SteamedPenguin

Rabih Alameddine graced Minneapolis with his presence for a reading from his latest novel, Hakawati.

Rabih Alameddine Minneapolis 00: Rabih signs a book

Rabih was hosted by Mizna at Pangea World Theater.

I had read Rabih's Koolaids a long time ago when I was depressed and feeling rather morose. After reading Koolaids I was still depressed, but in a good way.

Rabih's writing helped me come out of low point in my life. Such was the impact than when I heard he was coming to town I dropped several thing I should have been working on to go see him read.

Rabih Alameddine Minneapolis 01: Samir says something clever and insightful

Rabih was great. Yes Rabih, you are pretty! The discussion was also great except for a certain academic whose comments were (ahem) academic and the tone grating. Note to self, when you are part of an organization, do not make the guest uncomfortable.

After Rabih signed books my brother Munir and I had a chance to talk to Rabih and take some pictures.

When three Arabs get together post 9/11 (yes I said "post 9/11", I love cliches) there is usually one joke about being a terrorist. So here we are with our group booking picture.

Rabih Alameddine Minneapolis 03: Wanted: 3 Arabs armed with books aka Weapons of Mass Delight

I don't give money when asked on the street unless I consider it an economic transaction worth my while. So street musicians and other performers usually get some change. People sitting on the ground with a sign don't. Assholes pretending to be deaf on Light Rail Transit "raising money" for schools for the deaf definitely don't.

As I was walking home from a meeting to show off an OLPC I had for a project I was stopped by a young man asking me if I would pay for a poem. I found the idea not only novel but delightful. Here is a really great investment opportunity; I trade some money for a fleeting window into another world, another mind and a new vocabulary. Considering that it is easy to pay eight American Peso for a really shitty movie a dollar for a poem is a decent trade.

So I handed the young man a dollar and he handed me a slip of paper with some writing on it. The paper is cheap, thin, and worn with a stain on the back. As I take the poem he asks me if I would like him to read it. I will admit that only getting a slip of paper for a dollar made me a bit peeved, but his offer to read the poem made me very happy. This is a better deal than just a slip of paper. An auditory interaction with the poet, how wonderful!

Upon an Alter
Head Head High
Man naming Saints
Dead past
Salutation For deed
gone rebirth
In place redemption
The rapturous Masses
gathered
Meaning vengeance for
life hardly lived
the blade drops
the crowd cheers
His head Falls
She cries
Knowing
Shes Next

-- Nicholas J. Thompson

A Street Poem by Nicholas J. Thompson

A power outage brought down SteamedPenguin while my brother, who houses SteamedPenguin, was out of town. He is back, so is this site.

Allie Micka of Advantage Labs is presenting "Why Drupal?"

Drupal has many millions of dollars of development money involved. Lots of developer mass.

Drupal gives developer the advantage to be able to hand off projects to the next developer. It also makes maintenance easier for you.

Current issues being addressed in Drupal:

• Internationalization
• OpenID integration
• handling media
• scalability
• permissions
• usability studies and improvement

Drupal is empowering:

Experienced administrators can build applications without programming knowledge.
Gain a rich foundation to start from.

Making it easier for client to edit information:

Permissions help you lock down the interface
WYSIWYG is possible if you need it
As users become more proficient you can upgrade them

Developer, developers, developer
Lots of preexisting functionality
Extend functionality, don't create it
Thousands of really smart people will help you

Advantage Labs likes to use install profiles.

Symbols are a powerful tool to push ideas forward. To promote the idea of a one state solution I am trying my hand at designing a flag to symbolize one country combining Palestine and Israel.

I am using the 5 Basic Principles of Flag Design, part of Good Flag, Bad Flag, published by the North American Vexillological Association:

Keep It Simple

The flag should be so simple that a child can draw it from memory

Use Meaningful Symbolism

The flag’s images, colors, or patterns should relate to what it symbolizes

Use 2–3 Basic Colors

Limit the number of colors on the flag to three, which contrast well and come from the standard color set

No Lettering or Seals

Never use writing of any kind or an organization’s seal

Be Distinctive or Be Related

Avoid duplicating other flags, but use similarities to show connections

I want the flag to be easy to draw for a child. The blue flagstaff and the rising sun are easy for a child to put to white paper. The olive branch is also easy; it is big and has distinct shapes and colors.

Peace By The Sea

The symbols come from the joint history of Palestinians and Israelis:

• The blue flagstaff uses the blue stripes from the flag of the State of Israel to represent the Mediterranean Sea
• The rising sun symbolizes renewal and hope for the the future.
• The olive branch on the white field represents peace.
• The colors combine the four Pan-Arab colors and add the blue of the flag of Israel

The last three principles are preserved except for the principle of not using more than 3 basic colors.

I am preparing myself for a presentation on using the Zen theme for Drupal. I could, and should, use another site to play around with but I tend to use and abuse SteamedPenguin because it is handy and because it is easy for me to work with an actual product rather than having to create a design to be populated. When I do web development I prefer to have the actual content before starting to work. Content is still king, right? Creating designs from scratch has zero appeal to me because design is supposed to follow from form not the other way around.

In playing with Zen on SteamedPenguin I desired a graphical representation for this site, something that had been lacking for several years. Looking for graphics of penguins that are licensed freely really pushes you towards using a representation of Tux the Linux mascot. This posed a problem for me as using software like Gimp or Krita isn't a core competency. While looking through the Wikipedia article on Tux I saw the very pretty and shiny Crystallized Tux. I saved the image and opened it up with Inkscape.

I made two small modifications to the original image. I inverted the line that makes the penguin smile and flipped it so that the contented smile turns into a curl is displeasure. Next I created two areas with the Bezier tool to conform to the upper curvature of the eyes so that the open, happy look turns into a scowl.

I am sitting at Advantage Labs this evening for the monthly Twin Cities Drupal Group meeting. Gabe Ormsby is presenting for Friends of the Mississippi River today.

I am sitting in a mixed group of people, most of them are developers of some sort or the other. I am holding down the fort for the hobbyists since I am not doing anything professional.

The presentation wasn't exactly Drupal specific, at least until the end, but that is quite OK. It was interesting to see the process of development laid bare as it makes it easier to apply to Drupal.

The subsequent discussion was a bit high-level which might be due to Gabe's high-level approach which might be a bit difficult for people unfamiliar with the terminology to feel comfortable discussing.

I was telling my sweetie about a project to have plants notify their tenders when they need water via Twitter. Hat tip to SlashDot.

After telling my sweetie what the project does, she reacted with: "That's creepy!". I asked her why wedding technology to biology would make her express such horror, to which she responded with: "It's one step away from Hostas taking over the world!"

According to Political Compass I am a Left-Libertarian. To those who know me this really isn't much of a surprise, to those that don't know me it can't be a surprise at all since they, er, don't know me.

There are two scales: Economic and Social. Here are the results of my Political Compass Test:

Economic Left/Right: -7.62
Social Libertarian/Authoritarian: -6.72

SteamedPenguins' Political Compass

Go ahead and read the site, it is informative and fun to read. Then go take the test and leave me a comment or a link to let me know where you stand.

If you haven't heard yet, Dries Buytaert of Drupal fame and a crack usability team are converging on Minneapolis to make Drupal better, stronger, faster.

While this is cool and awesome, even better is the meet and greet that is going to be held at the University of Minnesota's Campus Club on Monday, February 25. The time is not completely set, but it'll be in the evening.

Check out the the Twin Cities Drupal Group RSVP announcement and put your name on the list like the cool kids did.

You really can't go wrong here. You get to meet Drupal core developers, module contributors, and Drupal-related service providers. Come one come all, but put your name on the RSVP list so we don't overwhelm the Campus Club.