Group.NCTU 轉信站關門

看了 DK 的《Group.NCTU.edu.tw (2003~2013)》這篇文章一陣子,才想到我也可以寫個自以為的憑弔文(?)。

2008 年的時候,仰賴了 Group.NCTU 寫了一個 Blog 文章轉信到 BBS 站個板的 WordPress Plug-in,讓 WordPress 成為 NNTP client 把部落格文章發到個人版去。當初還花滿多時間寫的呢,也有一些遠大的計畫(例如,把文章同步到個版,再把回覆或是推文同步回來作為部落格回應),不過都沒有完成。自己的 BLOG 後來也因為一些實用的問題所以把 Plug-in 停用了;甚至到 2010 年連個板都關掉了(本來在無名 BBS 後來在 PTT2)。

當年沒有 Github 所以程式碼也不知道放到哪去了。沒有做版本控制,我甚至不太確定 2008 年的我知不知道版本控制這個慨念。唯一確定的事是後來 CornGuo 那邊一直都把程式開著,偶而會在他荒廢的個板看到 WordPress 發過去的 BLOG 文章。應該跟他要一份程式碼來存檔留念,哈。

還是懷念那個雙向的 read-write Web;雖然地點多了一點、雜了一些,但是學習、演化、重混的機會比現在多太多了。要謝謝前輩們花心思建立了這些像是 Group.NCTU 的基礎建設服務,但回頭也會慚愧想想自己是不是沒有傳承。

This American Life:美國眾生相

This American Life

大學時期曾經有固定收聽 Podcast 的習慣。最近,重新發現 Podcast ,並且開始收聽「This American Life」是我今年下的最正確的決定之一。每個星期製作人兼主持人 Ira Glass 會從一個主題出發,講幾個發生在社會周遭、發生在一般人身上的故事。

這個節目深深的觸碰我,因為它不屬於任何一個已知的傳媒節目類型:它不是如大愛電視或是讀者文摘一樣,以提供正向力量為製作目的,而不免掩蓋社會的醜陋真實。他也不是自由派的公共電視/廣播,以曝露社會真相為目標,例如公視我們的島碰觸的環保議題,不免時時沉重。

節目所呈現的美國眾生相,不是我們所知的「美國夢」、或是 Friends (六人行)裡的虛構都市生活、甚至是新聞裡的 99% v.s. 1%,而是直觀且清楚的「生活」:有悲、有喜、有真實、也沉重,更重要的是它入世的態度。對於置身之外的我來說,我一方面慶幸我找到一個窺看的窗口,卻又思考著為何沒有這樣了解自己所屬的社會的機會。

「美國眾生相」是我的私下翻譯,我想得到的最符合的節目名稱。

Firefox OS released

Note: this is a recycled, unpublished post form July, 2013, when the first Firefox OS phone was released. Below are my personal reflections on the Firefox OS project upon the release.

Mozilla Taiwan Office

Within a relatively short time, Mozilla managed to open up an Taipei office with relative large operation, signed deals with various partners, and ship the first version of Firefox OS.

To me personally, this is a challenging yet exciting work. I would imagine the description to be true for Mozilla as whole as well. The office in Taipei grows tenfold; MoCo as whole grows as well to accommodated the new project (I’ve already lost counts on that, as always). I started as one junior developer working on the code base with merely a few checked-ins, to be a people manager leading the front-end team in Taipei and one of the tech leads that struggle to involve every aspect of a code base involves multiple teams within Mozilla and external teams from many of our partners (note that Taipei front-end devs have since spilt into two teams and we have another capable manager on another team). It’s a learning process to work with project of this size — for Mozilla, product-wise, to enter a new market, to coordinate with partners on their launch dates and feature sets — is new too.

Firefox OS

Nonetheless we made it. I don’t feel particularly proud for the release. There were many decisions made that should have been made differently, although I am certain that everyone have made the best decision with information at hand. I am also in no position to judge a past decision if all the information is still not available to me.

There are still many, many work to be done here.