In my previous post about CFPs I talked about the information that it is important for me, as a potential speaker, to see on a CFP landing page. In this follow up post, I’m going to look at the questions asked on the CFP proposal submission form.

I’m new to being a speaker. It’s exciting and a little surreal. I’ve had so many good, nay great, experiences that I’m hesitant to mention the negative experiences. Because, really - there haven’t been many at all. Perhaps more often, I’ve just wished that things were... better. And they can be! So, in the spirit of constructive criticism, I’d like to talk about the things that I, as a speaker who is also a member of a minority group within my field, would like to see on conference websites, Call For Proposal(CFP) landing pages and CFP forms.

For me, PyConAu was a phenomenal mix of travel, new faces, frazzled nerves and fun! I had a wonderful time and learned a lot of truly interesting things.

The first of which is that the Python community is super welcoming, even to someone from the other side of the world who has only touched their toes into the great Python waters!

Did you know that there’s a huge second hand market for sneakers - especially Nikes? I did. What I didn’t know was that there are often astronomical markups that can turn a $250 pair of sneakers into $650 pure profit.

Giving my first talk was a huge learning experience and I can't thank enough the long suffering friends who were so supportive through this process. Presenting and writing a proposal for the first time can be incredibly intimidating and stressful.

This was my first conference as a speaker - I was convinced to submit a proposal off the recommendation of a friend, @vmbrasseur. I arrived Tuesday morning a big ball of nerves.

Violence is a complicated topic. For most people, it’s spoken about in terms of physical aggression - the use (or threat thereof) of force. However, the philosopher Slavoj Zizek also acknowledges “objective” violence - with no clear perpetrator, which is often widespread. Violence isn’t just force - at its most basic, it’s the removal of agency. In this post, I’d like to explore this broadening of the concept of violence and how it pertains to the United State’s culture of surveillance, as enacted by the NSA. More so, how that surveillance acts to remove the agency of the citizens it claims to protect.