Take BART? Twitter it! 
Following on from my Tube Twitter application the other day, I've started working on a BART tracker at bartsf. It's all been testing up until now, but it should start working properly today. Add "bartsf" as a friend on Twitter and you should get updates about delays to the BART system.
The BART system seems to be pretty switched on to technology - they provide a pretty decent website and an RSS feed. If only a few other cities could provide XML feeds, it'd make it easier for this kind of thing to happen. Much as I like Python, I really don't like having to do loads of BeautifulSoup.
Tags: bart, twitter, tube, metro, rail, public transport
Diversity and BarCamp
I've been reading the debate over diversity at conferences, and it reminds me why I far prefer going to BarCamps than the dull conferences that go on most of the time.
I think that there ought to be more women at conferences, because I tend to learn a lot from women speakers, and I find it terribly oppressive to be in a room of men without any women. It's more pleasant for everybody if there are women at events. "Men only" is for changing rooms and gay bars, not web conferences. Even at gay bars, you've got drag queens. And I'd rather have drag queens speaking at web conferences than the utterly dull business casual brigade mouthing "social media" and "Web 2.0".
I heard recently that at a Ruby on Rails conference there were "Rails Girls" - basically, 'booth babes' wearing tight fit t-shirts with the Rails logo on the front and handing out leaflets about Rails. Tacky or wot? The thing is that it wouldn't be out of place at a tech business event - geeks probably dislike this kind of tackiness far more than their suited counterparts.
Getting more female speakers at conferences is just a part of improving conferences, which are in general terrible. BarCamp is the antidote to this.
My blog is currently number one if you search for crap conferences on Google (without quotes; with quotes, I'm number two). I have a funny feeling that I'll be featuring crap conferences a lot more. Here's an idea of a not-crap conference. A development focused one day BarCamp where it's women speakers only. I'd go along. And I bet I'd enjoy every minute.
Diversity at conferences is a problem, but the conferences themselves is a far bigger problem. Let's solve both.
Conference planning
I've got this great idea for a conference
First, it'd have a session called "Pop Culture and Democracy" which would discuss whether the Internet culture's of remixing popular culture helps in democratic participation and related areas. Just over an hour long.
Then I'd have a panel of tech people talking about microformats, spam, Creative Commons and anything else that seems interesting or relevant.
After that a short discussion from a researcher talking about the Semantic Web.
Next, a half hour session or so on Python programming.
Then just under fifty minutes of Cory Doctorow doing all the usual Cory things - copyright, DRM, evil Microsoft etc.
A discussion of the role of developers, then an hour on the One Laptop Per Child project.
Sound like a cool conference? That's good. It's a list of the podcasts I'm going to listen to. Podcasts are what conferences have become.
