Sara J Chipps

DIY Hardware Hack Day

Wanted to write about the Hack Weekend we had here in NYC a month-or-so ago, it was my first time putting one together, and I thought it would be good to share wisdom.

My reason for putting the weekend together was selfish, I wanted to learn more about hardware hacking. Our Christmas sweater was my first experience and it was super fun. So, I wanted to take up another project myself. 

I'm lucky enough to live in NYC, there are a bunch of experts that live here. Rick Waldron made Johnny-Five, and Francis Gulotta is Levo League's own pro. I asked them, and a few other people, if they wanted to help put a weekend together.

Basically we just put an Eventbrite page together and charged $30. We spread the word via Twitter and Emails, which sold us about 30 tickets. We charged because we didn't want sponsors, so the $30 was for food. 

Levo League donated the space for the weekend. Day of we ordered some food, and people arrived around 11-12.

Rick gave a great talk about Johnny-five (which is an amazing library that makes JS and Arduino easy as pie) to kick us off and then we went about our weekend. 

An environment where people are creating is awesome. Everyone spent the weekend buzzing. We brought tools and had some extra parts but people made a few runs to the hardware store to pick up some things. 

At the end of the weekend we did demo time to show off what we made, here are some really cool ones. 

Here is what I made, this LED changes colors based on your tweets. 

 

 

Rick made a  robot that that moves when he moves using the Kinect

 

This glove changes the volume on your laptop

 

The coolest thing to come out of the weekend was dorby our Levo League robot that opens the front door via the internet. 

 

Our weekend was a great time, and we plan on doing it again soon. LMK if you are interested in joining. 

In which I answer all of the questions

This blog post has been in the corners of my mind and nipping at my ankles for a while. 

Please don't linkbait this, or pick comment fights. This isn't for upvotes, or HN fame. 

Many people I meet ask me a varient on this question "I understand we want more women in technology, but why?" It's a great question, and not at all something we should be offended by. Often men are afraid to ask questions like this for fear there will be backlash, I think that fear can lead to stiffling of an important conversation.

Frankly, the internet is thriving without women building it, why should that change? 

I put together the following answer for a Quora thread, I thought it would be also advantageous to put it here, so I (and maybe you) can reference it in the future. 

I think the reason why we need more women building technology is threefold, I will outline below. 

You will notice I stay away from generalizations like "women are better at xyz," because such generalizations imply that we therefore must be worse at other things that men may be able to do better. I don't think approching the argument that way is productive. 

Diversity leads to better products and results

As illustrated in the Cornell study included below and many more to be found online, diversity improves performance, morale, and end product. More women engineers means building a better internet, and improving software that can service society as a whole. Building a better internet is why I started doing software development in the first place, I think we can all agree this is of utmost importance.

(source: http://web.mit.edu/cortiz/www/Diversity/PDFs/Jehn%20et%20al%201999.pdf)

The internet is the largest recording of human history ever built 

Right now the architecture for that platform is being built disproportionally by white and asian males. You've heard the phrase "he who writes history makes history"? We don't yet know how this will affect future generations. 

How can architecture be decidedly male? I like to refer to the anecdotal story of the Apple Store glass stairs. While visually appealing one unforeseen consequence to their design was the large groups of strange men that spend hours each day sitting under them looking up. As a women, the first time I saw them I thought "thank god I'm not wearing a skirt today." Such considerations were not taken in designing these stairs, I think it's probable, if not easily predictable, that in a few years we will see such holes in the design of the web. 

Women in 10 years need to be able to provide for themselves, and their families

Now, this reason is purely selfish on the part of women, but we all have mothers, and sisters, so I hope we can relate. 

This year there are 6 million information technology jobs in the US, up from 628,600 in 1987 then 1.34 million in 1997. Right now jobs in technology have half the unemployment rate of the rest of the workforce. There is no sign this will change anytime soon. If growth continues at the current rate, it will not be long until women will not be able to sustain themselves if not involved in a technical field. 

We have to start educating young girls about this now, or they may ultimately become the poorest demographic among us. 

(sources: http://www.gao.gov/corresp/he98159r.pdf, http://media.dice.com/report/july-2012-top-tech-talent-gaps/, http://www.bls.gov/ooh/About/Projections-Overview.htm)

I hope this has been educational for you, if this is something that you have debated. If you have any thoughts please share. 

Teaching a Man to Fish With a Computer

Last week I had the privilege of traveling to the Dominican Republic with the organization Handfuls

 of Hope. We went down to bring food, clothing, and care to some of the poorest villages about an 

hour outside of Santo Domingo. We also built a roof, and did a lot of painting (photo above is me 

after a full day's work painting).

 

The trip was an amazing experience, it was incredibly humbling how helpful and happy the 

children were at the village. We think that all our stuff provides us with happiness, but in reality it 

provides us with stress and obligation. After months planted behind my machine it was lovely to

 be able to spend my days working outside. I even did construction and help put a roof on one of 

the buildings in the village. 

The folks there live without running water, mostly (a few homes had it). They only have electricity 

for a few hours a day. I was spending some time chatting while painting a fence, and I learned 

from one of the women that put the trip together that in the school (a small school with several 

classrooms holding 10 or so students) there was a computers class that was held weekly. 

Excited, I asked if I could see it. So, I stopped by and saw 10 adults in a classroom with 1 

computer that a teacher was working with. There was a larger monitor they were all watching on 

and learning from. From what I could see, a specific program was being taught on a Windows box,

 it could have been anything, I didn't get to ask. I got to say "Hello," the experience was wonderful

 and it was great to see that even in this place, where many people don't own much more than

 their clothes, and this is their Wikipedia:

and they were being taught how to use a computer. 

All that got me thinking, what is the most important thing to teach to adults who are seeing a 

computer for the first time? What is the fastest way to get them from illiterate to a place where 

they can be making money from the web like the rest of us? 

The internet is a perfect environment for them to thrive. The decentralization of 

commerce means that you don't have to own a storefront on Park Ave to make serious cash, or 

ideally, feed your family. There are many organizations that take homemade crafts from third world

 areas and put them online, however, what about empowering the people to do this themselves? 

I immediately did what I do and broke things down into steps. Step one: find the tools to supply

them.  The first place I looked to send help to this class was One Laptop Per Child to see if I 

could buy some laptops and send them, from their site it appears you can only donate laptops to

the areas they designate (that makes perfect sense for their organization, just doing some 

research). I could buy some netbooks and send them, but would need to come up with a strategy 

to make them provide value, especially with no clear way to get them online. As much fun as 

MS Word and Solitaire are, what could you show them that would turn them into tools that could 

help feed a village?

That brings us to the second step, and that's teaching folks how to fish. The Kahn Academy has 

an offline version of their site (I bet for this very reason), so that's a great place to start. Giving

them the ability to teach themselves the higher maths and sciences is key. In this village, it's 

extremely rare to have anything higher than a middle school education as going to HS costs 

money that they don't have. There is a lot that has to happen after that, and that's where I am lost.

 

Computing played a big role in my trip in general. Below I'm going to post some pictures of the kids

 I hung out with there (taken with my iPad). I was able to communicate with them through this 

offline app from Lonely Planet (and broken HS spanish). They loved my iPad, we played a lot of

Checkers and other games. It was a real study in how technology brings the world together.

 

In the end Girl Develop It donated money to their class to buy tools for the short term. I hope to

 go back next year to teach and by then I'd like to have a helpful strategy, I'm going to continue 

doing research on my end, but if anyone has seen anything like this out there it would be greatly 

appreciated. 

Teaching a Man to Fish With a Computer

Last week I had the privilege of traveling to the Dominican Republic with the organization Handfuls

 of Hope. We went down to bring food, clothing, and care to some of the poorest villages about an 

hour outside of Santo Domingo. We also built a roof, and did a lot of painting (photo above is me 

after a full day's work painting).

 

The trip was an amazing experience, it was incredibly humbling how helpful and happy the 

children were at the village. We think that all our stuff provides us with happiness, but in reality it 

provides us with stress and obligation. After months planted behind my machine it was lovely to

 be able to spend my days working outside. I even did construction and help put a roof on one of 

the buildings in the village. 

The folks there live without running water, mostly (a few homes had it). They only have electricity 

for a few hours a day. I was spending some time chatting while painting this fence, and I learned from one of the 

women that put the trip together that in the school (a small school with several classrooms holding

 10 or so students) there was a computers class that was held weekly. 

Excited, I asked if I could see it. So, I stopped by and saw 10 adults in a classroom with 1 

computer that a teacher was working with. There was a larger monitor they were all watching on 

and learning from. From what I could see, a specific program was being taught on a Windows box,

 it could have been anything, I didn't get to ask. I got to say "Hello," the experience was wonderful

 and it was great to see that even in this place, where many people don't own much more than

 their clothes, and this is their Wikipedia 

 they were being taught how to use a computer. 

All that got me thinking, what is the most important thing to teach to adults who are seeing a 

computer for the first time? What is the fastest way to get them from illiterate to a place where 

they can be making money from the web like the rest of us? 

The internet is a perfect environment for them to thrive. The decentralization of 

commerce means that you don't have to own a storefront on Park Ave to make serious cash, or 

ideally, feed your family. There are many organizations that take homemade crafts from third world

 areas and put them online, however, what about empowering the people to do this themselves? 

I immediately did what I do and broke things down into steps. Step one: find the tools to supply

them.  The first place I looked to send help to this class was One Laptop Per Child to see if I 

could buy some laptops and send them, from their site it appears you can only donate laptops to

the areas they designate (that makes perfect sense for their organization, just doing some 

research). I could buy some netbooks and send them, but would need to come up with a strategy 

to make them provide value, especially with no clear way to get them online. As much fun as 

MS Word and Solitaire are, what could you show them that would turn them into tools that could 

help feed a village?

That brings us to the second step, and that's teaching folks how to fish. The Kahn Academy has 

an offline version of their site (I bet for this very reason), so that's a great place to start. Giving

them the ability to teach themselves the higher maths and sciences is key. In this village, it's 

extremely rare to have anything higher than a middle school education as going to HS costs 

money that they don't have. There is a lot that has to happen after that, and that's where I am lost.

 

Computing played a big role in my trip in general. Below I'm going to post some pictures of the kids

 I hung out with there (taken with my iPad). I was able to communicate with them through this 

offline app from Lonely Planet (and broken HS spanish). They loved my iPad, we played a lot of

Checkers and other games. It was a real study in how technology brings the world together.

 

In the end Girl Develop It donated money to their class to buy tools for the short term. I hope to

 go back next year to teach and by then I'd like to have a helpful strategy, I'm going to continue 

doing research on my end, but if anyone has seen anything like this out there it would be greatly 

appreciated. 

On Fashion and Developer Conferences

 

If you have met me in person you know that I tend to wear traditionally girly clothing. Dresses, skirts, sweaters, headbands and the like. 

I have, like, four Zuckerburg costumes. Jeans, sneakers, teeshirt, sometimes hoodies. I never wore them unless I was going to a developer conference or a user group somewhere, that's what I bought them for. I never consciously thought "Sara you are changing who you are in order to fit in," however, that was essentially what I was doing. 

Once I realized what I had been doing I had conflicting emotions. On one hand I wanted to stay true to myself, on the other a girl in a dress at a software conference was going to stick out like a sore thumb. 

Part of getting older for me has been getting more comfortable in my own skin. Part of maturing as a software developer has done the same for me. Sometime around the middle of last year I felt confident enough to start wearing my normal gear to developer events? 

What changed about my experience? Absolutely nothing. No one treated me differently, or made me feel uncomfortable. I've had outstanding conference experiences since. It was all in my head, and I wanted to write about it in case it's in yours too. 

 

 

My Fluentconf Talk and a GMail keyboard shortcut Extension

 

Fluentconf was great for quite a few reasons, the first being that I love SF, the second being that I had such an amazing time with the people there. It's rare that you get to be around so many people like yourself, and to break off with people you admire and get a concentrated amount of great mentorship is such a great recharger. Super happy for the experience.

I was sad about the fact that I learned from Rebecca Murphey the keynotes were for sale. That's a diservice to the community. Developers get sent to these conferences by their employers to learn more. If the things they are learning are expensive advertisements masked as organic learning opportunities we are swindling them. 

However, besides that, the conference organizers are awesome folks, and the conference in general was well done. Peter Cooper and Brady Forrest were lovely, and it was great to meet them in person. I was on the selection committee, and it was great being able to help choose the talks at the conference, super grateful for the experience. 

I did a talk about browser extensions in GMail. I used Thomas Fuchs' library for keyboard shortcuts keymaster, and I mapped them to some GMail shortcuts. I was able to make an extension that allowed me to email a group, sort my inbox, and highlight certain messages just by hitting a key. I hope you find it useful. https://github.com/SaraJo/SpaceXGMail, intructions on how to personalize it are in the README. Otherwise you can just keep my settings and become very close with my family and coworkers. 

After my talk, I spoke with a gentleman named @wshaver who wanted to make an extension to make Github code repos full screen. He did it! It's here: https://github.com/ws-emberex/GitHubWider, check it!

Also, for your pleasure, I made sure to optimize the slide/cat ratio in this deck.

 

Deployment Dance Party

Today was the end of the first iteration for the new product team here at Levo League. We think it's super important to thank, not only the developers, but also the people building the business that makes this team necessary. 

We all got together as a company (champagne optional) and for the first time held a Deployment Dance Party. We had so much fun we created a public repo on GitHub for you to hold your own. You can see it here, it supports Heroku and Capistrano currently, but it's just as easy to add your own commands. Pick a dance mix, and kick off your deployment toasting your success and sweet dance moves. 

It was a fun party, we hope to keep improving the script with each one. 

Your move, brogrammers. 

 

Happy to Announce I've Accepted a Role with the Levo League

The last thing I wanted was a job. I've been independent for almost 5 years and I've loved the freedom of working with startups and taking small projects here and there while building things on my own. It has been super rewarding. 

I started working with the Levo League a few months ago as an independent. Helping them to integrate their existing platforms. The thing that improved immediately upon working with them was my wardrobe, these ladies set a high bar. Another thing I noticed is that I loved working in their offices. I usually work at home, or from New Work City, however, I kept coming in and working right next to them.

They have an amazing team: all strong, accomplished, hilarious women who truly love what they are working on. Amanda Pouchot and Caroline Ghosn are a joy to be around, they respect the development process, and they both have a great vision. 

I was helping them interview other developers for the CTO position, and that's when it happened. I had a funny feeling, and after some internal searching I realized I was truly sad at the thought of not working with them any more. They had jokingly talked about hiring me early on, and I jokingly told them I never wanted a job again. When they gave me first refusal before they offered the job to someone else I was overwhelmed with the thought that there couldn't be a better place for me. So, I accepted. 

We agreed that projects like Girl Develop It, and Vasilia are important to me and should stay that way. We discussed how important open source is to the ecosystem of the internet, and anything we build that can be abstracted out will be open sourced. We are currently working with amazing developers, designers, and user experience experts to create an intuitive, responsive platform. 

I'm so excited to explore this opportunity with the Levo League. Not only do they have exciting technical challenges, but they are doing something I really believe in. They really are all so passionate about creating an environment for women where they can come for help, advice, and mentorship regarding their careers. It's a logical step after the things I have done with Girl Develop It. 

The Levo League investors are women that I consider to be my role models, like Gina Bianchini and Sheryl Sandberg. I'm excited to have the privilege to work on something they can be proud of. 

 

 

Now, a Super Easy Way to Participate in the 1/18 SOPA Protest

Hey all, I wrote about the 1/18 blackout protest for SOPA/PIPA and why I'm participating here. Now there is a super easy way for you to participate, even if you aren't a developer. 

 

Drop the following code in between your two <HEAD></HEAD> tags on your site, your users will be redirected to the blackout page that describes what you are doing and why. Then, when the protest is over, simply remove the added code. 

 

<script>

       window.location = "http://protestsopa.org";

</script>

 

The protest is starting at 12am on 1/18, and lasts 24 hours. If you have any questions, let me know!

 

There is No Such Thing as Proprietary Client-side JavaScript

 

 About 3 years ago, I launched my first product. I built it with two fabulous partners, who continue to produce awesome things. It was a little app, and a tool I thought made for better web. It is no longer online, due to costs, it was a URL aggregator called bundl.it. It was a big deal for me, as it was something I made, and put online for others to use. It was a useful tool, and I'm still very proud of it.  

 

A year or so later an established website in the same industry launched a feature that was doing the exact thing that my app was made for. They even gave it the same name. 

 

When the news hit I was flooded with emails from friends and folks that had happened upon my site. "Hey, are you working with xxx?", "Did you see what xxx did? They totally copied you!", "How could they do that, I'm so sorry. You should do something.", "Are you going to go after them?"

 

At the time I was disappointed, not because my idea had been "stolen," or "copied" by a larger company. I was disappointed because I knew that had I put my all into this product, if I had followed through with support, focused more on marketing, and funneled my energy in this product there wouldn't be market to steal. 

 

In other words, it was my responsibility to make my tool the staple the internet needed. However, the field was wide open, because I left it open. There is no such thing as disruption from the couch, and that was the valuable lesson I learned from the experience. 

 

Another lesson I learned, is that people seem to think they own ideas on the internet. Or, in this case, that I owned my idea that I put on the internet. 

 

We have seen a lot of arguing back and forth about these issues as the landscape of the web is starting to be sheriff'd. SOPA, The Winklevii, and hundreds of completely absurd patent lawsuits. These issues has made the concept of ownership of 1's and 0's on the forefront of world issues we face every day. 

 

As the world of software development becomes en vogue, we are seeing this issue broached by new developers and veterans alike.  The idea of code "ownership." The idea that the method, or the algorithm makes you money, and therefore is proprietary.

 

Web pioneers like Torvalds, de Raadt, Stallman, and DeIcaza battled on this ground. They created the free software movement, GNU/Linux, Git, Open BSD, and GNOME and told big-co software companies to go screw as they opened up their code for fellow developers to learn from, to better their craft. The sharing of ideas for a better internet. 

 

Yet, still today, people sue over simple equations behind engines making millions of dollars. NDAs and invention agreements are everywhere and claim to cover websites, executables, webapps, modules, functions, and methods alike. 

 

However, in the midst of it all, lies client side JavaScript. I freaking love this shit. I'm here to say there is no such thing as proprietary client side JavaScript. Again, there is no such thing as proprietary client side JavaScript! 

 

You can protest, argue, call people thieves, stake the moral high ground, and point fingers all you want. There is no obfuscation, everything you have done is right out in the open for everyone to see. More importantly, everything you do is in the ecosystem for people to learn from. I think it's a great proof of concept as I've never heard anyone get angry at someone else for stealing something they have written for the DOM.

 

People don't run around copy -> pasting things they find elsewhere. For many reasons, mainly, your style comes through in what you write. Your code is your signature, and someone else's never can express your unique type of art. When it does happen (which it does), it is a matter of ethics, not law or government. Clientside JavaScript is policed by the JavaScript community, and if you're a thief that copies and pastes, people know. 

 

Not all of us write JavaScript clientside. So we all can't go about just assuming people can learn from the things we have created. So I have a few suggestions. 

 

Obviously, there is Github, and any startup that puts their code out there for people to learn from is an open web advocate in my book. That also means we need to stop signing agreements that include clauses about the ownership of syntax (I will from this point on not be signing such contracts). This means educating the people we work for about the developer community, how we help each other, and how being open puts you in a unique position to improve your standing, and help others. 

 

Funny enough, developers are now in a place of power that we haven't known before. Recently, I've seen a new form of currency sweeping the world of business. Developeronomics. From the lone startup founder, to the VC; from the Mom and Pop shop, to the Hedge fund douche bags, from the CEOs of big corp to the teachers of public schools, there is something they all need. Web developers, good ones. Enough to offer obscene salaries, equities, weekly backrubs, briefcases of cash, and sexy parties to the crack team of developers they employ to carve out their section of the internet. 

 

This puts the development community in a unique position. Do we copy the established business community in the money grab? Do we want to line pockets while cranking out "It's this for that's" with every nerd for his/herself on the terms of "my code, my product, my creation?" 

 

We've seen what that has done for the remnants of the industrial age, with huge corporations being the enemy of the individual. Where corporations battle each other in the media, and keep a tight grip on information, even if it means people losing lives. Where advancements are being retarded by a legal cat and mouse game, because the information companies hold dear could help all of us the world over if they would join forces. 

 

What a beautiful place we are at where we can make a conscious decision not to follow in their footsteps. While the internet and it's implications are still being formed every day. When we decide that the education and advancement of future developers, our children, and the history books are more important than lining our pockets (seriously, how expensive can comfy sweatshirts and Vibram Five Finger shoes be?) 

 

Where would we be now if John Resig decided to keep his little library to himself? If DHH kept his framework proprietary? How much further could we be if more people shared the way they did? 

 

I'm pledging to work for an open web and open code, a place where we can all share, learn, and invent together. I hope you will too. 

 

Developers and Professionalism

 UPDATE: Please notice, the author of the story shared is actually Matthew Heusser, this is what I get for not confirming before posting. Thank you, Matthew, for sharing your story!!

 

 

I'm a developer, and inasmuch I am proud of the fact that I rarely wear pants. As I write this now, I am wearing pants, but only because I went into the office today. I have orange hair, and a large assortment of lip gloss. I sleep to 11 most days, and I defy anyone that says I shouldn't. All in all I've embraced the developer's frat guy lifestyle. 

I've started a book called the Clean Coder by Uncle Bob Martin. The thing that has made the biggest impression for me was in the forward (written by Matthew Heusser). He tells a story about a development team he was once a part of, I'm paraphrasing quite a bit (the book is still at the office), but he talks about a team in an enterprise company that had been working on a project for quite a few months with a set-in-stone release date on the horizon. As the date approached they worked day/night/weekends to get things done. He had a team of talented coders and under much pressure from management they strapped themselves to their keyboards in order to get the job done on time, and they did.

The Friday before the Monday release date they were stoked. It's so rare that a project gets completed exactly on schedule, but they had done it. They were celebrating and relaxing when they got a call from management. Seems that legal hadn't finished the paperwork needed for the launch, and they needed an extra day to get things done, the meeting was going to be pushed to Tuesday.

"No way" was Matt's response, "we have been killing ourselves over this. They have Saturday and Sunday to get this work done, plenty of time." "Sorry," was the word from above, "these people are professionals, we're not going to ask them to work the weekend. Meeting is pushed to Tuesday." Matt was irate, "Are you serious? My developers have been working around the clock, nights, weekends, you name it. We can ask the guys in legal to put in a little extra time." Management responded, "You don't understand, these guys are PROFESSIONALS."

That's when it sunk in for him, people don't think developers are professionals. They look at us like a bunch of sloppy kids that happen to know how to do something that they need. After reading that story, it sunk in for me too.

Clients trust me to take care of things they don't know how to do. In order to do that, they need to feel I am competent and capable. Disappearing in the zone for a few days, while it may be best for the project, isn't comforting for the client. Up until then I had a dim view of client hand holding, and thought "they just need to trust that I am working on it." However, I have realized that a good working relationship, constant updates, and accountability are just as important as clean code and passing tests. 

I still rarely wear pants, and have orange hair, but my client's comfort is much more important to me now. I want them to know I'm here whenever they call, and they can trust that I'm working hard to solve their problems and build their software. The response I have gotten has been great, and I've noticed how much they appreciate being kept in the loop no matter what. That makes my job easier, and that's a reward I didn't expect.