sdziallas talks tag:sdziallas.com,2010-03-27:/blog/sebastian//2 2010-12-15T07:25:35Z Movable Type Pro 5.0rc3 Moving On. tag:sdziallas.com,2010:/blog/sebastian//2.70 2010-12-15T06:58:21Z 2010-12-15T07:25:35Z Sebastian Dziallas Moving On
"Moving on" -- picture by .craig taken from Flickr, licensed under a CC-BY-NC-ND license.

The Short Version: As many of you might have noticed, my activities within Sugar Labs have been fading lately. I'd like to take the only responsible step and hand my responsibilities off.

The Long Version: I didn't expect to see myself writing this email. I'm currently a student at Olin working really hard to make it through finals and at the same time fighting RSI and dealing with other things (http://sdziallas.com/blog/sebastian/2010/11/a-kid-in-the-candy-store.html). But I also feel that I've been dragging this e-mail out way too long. I'm sorry. Nevertheless, I'm proud of what we accomplished over the past years.

I have great memories from the initial release of Sugar on a Stick at LinuxTag (http://sdziallas.com/blog/sebastian/2009/06/strawberries-for-everyone-now.html) and I still smile when I think of how we recovered from the ridiculous unsustainability of the second release (http://opensource.com/education/09/12/tasty-blueberry) and eventually even made the third release as a team together (http://sdziallas.com/blog/sebastian/2010/05/mirabelles-they-are-there.html). Looking back, I found myself skimming old wiki pages and blog posts (http://blog.melchua.com/2010/06/04/the-history-of-the-soas-mirabelle-release-learning-from-the-past/).

I'm particularly thankful for the experiences I had and the people I met. However, I feel that it's time to move on. I'll be unsubscribing from a couple of mailing lists, but I'll continue to work on bridging open source and education on various levels and I'm always open to direct email. Just a ping away. Email this address.

For Sugar on a Stick, Peter Robinson has alreading been leading the effort up to the latest Mango Lassi release of Sugar on a Stick and done an incredible work over the past year, leaving me confident that everything was taken care of when I had to focus on my studies (both in Germany and the US). I know from personal experience that taking on this work isn't an easy task and I don't want to assume that you're just going to continue doing it infinitely. It is your call. But you've done a great job. Thanks, Peter!

Good luck Sugar Labs. You've come a long way. Don't lose track of your mission.
]]> Dear Intarwebz: Can Haz Teh Data? tag:sdziallas.com,2010:/blog/sebastian//2.66 2010-09-12T04:23:01Z 2010-09-12T04:27:48Z So, as some of you my know, I'm as a couple of days ago a freshman at Olin College in Boston. One of the classes I'm taking there is called Modelling and Control of the Physical World, or ModSim for... Sebastian Dziallas So, as some of you my know, I'm as a couple of days ago a freshman at Olin College in Boston. One of the classes I'm taking there is called Modelling and Control of the Physical World, or ModSim for short. It's a great class. Actually, the professor who wrote Think Python, an open source text book on learning Python, is teaching it.

We've just been given our first project. As part of that, we're working in teams of two. My project concerns the development of primary education in developing countries (there's a project description out here, look at the first case). 

We've already been looking at the Education Policy and Data Center's website; however, I was hoping to find further data. We are looking at a variety of countries right now, as we're writing our own project description. Notable examples include Nepal and Pakistan.

We are looking for data that would help us model "the demographics of primary education in developing countries, and the challenges associated with achieving universal primary education by 2015." So statistics on schooling numbers, population and age ranges, drop out and graduation rates, ratio of funds spent on education, pupil/teacher ratio and that sort of thing would be very helpful.

Note that this is a little time-sensitive. We don't have to finish our project until October, but we have close interim deadlines coming up - so if somebody runs into some data over the weekend, this would be greatly appreciated!

Also let me know how you would like to be cited in my project so that I can properly credit and thank you for helping me find data!
]]> Sugar and EL-6: It Is Real. tag:sdziallas.com,2010:/blog/sebastian//2.57 2010-06-05T13:52:22Z 2010-06-05T14:08:58Z As you may know, Sugar runs on the RHEL 6 Beta. I went ahead and did an actual compose using Smock together with an updated config file for EPEL-6. The results live here and it should be possible to use... Sebastian Dziallas know, Sugar runs on the RHEL 6 Beta. I went ahead and did an actual compose using Smock together with an updated config file for EPEL-6. The results live here and it should be possible to use them directly as a yum repo:

It's also worth noting that work is going on to make this actually happen in EPEL (kudos to Peter Robinson and others too).
]]> Fedora Classroom: Sugar Packaging tag:sdziallas.com,2010:/blog/sebastian//2.44 2010-01-04T23:22:35Z 2010-01-05T00:22:28Z So you're interested in the Fedora Sugar effort? Awesome. Well, as promised, we're going to have a Sugar Packaging Session through the Fedora Classroom program this Wednesday. We'll be in #fedora-classroom, on 1500 UTC, so make sure to drop by.... Sebastian Dziallas Fedora Sugar effort? Awesome. Well, as promised, we're going to have a Sugar Packaging Session through the Fedora Classroom program this Wednesday. We'll be in #fedora-classroom, on 1500 UTC, so make sure to drop by. If you can, please have Gobby installed, which we'll use for collaboratively working on docs!
]]> Thinking of contributing to Sugar? tag:sdziallas.com,2009:/blog/sebastian//2.1 2009-12-30T12:30:14Z 2010-01-01T12:36:37Z Here's your chance! Join us for the upcoming weekly Fedora Sugar meetings in #fedora-olpc starting tomorrow, Dec 31 on 1500 UTC.We're going to talk about packaging (especially Sugar Activities) and all kinds of stuff that helps us making the F13... Sebastian Dziallas #fedora-olpc starting tomorrow, Dec 31 on 1500 UTC.

We're going to talk about packaging (especially Sugar Activities) and all kinds of stuff that helps us making the F13 Sugar experience better.

You don't know how to package things for Fedora? Don't worry, we've a Fedora Classroom session coming up on Jan 6 - more details here.]]>