Golden Gate Park where I live. Is McDonald’s too high brow for the Avenues that it can only be services by a Jack In The Box and Taco Bell?
Then it occurs to me that the clientele is notably different between the two. It’s mostly because one has nearly no seating and therefore doesn’t smell like a bathroom got backed up, which is doubly odd because the smelly one doesn’t actually have a bathroom.
I’m thinking of calling one the “[high class Market McDonalds][]” and the other “[low class Market McDonalds][].” (I’m adding the term “Market” because the one on Front Street is actually nicer than both.)
My faith in the world of business was restored.
If you’re ever in the Financial District stop by all four sometime and you’ll know what I mean.
[stuff i should know]: http://terrychay.com/article/stuff-i-should-know.shtml “Stuff I should know”
[mcmusings]: http://terrychay.com/article/mcmuffins.shtml “McMusings”
[high class McDonald’s]: http://www.yelp.com/biz/mcdonalds-san-francisco-10 “McDonald’s SOMA San Francisco—Yelp”
[low class McDonald’s]: http://www.yelp.com/biz/mcdonalds-san-francisco-27 “McDonald’s SOMA San Francisco—Yelp”
The Washington Monument (and me)
From my Uncle Francis:
Hello Terry,
Your birthday is coming soon (6/9/12). Happy birthday to you, Terry.
We hope for your & Marie’s continued success & happyness.
I am sorry for not communicating with you. I am still OK but have to do many medical checkup and others.
I have been looking at old photos in an album was sent by my + your mom’s mom after we lost our home by fire in 1991.
I found a photo of you, Ken, & your mom at the Washington Monument, all in smile. What a happy time that was! I often
wish that your mom is still here. She would have be mighty happy and proud of you and Kenny becoming so successful.Uncle Francis & Auntie Clara
PS: I am a novice at Photoshop to retouch, hence, sorry for the photo being a kind of old faint yellowish look. A higher resolution (but without retouch) picture is attached.
Me, Mom, and Ken at Washington D.C. (1973)
National Mall, Washington D.C.
National Mall, Washington D.C.
Pentax K
(Of course, I retouched it in Aperture.)
Here are two stories inspired by the photo, I’ll share with you on my birthday.Continue reading Washington Monument stories after the jump
Emma (and DxO Optics Pro 7/FilmPack 3)
It’s time to stop [recharging my batteries][recharging batteries] and start blogging and photographing again.
The first long slog will be starting to bring my Aperture Library up-to-date, but when I started, I got distracted that [DxO Optics Pro][dxo optics pro] was upgraded to version 7. I decided to spring for an update for it and the [FilmPack][dxo filmpack].
I dug up an unprocessed photo of [Kara’s][kara] daughter, Emma and took tested my two new toys ([via Catapult][catapult workflow]):
Emma
The Richmond, San Francisco, California
The Richmond, San Francisco, California
Olympus E-PL3, Lumix G 20/F1.7
1/60sec @ ƒ1.7, ISO200, 20mm (40mm)
You can mouseover to see the original image. Even at thumbnail size you can see the distortion fixes an that DxO recovered actually recovered some extra data. The color and saturation improvements are mostly due to picking the right film stock to emulate.
It’ll nice to get back out into the world again. 🙂
[recharging batteries]: http://terrychay.com/article/recharging-personality-batteries.shtml “Your personality recharges your batteries”
[dxo optics pro]: http://dxo.com/us/photo/dxo_optics_pro “DxO Optics Pro: Introduction—DxO”
[dxo filmpack]: http://dxo.com/us/photo/dxo_optics_pro “DxO Filmpack—DxO”
[kara]: http://www.karaemurphy.me/ “karaemurphy.me”
[catapult workflow]: http://terrychay.com/article/unsupported-raw-apple-aperture.shtml “Unsupported RAW workflow in Apple Aperture”
Join Wikimedia (Senior LAMP Software Developer)
> “Imagine a world in which every single human being can freely share in the sum of all knowledge. **That’s our commitment.**”
If you don’t know already, [I left Automattic (WordPress)][leaving automattic] and have joined the [Wikimedia Foundation][wikimedia] ([Wikipedia][wikipedia]) in February. Before this, I haven’t posted our regular jobs because I wasn’t too sure how relevant they were, and because I got burned by the Jobvite system spamming [my twitter][twittertychay] followers with jobs. (I apologize profusely!)
This is despite the fact that our infrastructure is PHP ([obviously][mediawiki]).
Until recently the Foundation has had lacked mostly Javascript and UI engineers and not senior-level PHP ones. But I guess when I joined all of the good PHP developers left! j/k 😀
Currently and in the coming months, we will have had three positions open up for a Senior Software full-stack LAMP/PHP engineer. If you want to work for the 5th most popular web property in the world with nearly half a billion monthly uniques (and probably the largest single-install open-source PHP project), you should really consider working [here][wikimedia]
### Job description: [Senior Software Developer at the Wikimedia Foundation][jobvite]
Be a part of a newly forming team that will be tasked to entice new authors to Wikipedia. You will create responsive UI-driven software components in a highly iterative environment to support user engagement experimental features for Wikimedia websites using JavaScript, CSS3, HTML5 and PHP.
#### Some of the projects you’ll work on:
– Develop new experimental editor engagement features for Wikimedia sites.
– Extend MediaWiki software to support new experimental features.
– Participate in periodic technology meetings for design, development and testing of experimental features.
– Scrum master for development team.
#### Required Qualifications
– 5+ years of web development experience, including front-end development (JavaScript/jQuery/HTML5/CSS3), and server-side development using PHP/MySQL.
– 5+ years experience with rapid iterative software development processes, ability to quickly grasp requirements, derive UI workflow and develop functionality.
– Experience deploying code into high transaction volume production environments.
– Experience with A/B testing, cross-browser testing, debugging.
– Knowledge of Agile Methodologies such as Scrum and Extreme Programming (XP). ScrumMaster training preferred.
– Familiarity with version control systems/continuous integration tools (we use Git/Gerrit/Jenkins).
– Must be able to meet aggressive timelines, iterate rapidly, and switch rapidly across multiple projects.
– Strong communication skills: Must be able to communicate clearly and effectively; have strong written and oral communication skills as well as be able to collaborate easily within a cross-functional team.
– B.S. or M.S. Computer Science or related field preferred.
#### Extra Points if you have:
– Experience with MediaWiki and other open source PHP-based content management systems
– Experience in the Wikipedia community
– Experience contributing to a major Open Source project
– Understanding of free culture / free software /open source
– Experience working with online volunteers.
– Experience with wikis and participatory production environments.
– Good sense of humor
– Being creative, highly motivated, hard-working and ability to work effectively in multiple cultural contexts are great assets
– Comfortable working in an open, highly collaborative, consensus-oriented environment
Please provide URLs to any existing open source software work you may have done (your own software or patches to other packages) if possible. We’d love to see what you can do!
#### About the Wikimedia Foundation
The Wikimedia Foundation is the non-profit organization that operates Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia. According to comScore Media Metrix, Wikipedia and the other projects operated by the Wikimedia Foundation receive more than 482 million unique visitors per month, making them the 5th most popular web property worldwide. Available in more than 270 languages, Wikipedia contains more than 21 million articles contributed by a global volunteer community of more than 100,000 people. Based in San Francisco, California, the Wikimedia Foundation is an audited, 501(c)(3) charity that is funded primarily through donations and grants. The Wikimedia Foundation was created in 2003 to manage the operation of Wikipedia and its sister projects. It currently employs 130 staff members. Wikimedia is supported by local chapter organizations in 38 countries or regions.
[Apply by clicking on this link][jobvite] or contact me personally. 🙂
### Why working here is totally awesome
Wikimedia Foundation 90 second HR Video with Disclaimer
Transcoded from original created and uploaded to Wikimedia Commons by WMFer, Victorgrigas.
(It’s probably a good thing this was filmed before I joined the Foundation. A version with me in it would have been rated R due to strong language. 😀 )
You should seriously work here. 🙂
[leaving automattic]: http://terrychay.com/article/automattic-outro.shtml “Automattic Outro”
[wikimedia]: http://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Home “Wikimedia Foundation”
[wikipedia]: http://www.wikipedia.org/ “Wikipedia”
[twittertychay]: http://twitter.com/tychay “Me @ Twitter”
[mediwiki]: http://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/MediaWiki “MediaWiki”
[jobvite]:
http://hire.jobvite.com/Jobvite/Job.aspx?j=oHDiWfwi&c=qSa9VfwQ “Senior Software Developer—Wikimedia Foundation @ Jobvite”
Wikimedia 503 Accessibility Hack Day (May 19, SF)
[The Wikimedia Foundation][wmf] is organizing a mini hackathon related to
accessibility (ensuring [our software][mediawiki] is usable by people with
disabilities or special needs). We’re working with Lucy Greco, an
Assistive Technology Specialist at the Disabled Student’s Program of
UC Berkeley on this.
If you’re a front-end developer or UI/UX designer, you can help. We’ll
work with a user of Dragon text-to-speech, a user of
on-screen-keyboard technology, 2-3 users of the JAWS screen reader,
and 1 user of a Mac screen reader. So you can directly help improve
the experience for real people who encounter issues with [Wikipedia] and
our other sites.
The event will be at the Wikimedia Foundation offices ([149 New
Montgomery Street][wmf hq], third floor) on Saturday, May 19, beginning at 10
AM and ending probably in the late PM. Lunch and dinner will be
provided.
Please RSVP with Rachel Farrand rfarrand [at] wikimedia dot] org by May 15 if
you’re interested in attending.
[wmf]: http://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Home “Wikimedia Foundation”
[mediawiki]: http://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/MediaWiki “MediaWiki which powers Wikipedia”
[wmf hq]: http://maps.google.com/maps?q=149+New+Montgomery+Street&client=safari&oe=UTF-8&hnear=149+New+Montgomery+St,+San+Francisco,+California+94105&gl=us&t=m&z=16
[wikipedia]: http://www.wikipedia.com “Wikipedia”
Automattic outro
[The company I work for][automattic] is distributed [around the world][map]. Automattic is the company behind WordPress so we keep in track of each other using a hundred different internal blogs known as “[the P2s][p2].” Since we might not see each other for over a year, someone (probably [Sara][sara rosso]) got the crazy idea of that new employees should record a video introducing ourselves to the rest of the company. Later, around my birthday, some of the old hands also belatedly created and posted videos to the P2s.
I secretly recorded one.
Since I am leaving Automattic, it made sense that I had better posted it before I leave.
By the way, Automattic is a great company, [you should work there][work at automattic]. As Marie said to me once, “It’s like a big company picnic…[with BBQ][matt bbq].”
[automattic]: http://automattic.com/ “Automattic”
[map]: http://automattic.com/about/#where “About Us—Automattic”
[Automatticians]: http://automattic.com/about/ “About Us—Automattic”
[Lloyd Dewolf]: http://foolswisdom.com/ “A Fool’s Wisdom: A Fool and his wisdom are soon parted”
[office porn]: http://terrychay.com/article/office-porn.shtml “Office Porn”
: https://en.gravatar.com/tychay
[p2]: http://p2theme.com/ “P2 WordPress Theme, like twitter”
[sara rosso]: http://www.sararosso.com/ “Sarra Rosso: Technology, Communication, Photography, Food & Travel”
[work at automattic]: http://automattic.com/work-with-us/ “Work With Us—Automattic”
[sopa blackout]: http://www.cnn.com/2012/01/18/tech/sopa-blackouts/index.html “Wikipedia, other websites back after anti-piracy bill protest—CNN”
[wordpress]: http://wordpress.org/ “WordPress: Blog tool, Publishing Platform, & CMS”
[Wikimedia]: http://www.wikimedia.org/ “Wikimedia Foundation”
[matt bbq]: http://ma.tt/?s=bbq
What follows is a slightly modified version of my Automattic farewell.