Joshua Wood

Microblog

Here’s what I want to know:

What amount of anti-trans and anti-minority hate are we willing to accept from our open source and business leaders?

Because if the answer is none, then we’re already complete hypocrites.

Just to be clear: the incoming Trump administration is going to war against their own Republican senate majority and the constitution’s advice and consent provision so they can make a man investigated for sex trafficking a minor into the most powerful law enforcement officer in the country.

Chris Hayes sums it up nicely. I’d also add that Gaetz was one of the foremost insurrectionists in congress.

RFK jr. Wants to dismantle health institutions, he doesn’t believe in science, he believes secret powers controll the government and health sectors, and has been dreaming of being able to dismantle the cdc and fda. (source)

It really makes me wonder, do most people know what RFK Jr. believes and has been saying for years? I think the answer is probably no—but they’re sure as hell about to find out.

Someone is playing a beautiful piano rendition of David Bowie’s Space Oddity at the new PDX airport terminal right now. Portland has really gone to hell.

Packing for RubyConf. These shirts came out so good. 100% produced on the US West Coast. Manufactured in LA, designed in Santa Cruz, printed in Portland.

A close-up of a suitcase packed with creme colored T-shirts with a brightly colored Honeybadger graphic on them. The T-shirts are rolled and packed into the zipper compartment of the suitcase that is partially unzipped. A Ziploc bag of dye cut stickers with the same design and a logo for Honeybadger.io on them is also visible.

How does somebody get started in visual journalism?

There are different paths, from going to journalism school to just grabbing a camera and attending events. I like that about journalism—you don’t need a degree to participate. Freedom of the press is a First Amendment right.

Each event is different, but you’d be surprised by the access you can gain by just showing up with a camera. There are also industry groups that can help independent people with journalistic ethics, press identification, and legal support. NPPA is a good one.

ASMP is another one that I’ve found helpful in the past, especially when figuring out things like licensing and business stuff.

Some private events require an extra credential that they’ll grant you after some form of vetting. If you have any kind of presence as an independent photographer/journalist, again you’ll be surprised by how far just asking gets you.

Look for a “media contact” or a contact for “press inquiries”—you can ask around to find out who that is, or ask the organizers. That’s how I was able to photograph President Biden’s campaign stop in Portland in 2022.

Anyway, I’ve only dabbled in photojournalism, but find it fascinating and the little I’ve done has been extremely rewarding personally. Hopefully some pros can weigh in if I missed something or if my understanding is wrong. :)

I should also mention that this is my limited experience as a 6’ 3” bearded white dude.

OK I forgot what a batshit movie Flubber is. Sports cheating, jealous AI, dancing slime—it has it all.

Making dinner and watching Flubber (the 1997 Robin Williams movie) with my kids. If you know the professor is going to miss the wedding, he’s missed it before, maybe send someone to pick the guy up instead of setting unreasonable expectations and reading into it when they’re unmet.

I had a realization earlier this week when someone I hadn’t talked to in years emailed me. We’d met on a design forum I ran as a teenager in the early aughts. Something he said made me realize just how long I’ve been building online communities:

the forum kinda kept me in tech probably made me who I am today, always appreciated the work you did way back in the day.

like, damn. I’m not sharing this to brag; I’d just honestly forgotten how important this has always been to me.

I think it’s part of why I’ve worked so hard to build the Ruby community first on Mastodon1, and now on Bluesky2. It was a really nice reminder. 🩵

  1. I think I gave away probably a hundred Honeybadger t-shirts to get people to move to ruby.social back in the day, and we were one of the first sponsors along with Mike Perham/Sidekiq) ↩

  2. My Ruby and Rails starter pack is currently the 5th most-used starter pack on Bluesky ↩

Just got my COVID + flu shot 💉

In hindsight, I probably should have gotten the Covid one in my non-dominant arm. Oh well.

I’ve been using index cards to track priorities again. Every time I come back I don’t know how I lived without them. 📝

“I can’t believe I’m saying this, but this has been a long week. It feels like seven thousand days.” —8yo

America’s doppelgänger just won the election. Welcome to the mirror world.

It’s so weird to experience reality warping to match the fringe shit I grew up with.

Feel free to tell me about Trump/Elon derangement syndrome when all our kids have measles.

Get ready to take notes as business and software leaders start to signal their assent. You could already feel the rightward shift in some communities; I guess this explains it. This will enable and empower the worst behavior. Pay attention and push back.

Currently at the stage of election coverage where I’m searching for “relaxing videos” on youtube

I just started going to this new gym that skews older and they aren’t playing election coverage but they are playing the andy griffith show. How concerned should I be?

Finally removed X/Twitter from the company website (and replaced it with Bluesky, of course)

A screenshot of a website footer with bluesky, mastodon, and linkedin social icons

My kids’ school scheduled parent-teacher conferences this week, and it’s a full week of half days. Not sure what they were thinking with that one.

my plan to handle the stress today is to catch up on my 2-year backlog of Foreign Affairs