Four short links: 27 July 2009

1. Ignite OSCON -- 56m of video from Ignite OSCON. They're all great, but Dan Meyer remains the highlight for me.
2. gheat -- a maptile server in Python, delivering heatmaps to be superimposed on Google Maps. Handy for visualization fiends.
3. CaDNAno -- open source software for design of 3-dimensional DNA origami. One of George Church's projects. I love the combination of math, biology, and whimsy in open-source giftwrap. (via timoreilly on Twitter)
4. CommentPress -- an open source theme for the WordPress blogging engine that allows readers to comment paragraph by paragraph in the margins of a text. Annotate, gloss, workshop, debate: with CommentPress you can do all of these things on a finer-grained level, turning a document into a conversation. It can be applied to a fixed document (paper/essay/book etc.) or to a running blog. I'm taking a greater interest in tools that channel and focus participation rather than simply providing "edit this page". (via gov2.net.au's issues paper)

OSCON: Programmer Insecurity and the Genius Myth

Two of my favorite presenters, Ben Collins-Sussman and Brian Fitzpatrick, did an OSCON session on "Programmer Insecurity and the Genius Myth." Brian and Ben talked about how programmers' insecurities cause all manner of troubles in programming projects, and then presented a number of tips for how to avoid these problems. They also asserted that there are very few genius "lone ranger"programmers in the real world -- most highly successful and productive programmers work smart and collaborate well.

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OSCON: The saga of MySQL

At OSCON in 2006, I followed sessions that discussed how open source companies would fare when big corporations come in. Back then there were only a handful of examples of big companies purchasing small open source companies. Three years later, we've witnessed MySQL AB get swallowed by Sun, only to have Sun be swallowed by Oracle. Now there are more open questions than ever and at least three versions of MySQL that are jockeying to continue the MySQL blood-line. Yesterday I attended talks by two of these groups and I have to wonder how the MySQL game will play itself out over time.

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OSCON: Standing Out in the Crowd

Kirrily Robert gave the first keynote speech this morning, entitled "Standing Out in the Crowd." She spoke about the gender imbalance in open source and shared her experiences working on open source projects that have a higher-than-average percentage of women participants. She laid out statistics about the current gender balance of various projects, looked at trends in open source, and closed with a number of tips on how open source projects can get -- and keep -- more women contributors.

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OSCON: Building Belonging (in communities)

I dove right in to OSCON by attending Jono Bacon's "Building Belonging" community talk. Jono, who is the community manager for Ubuntu, started out his presentation by asking what communities can do to build and improve the sense of belonging that people have in their community. After talking a little about what belonging means, he threw out the first concrete concept that builds belonging: Stories.

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