Comments from the rusty cage

How to know ...

Meike Reichle — Sun, 14 Sep 2008 20:54:18 GMT

In response to Lior:

How to know you're dating a free software guy?

You can recognize you're dating a free software guy by:

You've finally found someone who shares your interests.
He knows it is called GNU/Linux.
He understands why you refuse to talk via gTalk, MSN or icq.
His browser of choice is called Iceweasel, as is yours.
He likes to attend your talks at Open Source conferences.

And the #1 way is:

You've finally found a guy who stands above stereotyping women as technically and technologically ignorant.

More Blatant Advertising: Eleonore Digital

Meike Reichle — Sat, 13 Sep 2008 10:37:34 GMT

Here's one more post for my own little "advertising section", where I introduce gender-related projects that I think are a good idea but deserve some more publicity. So, last time we had geekspeakr.com, this time I'd like to introduce to you the Eleonore Digital Project.

In a nutshell they are organising a project where groups of students all over Europe work together in creating an educational 3D computer game that deals with the life of Eleanor of Aquitaine. Each team is assigned an episode or a certain aspect of Eleonore's life and they will research this, draft a concept and finally create their respective part or episode of the game. Doing this they will only work with free software, namely Debian as the Operating System, OOo, Blender etc. A longer (and better) description of what they want to do and the motivation behind all of this can be found in their project description or on the Eleonore Project site itself.

In my opinion the project seems to be a really good idea and I wish them the best of luck! What I like most about it is that it is not exclusively for girls, so that it does not create a kind of "artificial biotope" for girls to work in. Instead it aims to rise the girls ratio by means of a project topic that (so I assume) mostly appeals to girls. And I am especially happy that when looking for a topic that appeals to girls they came up with something better than fan homepages, foto love stories, and what else you find in "girls IT projects" these days. I am pretty sure that reading and researching on the life of one of the most influential women in European history is going to do them much more good that creating princess-themes webpages! I am also quite happy that they picked Debian as their operating system. I think Debian being used in a school project is a nice example that it is in fact not as "user-unfriendly" as it is often claimed to be! I've also introduced the project to the Debian Women Project and Miriam had the very good idea to also forward it to the Debian Games Team, so I hope we'll get some good cooperation here.

Where's Meike?

Meike Reichle — Fri, 29 Aug 2008 20:30:00 GMT

As September is traditionally the "conference month" I'll be travelling all around Germany within the next weeks. So, inspired by Matthew, here's a short list of events I'll attend in September 2008. If anyone's up for a coffee, keysigning or something let me know!

August 31st to September 4th 9th European Conference on Case-Based Reasoning, Trier, Germany
September 5th to September 7th 3rd Congress on Solidary Economy Bremen, Bremen, Germany (Will probably arrive on Saturday)
September 23rd to September 26th 31st edition of the Annual German Conference on Artificial Intelligence, Kaiserslautern, Germany (Will probably arrive on Monday)

3rd Congress on Solidary Economy Bremen

Meike Reichle — Fri, 29 Aug 2008 14:42:24 GMT

If you happen to be near Bremen, Germany around the 5.-7. September 2008 and have an interest in solidary economy, free software, renewable energies and the like you might want to stop by at the 3rd Congress on Solidary Economy (German website).

I haven't been at the first two of these congresses but I was invited as a speaker for this one, so I'll be around at least on Saturday and probably also on Sunday. I'll mainly be on a panel on free and open source software which will take place on Saturday evening at 20:00. (Prime Time :)) But I've also let myself be talked into joining another panel at 17:00 which is somehow ubuntu-related (Communtu). I am not yet sure if I'll have much to contribute there, I am neither a ubuntu specialist nor particularly fond of it, but the organiser said he wouldn't mind and he'd welcome critical remarks just as much, so, we'll see.

I am really looking forward to being a speaker on an event again! Ever since I started my PhD I've been much too busy to attend (leave alone prepare talks for) as many events as I'd have liked. I hope the situation will improve next year when things get rolling with my PhD. (Currently still in a "topic orientation/find a project/write proposals" state ...)

Happy belated birthday Debian!

Meike Reichle — Mon, 18 Aug 2008 14:05:58 GMT

On August 16th 2008 the Debian Project, joy and burden of my geek life, has turned 15 years of age. Congratulations! There have been celebrations all around the world, and we've also had a little party at our home, complete with nice unhealthy food, red wine and chocolate and strawberries for dessert.

For a GNU/Linux distribution 15 years is quite a lot. We're almost the only distribution of such old age (Hi Slackware!) and there've been many, many others that didn't make it half as long. That said I am quite proud of this little project of ours and hope for many happy returns!

Artwork by Andre L.R.Ferreira, source: debianart.org (whose lack of thumbnails is still immensely annoying)