In about 2 weeks I’ll be presenting at LinuxCon about documentation, community, and not being a jerk. The presentation is titled Read the Fine Manual? Write a better fine manual.

For the last couple of years, I’ve been using reveal.js for my conference presentations. I’ve been getting progressively more frustrated with it, because, while it allows me to write content using MarkDown, it greatly limits what functionality I have access to when using MarkDown. That is, it has lots of cool features, but many of them are only available if you actually want to write your presentation in HTML, with javascript calls in it. I really don’t want to.

So, for LinuxCon, I’ll be trying out remark.js instead. It’s not very different, but it gives access to more style and transition stuff directly in the markdown. And, best of all, since it’s just Markdown, I didn’t have to rewrite any of my content to use it – just use a different wrapper to display the rendered slides.

You can preview my slides HERE. You’ll see they’re nothing fancy, but they do the job. Mostly I use slides for two things – cue cards for myself, so I remember what to say, and a few clever images so that I can keep the attention of the audience for a minute or two before moving on to the next slide.

On Saturday morning, Rhi and I will leave for Colorado, where she’ll be attending her first year of College at UC Boulder.

Day one, we’ll drive as long as we can stand it, and stop somewhere, probably in Kansas. Many Wizard of Oz jokes will be made.

Day two, we’ll go the rest of the way to Boulder, where we’ll have a look around the town a little, and see what there is to see.

Day three, we’ll move her stuff into the dorm.

Day four, I’ll fly home to Lexington.

It hardly seems possible that my little girl is an adult, and moving off on her own. We’re going to miss her terribly, but we’re also so very excited for her. It’s been very nice having her here for the 8 or 9 months since she finished school. It’s been awesome watching her find her passions over the last 18 years, and grow into a beautiful young woman. I’m really looking forward to the next 40 years or so, watching her bloom even more.

We’re trying to watch the Shannara Chronicles because I loved the books 20+ years ago. I feel like they’re being told by someone who assumes you’ve read the books, and that you already know the backstory. Which is frustrating because I’ve forgotten as much as I remember.  

Someone tell me it gets better. 

In the midst of a Facebook conversation someone (a “friend” of a “friend”) said that all right thinking people thought a certain thing, while the rest of the world were ignorant savages. (I’m paraphrasing, but the phrase “most right-thinking people” was definitely used.)

This got me thinking about a topic that has crossed my mind a lot during this particularly presidential campaign circus.

Long ago (ie, pre-Facebook) one would surround oneself with like-thinking people. You’d have a few dozen friends that agreed with you about everything, and the rest of the world were ignorant savages, and life was good. You knew that all right-thinking people agreed with you, but you were also aware that the majority of the world was ignorant savages.

Then came Facebook. You have a few hundred carefully curated “friends”, most of whom are people that have similar worldviews to yourself. They, in turn, have the same. You now have somewhere north of 10,000 people that you hear from every day, most of whom agree with you on most topics.

So far, so good. This is the same as it was pre-Facebook, except that the numbers are much bigger, giving you the impression that everyone in the world agrees with you, except for that wingnut Larry who is a friend of a friend of a friend and says *CRAZY* things. All right-thinking people agree with you, and there’s a tiny minority of morons clinging to their tribal gods.

Meanwhile, Donald Trump has the nomination for the Republican candidate for President, so something must be wrong with your math.