Part 2 is now online, covering the Blob (app functionality) and Big Tech in the same style.

Better. Remaining issues with the toolbar:

• Actually persisting settings across restart.
• Still not responsive. But I have a plan for this.
• Every color I use in the editor needs more sliders to customize 😬 Right now there are 3 other colors: comments, scrollbars and those borders around the editor. Maybe I need a dropdown 😬 Or just punt.

The one thought I did have was that an issue would be timezones, so why don't we put our timezones on our profiles, or even alongside our names! I'm doing that now to see what it looks like

We could set up a #researchers-in-residence channel and drop by to chat, but primarily we'd need a regular video thing either all of us or 121

Ivan Reese this would have to be something you're on board with, of course. What do you think?

I have no idea if this would work out in practice, but we have little to lose in trying out the idea!

Timezones in display name has slight problem: punctuation is not allowed (ie +1 does not compute here).

Oh, I thought just the names without the numbers; anyway, "-" works, so just wrap around! 🤣

Interestingly the name displayed isn't the display name

Really....amazing isn't it. So just the full name then...

Not sure if it helps, but you can see someone's local time by looking at their profile

I don't really see the appeal of an always on group video call, but if I'd spend more than 5 minutes eating lunch, I could imagine my self dropping by a lunch session video call. I could maybe see my self wearing my wireless headset while preparing lunch and eating and participate in a lunch group call for random chit-chat.

maybe I'd even expand my lunch break to 7 minutes for that

Not sure if it helps, but you can see someone's local time by looking at their profile

Aha! Well spotted! Can't believe I didn't spot that! It is kinda tucked away, in my defence! Although now I know about it, it looks HUGE! 😄

What do you make for lunch? Hope it wouldn't be too noisy. Like crisps or toast or celery.

hah, basically never anything crunchy. but it did occur to me too that a mic picking up eating noises might be bit of an issue

OK, well pending Ivan Reese’s input I think we may have enough interest to at least try something here.

As someone currently working at I&S, let me add some detail about how the researcher-in-residence program works.

They invited 3 researchers. One of them dropped out from the program when they joined a research lab. (Hey wait — that was me!) The other two researchers work highly independently. But, when they write a new note, or record a demo video, they share it in a private I&S discord channel so that other folks at the lab can offer feedback. These researchers also sometimes join the weekly Monday+Friday staff calls so they can briefly share what they're up to, just to keep the rest of the lab up to date. The residence is not paid, and the primary benefit (so far) is that you get to use the lab staff as "study buddies" so to speak.

In short, it's basically like a smaller, less casual version of what we already do with #devlog-together, #two-minute-week, and #share-your-work.

There's no always-on video calls that people drop in and out of. There's no obligation for anyone at the lab to give feedback. Quite the opposite — it's an opportunity for these researchers to write a regular series of short notes, and record short demos, and share them with a small group of other people who have enough context to be able to offer valuable feedback if they have any. It entirely depends on the researchers putting in the extra effort to make their work legible, interesting, and quickly digestible (which is good practice). It depends on the researchers having the free (unpaid) time to do all this work.

All that being said, if a small group of you would like to commit to each other that you'll regularly communicate your work in a way that makes it legible and quickly digestible, I'd be happy to spin up a channel for it. It'd be a dedicated space where you'd share and discuss your work with each other, and the rest of the community could sort of observe at a remove and perhaps toss in a bit of feedback if they ever had any.

It's worth pointing out that these researchers (Mary Rose Cook and Alexander Obenauer) already have a large, highly-engaged following for their work. They've already figured out how to present their work in a way that attracts interest, and they put in a lot of work to maintain that interest. The residence is not, like, a built-in audience. So if we set something up here, I urge you to not expect to get any more traction than your work already gets elsewhere in the Slack. It will get less traction, and that's the point — you're narrowing your audience to a small handful of people, so that you can speak directly to them. They're not under any obligation to respond, but hey, if a few of you strike up a good rapport that'd be fantastic. But the rest of the community almost certainly won't engage as much as they would if you continue to use the existing channels.

(I'm adding all this couching and hand-wringing because, Duncan, you often complain about people not engaging with things here. So I want to very clearly dissuade you from looking at this idea as a way to bolster engagement.)

All I said was, quoting:

Solo independent researchers we know often discuss the challenge of working alone . Being part of a research group can create community, social accountability, provide feedback, and just give you someone to talk to when you’re feeling stuck or bored . This is why we started our Researchers-in-Residence program.

And:

We could set up a #researchers-in-residence channel and drop by to chat, but primarily we'd need a regular video thing either all of us or 121 .

So I'm a bit confused about your very long comment - I was just asking if you thought my idea was a runner! I'm picking up that it wouldn't be all that welcome overall.

There is already overlap in #devlog-together, #two-minute-week, and #share-your-work as you say, so adding a fourth does seem a bit silly in retrospect. Having said that, I'm now wondering why not combine our current three into one - #work-and-show or something! I couldn't tell you on the spot all the differences between these three and I suspect I wouldn't be alone in that.

Anyway, there wasn't that much interest here, not enough for a new channel that's for sure, and the video thing wasn't a big hit either

You can find a description of all the channels in our handbook: futureofcoding.org/member-handbook#channels

Though, it seems devlog-together isn't documented there. Let me rectify that.