Other articles

1. Get in it

   2018 06 12 life

   journal excerpt poetry pycon jupyter python

   Two weeks ago, Project Jupyter had our only planned team meeting for 2018. There was too much stuff going on for me to write a poem during the event as I had in previous years (2016, and 2017), so I ended up reading one of the pieces I wrote during my evening introvert breaks in Cleveland at PyCon a few weeks earlier.

   Once again, Fernando and Matthias had their gadgets ready to record (thank you both!). The video below was taken by Fernando.

   click to view the video

   Get in it

   Time suspended
   Gellatinous reality - the haze
   submerged in murky drops summed
   in swamp pond of life
   
   believe and strive, expand the mind
   A state sublime, when in your prime you came to
   me and we were free to flow and fling our
   cares, our dreams, our in-betweens, our
   rêves perdues, our residue -- the lime of light
   the black of sight -- all these converge and
   merge the forks of friction filled with fright
   and more -- the float of logs that plunges deep
   beyond the fray, beyond the keep -- a leap of faith
   the lore of rite, with passage clear, let
   fear subside, the wealth of confidence will
   rise and iron out wrinkles of doubt
   
   Commit to change and stash your pride
   then push your luck, and make amends.
   Branch out your thoughts, reset assumptions
   then checkout.
   
   The force of pulls t'wards master class
   Remote of possibilities. Rehash the past
   Patch up the present -- what's the diff?
   
   There's nothing left -- except to glide -- and
   soar beyond your frame of mind.  try not to pry
   cry, freedom, cry.
   

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2. June 1st, 2017

   2017 06 03 life

   journal excerpt poetry jupyter python

   We had another biannual Jupyter team meeting this week, this time it was right nearby in Berkeley. Since I had read a poem at the last meeting, I was encouraged to keep that going and decided to make this a tradition. Here's the result, as delivered this past Friday, recorded by Fernando Pérez (thanks, Fernando!).

   June 1st, 2017

   We struggle -- with ourselves and with each other
   we plan -- we code and write
   the pieces and ideas t'wards what we think is right
   but we may disagree -- about
   the means, about the goals, about the
   shoulders we should stand on --
   where we should stand, what we should stretch toward
   shrink from, avoid, embrace --
   a sense of urgency - but this is not a race
   
   We can't erase the past
   but we have built this future present
   There's much to learn, to do...
   
   Ours not the only path, no one coerced you here
   You chose this -- so did I and here we are --
   still at the barricades and gaining ground
   against the old closed world:
   compute communication comes unshackled
   

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3. November 9th, 2016

   2016 11 21 life

   journal excerpt poetry avila beach jupyter python

   Two weeks ago, I went down to San Luis Obispo, California for a five day Jupyter team meeting with about twenty five others. This was the first such meeting since my return after being away for two years, and I enjoyed meeting some of the "newer" faces, as well as catching up with old friends.

   It was both a productive and an emotionally challenging week, as the project proceeds along at breakneck pace on some fronts yet continues to face growing pains which come from having to scale in the human dimension.

   On Wednesday, November 9th, 2016, we spent a good chunk of the day at a nearby beach: chatting, decompressing, and luckily I brought my journal with me and was able to capture the poem you will find below. I intended to read it at a local open mic the same evening, but by the time I got there with a handful of fellow Jovyans for support, all of the slots were taken. On Friday, the last day of our meeting, I got the opportunity to read it to most of the larger group. Here's a recording of that reading, courtesy of Matthias Bussonnier (thanks, Matthias!).

   November 9th, 2016

   The lovely thing about the ocean is
   that it
   is
   tireless 
   It never stops
   incessant pendulum of salty foamy slush
   Periodic and chaotic
   raw, serene 
   Marine grandmother clock  
   crashing against both pier
   and rock
   
   Statuesque encampment of abandonment
   recoiling with force
   and blasting forth again
   No end in sight
   a train forever riding forth
   and back
   along a line
   refined yet undefined
   the spirit with
   which it keeps time 
   in timeless unity of moon's alignment
   
   I. walk. forth.
   
   Forth forward by the force
   of obsolete contrition
   the vision of a life forgotten
   Excuses not
   made real with sand, wet and compressed
   beneath my heel and toes, yet reeling from
   the blinding glimmer of our Sol
   reflected by the glaze of distant hazy surf
   upon whose shoulders foam amoebas roam
   
   It's gone.
   Tone deaf and muted by
   
   anticipation
   each coming wave
   breaks up the pregnant pause
   And here I am, barefoot in slacks and tie
   experiencing sensations
   of loss, rebirth and seldom 
   kelp bulbs popping in my soul.
   

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4. Jupyter's Gravity

   2016 08 31 life

   jupyter python disqus bloomberg

   I'm switching jobs.

   For the past two years I've been working with the great team at Disqus as a member of the backend and data teams. Before that, I spent a half-dozen years mostly not working on my thesis at UC Berkeley but instead contributing to to the scientific Python ecosystem, especially matplotlib, IPython, and the IPython notebook, which is now called Jupyter. So when Bloomberg reached out to me with a compelling position to work on those open-source projects again from their SF office, such a tremendous opportunity was hard to pass up. You could say Jupyter has a large gravitational pull that's hard to escape, but you'd be huge nerd. ;)

   I have a lot to catch up on, but I'm really excited and looking forward to contributing on these fronts again!

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