These next two weeks I’ll be in Tokyo and Osaka doing training on everything from the Agile Inception Deck to How to lead your agile team.
If you are interested, checkout the schedule below to see if anything fits your schedule. These courses are open to the public.
See you in the Dojo!
I have a few “real” posts I’m working on, but I’m finishing up edits over the next couple weeks, and am thus in my cave. But since Sunday posts are usually made of less articulate stuff anyway, let’s roll with this 
I’m normally the one asking for music, so I thought today I would share some instead.
This lovely winter Sunday morning, I am sharing my running mix.
Why, you ask, as opposed to say, a sanity mix, or a writing mix? Because running mixes aren’t just for running. They are for bolstering souls, they are the mixes that make me want to get up and move. The mixes that make me forget I’m in edits.
Enjoy!
Ain’t Nothing Wrong With That — Robert Randolph & The Family Band
No One Knows — Queens Of The Stone Age
Rolling In The Deep — Adele
Rehab — Amy Winehouse
You Ain’t Know — Birdman & Lil Wayne
Barton Hollow — The Civil Wars
Burn the Witch — Queens of the Stone Age
Here Comes the Sun (Live) — Dan Fogelberg
The Rake’s Song — The Decemberists
E.T. — DJ Cookiecutter
Like a G6 — Far East Movement
Kiss With a Fist — Florence + The Machine
Deliver Me — Robert Randolph & The Family Band
99 Problems — Hugo
Capsize — Karen O and the Kids
Counting — Korn
Love Is the Only Way — Robert Randolph & The Family Band
Holy Roller Novocaine — My Terrible Friend
Fresh Azimiz — Bow Wow
Top Back — T.I.
Lola — Superbus
Get Over It — Ok Go
That’s all the songs on this particular mix!
So, do you have any songs that just PUMP YOU UP??? Share them in the comments!
It has been a little over two weeks now since the protest site at thecostofknowledge.com was set up to register declarations of non-cooperation with Reed Elsevier in protest of their research publishing practices, inspired by this blog post of Tim Gowers. Awareness of the protest has certainly grown in these two weeks; the number of signatories is now well over four thousand, across a broad array of academic disciplines, and the protest has been covered by many blogs and also the mainstream media (e.g. the Guardian, the Economist, Forbes, etc.), and even by Elsevier stock analysts. (Elsevier itself released an open letter responding to the protest here.) My interpretation of events is that there was a significant amount of latent or otherwise undisclosed dissatisfaction already with the publishing practices of Elsevier (and, to a lesser extent, some other commercial academic publishers), and a desire to support alternatives such as university or society publishers, and the more recent open access journals; and that this protest (and parallel protests, such as the movement to oppose the Research Works Act) served to drive these feelings out into the open.
The statement of the protest itself, though, is rather brief, reflecting the improvised manner in which the site was created. A group of mathematicians including myself therefore decided to write and sign a more detailed explanation of why we supported this protest, giving more background and references to support our position. The 34 signatories are Scott Aaronson, Douglas N. Arnold, Artur Avila, John Baez, Folkmar Bornemann, Danny Calegari, Henry Cohn, Ingrid Daubechies, Jordan Ellenberg, Matthew Emerton, Marie Farge, David Gabai, Timothy Gowers, Ben Green, Martin Grotschel, Michael Harris, Frederic Helein, Rob Kirby, Vincent Lafforgue, Gregory F. Lawler, Randall J. LeVeque, Laszlo Lovasz, Peter J. Olver, Olof Sisask, Richard Taylor, Bernard Teissier, Burt Totaro, Lloyd N. Trefethen, Takashi Tsuboi, Marie-France Vigneras, Wendelin Werner, Amie Wilkinson, Gunter M. Ziegler, and myself. (Note that while Daubechies is current president of the International Mathematical Union, Lovasz is a past president, and Grotschel is the current secretary, they are signing this letter as individuals and not as representatives of the IMU. Similarly for Trefethen and Arnold (current and past president of SIAM).)
Of course, the 34 of us do not presume to speak for the remaining four thousand signatories to the protest, but I hope that our statement is somewhat representative of the position of many of its supporters.
Further discussion of this statement can be found at this blog post of Tim Gowers.
EDIT: I think it is appropriate to quote the following excerpt from our statement:
All mathematicians must decide for themselves whether, or to what extent, they wish to participate in the boycott. Senior mathematicians who have signed the boycott bear some responsibility towards junior colleagues who are forgoing the option of publishing in Elsevier journals, and should do their best to help minimize any negative career consequences.
Whether or not you decide to join the boycott, there are some simple actions that everyone can take, which seem to us to be uncontroversial:
It has been a little over two weeks now since the protest site at thecostofknowledge.com was set up to register declarations of non-cooperation with Reed Elsevier in protest of their research publishing practices, inspired by this blog post of Tim Gowers. Awareness of the protest has certainly grown in these two weeks; the number of signatories is now well over four thousand, across a broad array of academic disciplines, and the protest has been covered by many blogs and also the mainstream media (e.g. the Guardian, the Economist, Forbes, etc.), and even by Elsevier stock analysts. (Elsevier itself released an open letter responding to the protest here.) My interpretation of events is that there was a significant amount of latent or otherwise undisclosed dissatisfaction already with the publishing practices of Elsevier (and, to a lesser extent, some other commercial academic publishers), and a desire to support alternatives such as university or society publishers, and the more recent open access journals; and that this protest (and parallel protests, such as the movement to oppose the Research Works Act) served to drive these feelings out into the open.
The statement of the protest itself, though, is rather brief, reflecting the improvised manner in which the site was created. A group of mathematicians including myself therefore decided to write and sign a more detailed explanation of why we supported this protest, giving more background and references to support our position. The 34 signatories are Scott Aaronson, Douglas N. Arnold, Artur Avila, John Baez, Folkmar Bornemann, Danny Calegari, Henry Cohn, Ingrid Daubechies, Jordan Ellenberg, Matthew Emerton, Marie Farge, David Gabai, Timothy Gowers, Ben Green, Martin Grotschel, Michael Harris, Frederic Helein, Rob Kirby, Vincent Lafforgue, Gregory F. Lawler, Randall J. LeVeque, Laszlo Lovasz, Peter J. Olver, Olof Sisask, Richard Taylor, Bernard Teissier, Burt Totaro, Lloyd N. Trefethen, Takashi Tsuboi, Marie-France Vigneras, Wendelin Werner, Amie Wilkinson, Gunter M. Ziegler, and myself. (Note that while Daubechies is current president of the International Mathematical Union, Lovasz is a past president, and Grotschel is the current secretary, they are signing this letter as individuals and not as representatives of the IMU. Similarly for Trefethen and Arnold (current and past president of SIAM).)
Of course, the 34 of us do not presume to speak for the remaining four thousand signatories to the protest, but I hope that our statement is somewhat representative of the position of many of its supporters.
Further discussion of this statement can be found at this blog post of Tim Gowers.
EDIT: I think it is appropriate to quote the following excerpt from our statement:
All mathematicians must decide for themselves whether, or to what extent, they wish to participate in the boycott. Senior mathematicians who have signed the boycott bear some responsibility towards junior colleagues who are forgoing the option of publishing in Elsevier journals, and should do their best to help minimize any negative career consequences.
Whether or not you decide to join the boycott, there are some simple actions that everyone can take, which seem to us to be uncontroversial:
It has been a little over two weeks now since the protest site at thecostofknowledge.com was set up to register declarations of non-cooperation with Reed Elsevier in protest of their research publishing practices, inspired by this blog post of Tim Gowers. Awareness of the protest has certainly grown in these two weeks; the number of signatories is now well over four thousand, across a broad array of academic disciplines, and the protest has been covered by many blogs and also the mainstream media (e.g. the Guardian, the Economist, Forbes, etc.), and even by Elsevier stock analysts. (Elsevier itself released an open letter responding to the protest here.) My interpretation of events is that there was a significant amount of latent or otherwise undisclosed dissatisfaction already with the publishing practices of Elsevier (and, to a lesser extent, some other commercial academic publishers), and a desire to support alternatives such as university or society publishers, and the more recent open access journals; and that this protest (and parallel protests, such as the movement to oppose the Research Works Act) served to drive these feelings out into the open.
The statement of the protest itself, though, is rather brief, reflecting the improvised manner in which the site was created. A group of mathematicians including myself therefore decided to write and sign a more detailed explanation of why we supported this protest, giving more background and references to support our position. The 34 signatories are Scott Aaronson, Douglas N. Arnold, Artur Avila, John Baez, Folkmar Bornemann, Danny Calegari, Henry Cohn, Ingrid Daubechies, Jordan Ellenberg, Matthew Emerton, Marie Farge, David Gabai, Timothy Gowers, Ben Green, Martin Grotschel, Michael Harris, Frederic Helein, Rob Kirby, Vincent Lafforgue, Gregory F. Lawler, Randall J. LeVeque, Laszlo Lovasz, Peter J. Olver, Olof Sisask, Richard Taylor, Bernard Teissier, Burt Totaro, Lloyd N. Trefethen, Takashi Tsuboi, Marie-France Vigneras, Wendelin Werner, Amie Wilkinson, Gunter M. Ziegler, and myself. (Note that while Daubechies is current president of the International Mathematical Union, Lovasz is a past president, and Grotschel is the current secretary, they are signing this letter as individuals and not as representatives of the IMU. Similarly for Trefethen and Arnold (current and past president of SIAM).)
Of course, the 34 of us do not presume to speak for the remaining four thousand signatories to the protest, but I hope that our statement is somewhat representative of the position of many of its supporters.
Further discussion of this statement can be found at this blog post of Tim Gowers.
EDIT: I think it is appropriate to quote the following excerpt from our statement:
All mathematicians must decide for themselves whether, or to what extent, they wish to participate in the boycott. Senior mathematicians who have signed the boycott bear some responsibility towards junior colleagues who are forgoing the option of publishing in Elsevier journals, and should do their best to help minimize any negative career consequences.
Whether or not you decide to join the boycott, there are some simple actions that everyone can take, which seem to us to be uncontroversial:
For the two weeks following my return from the writing conference, I spent every day revising my book (you know, when I wasn’t busy planning one major event or another … or another). I read through the entire thing, revising word by word and page by page. I was feeling pretty good about it and was easily able to submit the first fifty pages to four of the agents who requested that particular amount. Because I had one agent who wanted the entire manuscript, I kept on, digging deep into the later sections of the book. I had a few moments when I’d come across a page or a section and would pause and wonder why I hadn’t already changed that part. There were a few scenes and pages that I thought I had drastically revised, only to find they were the same as they’d been more than a year ago.
But I carried on, making small tweaks and sweeping changes, … until last Wednesday night at 11:15 when I scrolled to page 223 and realized, with a sickening drop in my stomach: This was not my finished book. These were notes. Literally, notes to myself, things like “Add Dec 14 surgery here; rounds with the docs, plans to remove kidney — include Nurse Shannon.” Notes, shorthand, to myself! But I had already finished my book. I knew I had finished it, I had blogged about it, for crying out loud, and that definitely makes it true. I had even printed up a hard copy for my mom and she’d read the whole thing … I remember. But this version, saved on my trusty little Store n Go device, was not it.
It was really time for me to go to bed, but after a few minutes lying there I got back up to check our other computer. I found a slightly newer version and, after quickly scrolled through the final forty or so pages, discovered that it was better than the one I’d been working on, but still not done. This was still not it. I finally went to bed, worried but absolutely convinced that I had another verison, another more complete version. I had to have another version.
The next day, I searched around for a hard copy but knew that I’d probably used it as scrap paper (no blank white side is safe in this house). Finally, I conducted a full search of my computer and … whaddya know? It appeared in an auto-recovery file … from the trash. Holy crap, at some point, nearly a year ago, I failed to save my damn book. But there it was. Thank god computers never really throw anything away.
I quickly cut and paste the last forty-five pages onto the version I’d been poring over and, upon rereading it, was more relieved than ever to have found it. It is good. And good in a way that would have been very hard to recreate. My opening pages I could recite verbatim, I’ve read them so many damn times. But the ending was new to me, the words were fresh, the emotion was raw — I cried all over again as that kidney slowly began to heal itself. It was good good good. And it was finished.
So, after going through to make sure there weren’t other revisions in the one verison that were better than my more recent revisions in the other version, I attached the whole darn thing, all 84, 212 words of it and sent it off through cyber space.
And now we wait.
It has been a little over two weeks now since the protest site at thecostofknowledge.com was set up to register declarations of non-cooperation with Reed Elsevier in protest of their research publishing practices, inspired by this blog post of Tim Gowers. Awareness of the protest has certainly grown in these two weeks; the number of signatories is now well over four thousand, across a broad array of academic disciplines, and the protest has been covered by many blogs and also the mainstream media (e.g. the Guardian, the Economist, Forbes, etc.), and even by Elsevier stock analysts. (Elsevier itself released an open letter responding to the protest here.) My interpretation of events is that there was a significant amount of latent or otherwise undisclosed dissatisfaction already with the publishing practices of Elsevier (and, to a lesser extent, some other commercial academic publishers), and a desire to support alternatives such as university or society publishers, and the more recent open access journals; and that this protest (and parallel protests, such as the movement to oppose the Research Works Act) served to drive these feelings out into the open.
The statement of the protest itself, though, is rather brief, reflecting the improvised manner in which the site was created. A group of mathematicians including myself therefore decided to write and sign a more detailed explanation of why we supported this protest, giving more background and references to support our position. The 34 signatories are Scott Aaronson, Douglas N. Arnold, Artur Avila, John Baez, Folkmar Bornemann, Danny Calegari, Henry Cohn, Ingrid Daubechies, Jordan Ellenberg, Matthew Emerton, Marie Farge, David Gabai, Timothy Gowers, Ben Green, Martin Grotschel, Michael Harris, Frederic Helein, Rob Kirby, Vincent Lafforgue, Gregory F. Lawler, Randall J. LeVeque, Laszlo Lovasz, Peter J. Olver, Olof Sisask, Richard Taylor, Bernard Teissier, Burt Totaro, Lloyd N. Trefethen, Takashi Tsuboi, Marie-France Vigneras, Wendelin Werner, Amie Wilkinson, Gunter M. Ziegler, and myself. (Note that while Daubechies is current president of the International Mathematical Union, Lovasz is a past president, and Grotschel is the current secretary, they are signing this letter as individuals and not as representatives of the IMU. Similarly for Trefethen and Arnold (current and past president of SIAM).)
Of course, the 34 of us do not presume to speak for the remaining four thousand signatories to the protest, but I hope that our statement is somewhat representative of the position of many of its supporters.
Further discussion of this statement can be found at this blog post of Tim Gowers.
EDIT: I think it is appropriate to quote the following excerpt from our statement:
All mathematicians must decide for themselves whether, or to what extent, they wish to participate in the boycott. Senior mathematicians who have signed the boycott bear some responsibility towards junior colleagues who are forgoing the option of publishing in Elsevier journals, and should do their best to help minimize any negative career consequences.
Whether or not you decide to join the boycott, there are some simple actions that everyone can take, which seem to us to be uncontroversial:
My mom and I are going back to the Writer’s Digest Conference in New York City this weekend!
It was sort of a last minute decision that started two weeks ago when Mark asked me if we were planning to go again. “Oh, no, “I said, “Not again.” Why not, he asked. “Oh, people don’t do that twice . . .” Why not, he asked again. “Weeeell, uuummm, I don’t know.”
So, after checking to make sure he wouldn’t mind being the sole parent all weekend (“I wouldn’t have suggested you go if I minded, honey”), I brought it up to my mom and, over the course of one conversation, we got so increasingly excited about the possibility of going back again that we couldn’t even imagine not going.
This is the conference, of course, with the much-coveted Pitch Slam, for which we were so nervous last year. This time, with the great benefit of experience, we are able to strategize in much smarter ways. I’ve been carefully studying the agents who will be there (there are only a few repeats, so that’s not a worry) and have focused my attention on those with more years of experience in the industry. Over the past year, I’ve heard from several young, new agents who’ve told me my work is compelling and well written, but because they lack experience and are still forming relationships with publishers, my type of memoir would simply be too hard for them to sell. It’s not hard for an agent to pitch a young adult paranormal vampire romance to an editor, but it is hard to say, “I know, another cancer memoir . . . but trust me, this one is good,” unless they’re pitching to someone who actually does trust them. So I’ve found a few women with twenty-plus years in agenting, one of whom said in response to a question about the most frustrating aspect of her job, “Those rare moments when you find a book that’s absolutely amazing and editors agree that it is, but feel that the market for it is too limited for the book to be commercially viable in the current economy! Argh! Then I just keep my head down and keep plowing until I find someone willing to take the risk. As I mentioned earlier, those books often turn out to be successes far beyond what anyone expected.” Now that’s the kind of agent I need!
I’m also going to pitch to at least one male agent (who said, “Voice and story can carry a memoir, even if the author doesn’t have a platform”), which I haven’t done in the past. I tend to think of the target audience for my book as mostly female, but I’ve had some of my positive reviews from men, one an editor at Writer’s Digest, one a published novelist and university English professor, and a few other early readers and critiquers.
Having gone through the Pitch Slam last year (and having survived!), I think we’ll also have a completely different — and more realistic — set of expectations. I remember being so afraid that no one would ask to read my work and then thrilled when the first agent invited me to send her ten pages. I thought I’d struck gold! It was only in the hallways and elevators afterwards that we discovered that everyone had been asked to send in their work by almost every agent. This is how the Pitch Slam works — they simply say yes . . . only to say no later. So this time, I’ll have a more level head. I’ll see this is an excellent way to get my foot in the door and then will hope, that with a combination of good writing and the right agent, this will actually happen.
It only has to happen once, after all.
It’s been quiet on the blog front because it’s been so hectic otherwise… but I will definitely be posting more in the upcoming weeks. In any case, happy holidays! Hope you and yours are enjoying the season.
Sometimes, I don’t write anything that I truly like for weeks (and weeks) and I get the irrational (or is it?) fear that whichever part of me that had been responsible for writing (more or less) decently has disappeared with a tiny imaginary poof. I usually become more frightened when I start writing overly long sentences like the one before this; it hints at a desperate attempt to squeeze words out of myself. And “the more the merrier” is rarely the mantra to go by when it comes to things like this.
In other news, I have spent the night writing this blog post about Spring Offensive and watching the videos + reading random interviews of this Oxford-based indie-rock band.
One thing leads to another and I found myself feeling rather forlorn that I am not in Berlin. I mean, why?! It has a lovable scruffiness and other wonderful things.
Okay, don’t bother to answer that. It is purely rhetorical and not to mention, utterly nonsensical.
Excuse me while I shake off the last of my post-vacation blues. Regular programming shall resume shortly (I hope).
