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Current Events Tampa Bay

What’s happening in the Tampa Bay tech/entrepreneur/nerd scene (Week of Monday, May 31, 2021)

Welcome to June!

Here’s your list of tech, entrepreneur, and nerd events for Tampa Bay and surrounding areas for the week of Monday, May 31 through Sunday, June 6, 2021.

This is a weekly service from Tampa Bay’s tech blog, Global Nerdy! For the past four years, I’ve been compiling a list of tech, entrepreneur, and nerd events happening in Tampa Bay and surrounding areas. There’s a lot going on in our scene here in “The Other Bay Area, on the Other West Coast”!

By “Tampa Bay and surrounding areas”, this list covers events that originate or are aimed at the area within 100 miles of the Port of Tampa. At the very least, that includes the cities of Tampa, St. Petersburg, and Clearwater, but as far north as Ocala, as far south as Fort Myers, and includes Orlando and its surrounding cities.

How long will this list contain only ONLINE and OUTDOOR events?

Three Thursdays ago, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) announced that anyone who is fully vaccinated — meaning that they had their final vaccine two weeks or longer ago — can now stop masking and social distancing, including indoors in many cases. That means this list will start including in-person events, right?

Not just yet. This list will stick to online and outdoor events for the time being.

As I write this:

  • 38.9% of the Florida population has been fully vaccinated (I’m one of them), and 49.0% has had their first dose.
  • 41.0% of the U.S. population has been fully vaccinated, and 50.1% has had their first dose.

Those numbers are a good sign, but they could be better. I’m holding off on listing indoor in-person events until after the 4th of July for the following reasons:

  • Most of the events aimed at a tech, entrepreneur, or nerd audience are still being held online.
  • The CDC’s announcement depends on people exercising good judgement. We live in Florida. Do the math.
  • If the CDC’s call was right, we’ll know by July 4th. If the CDC’s call was wrong, we’ll also know by July 4th.

I’m looking forward to life getting back to normal, but I’m also happy to exercise a few weeks’ worth of caution because I think it’s worth it.

Stay home, stay safe, stay connected, and #MakeItTampaBay!

This week’s events

Monday, May 31

Remember, it’s Memorial Day, and a number of Meetup groups are regularly scheduled on “autopilot”. The events listed for this day may ro may not actually be happening — check with the organizers to be sure!

Tuesday, June 1

Wednesday, June 2

Thursday, June 3

Friday, June 4

Saturday, June 5

Sunday, June 6

Do you have any events or announcements that you’d like to see on this list?

Let me know at joey@joeydevilla.com!

Join the mailing list!

If you’d like to get this list in your email inbox every week, enter your email address below. You’ll only be emailed once a week, and the email will contain this list, plus links to any interesting news, upcoming events, and tech articles.

Join the Tampa Bay Tech Events list and always be informed of what’s coming up in Tampa Bay!


Categories
Current Events Tampa Bay

What’s happening in the Tampa Bay tech/entrepreneur/nerd scene (Week of Monday, May 24, 2021)

Creative Commons photo by Matthew Paulson — click here to see the original.

We’re approaching the end of May and the Memorial Day weekend! Here’s your list of tech, entrepreneur, and nerd events for Tampa Bay and surrounding areas for the week of Monday, May 24 through Sunday, May 30, 2021.

This is a weekly service from Tampa Bay’s tech blog, Global Nerdy! For the past four years, I’ve been compiling a list of tech, entrepreneur, and nerd events happening in Tampa Bay and surrounding areas. There’s a lot going on in our scene here in “The Other Bay Area, on the Other West Coast”!

By “Tampa Bay and surrounding areas”, this list covers events that originate or are aimed at the area within 100 miles of the Port of Tampa. At the very least, that includes the cities of Tampa, St. Petersburg, and Clearwater, but as far north as Ocala, as far south as Fort Myers, and includes Orlando and its surrounding cities.

How long will this list contain only ONLINE and OUTDOOR events?

Two Thursdays ago, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) announced that anyone who is fully vaccinated — meaning that they had their final vaccine two weeks or longer ago — can now stop masking and social distancing, including indoors in many cases. That means this list will start including in-person events, right?

Not just yet. This list will stick to online and outdoor events for the time being.

As I write this:

  • 36.8% of the Florida population has been fully vaccinated (I’m one of them), and 46.9% has had their first dose.
  • 38.9% of the U.S. population has been fully vaccinated, and 49.1% has had their first dose.

Those numbers are a good sign, but I’m holding off on listing indoor in-person events until after the 4th of July for the following reasons:

  • Most of the events aimed at a tech, entrepreneur, or nerd audience are still being held online.
  • The CDC’s announcement depends on people exercising good judgement. We live in Florida. Do the math.
  • If the CDC’s call was right, we’ll know by July 4th. If the CDC’s call was wrong, we’ll also know by July 4th.

I’m looking forward to life getting back to normal, but I’m also happy to exercise a few weeks’ worth of caution because I think it’s worth it.

Stay home, stay safe, stay connected, and #MakeItTampaBay!

This week’s events

Monday, May 24

Tuesday, May 25

Wednesday, May 26

Thursday, May 27

Friday, May 28

Saturday, May 29

Sunday, May 30

Do you have any events or announcements that you’d like to see on this list?

Let me know at joey@joeydevilla.com!

Join the mailing list!

If you’d like to get this list in your email inbox every week, enter your email address below. You’ll only be emailed once a week, and the email will contain this list, plus links to any interesting news, upcoming events, and tech articles.

Join the Tampa Bay Tech Events list and always be informed of what’s coming up in Tampa Bay!


Categories
Programming Reading Material

Get $411 worth of Python books for $18 with this Humble Bundle!

Once a year, Humble Bundle releases a bundle of No Starch Press’ excellent Python books, and it’s that time of year again! For the next 18 days from the time of this writing, you can get $411 worth of ebooks for as little as $18.

What you get for $1

The bundle is sold in tiers. If you pay only $1, you get this portion of the bundle, which makes for a great starter set for younger readers or if you’re thinking of getting into game development:

If these books alone for a dollar have piqued your interest, you can get them now by going to the Humble Bundle Python book page.

If a dollar is all you can spare, you’ll still be well-served by this deal. However, if you can spend a little more, the deal gets better…

What you get for $10 – $17.99

Pay between $10 and $17.99, and they’ll add these to the bundle:

In my opinion, the stand-out book in this tier is Serious Python, which cover languages features, tools, and techniques that you’ll need as you start writing applications that you or your customers will regularly use and rely upon.

If $17.99 is the most you can spare, you’re still getting a good deal, and you can go to the Humble Bundle Python book page and get your bundle now.

However, if you can part with $18 or more, you should read on…

What you get for $18 or more

And finally, if you pay $18 or more, they’ll throw in the gems of the collection:

If you’re serious about learning Python, you’ll want to pay $18 or more I used Python Crash Course and Automate the Boring Stuff with Python in the Python courses I taught last year.

Even though I bought the 2020 edition of this bundle, I bought the 2021 edition just to get Real World Python is a great way to learn some new tricks through its tour of algorithms and Python libraries. It was cheaper to buy the bundle than to buy Real World Python on its own. Do the math: You can pay $28 for Real World Python, or get all the books in the bundle for $10 less!

Beyond the Basic Stuff with Python is a great guide for writing more Pythonic code, Python One-Liners is worth it for just the NumPy and regex chapters alone, and Natural Language Processing with Python and spaCY packs an NLP course with lots of practical exercises into under 200 pages.

If the $18 bundle is what you’re looking for, go to Humble Bundle and get it while it’s still available!

The money goes to good causes

The proceeds from sales of this bundle go to:

The mission of the Python Software Foundation is to promote, protect, and advance the Python programming language, and to support and facilitate the growth of a diverse and international community of Python programmers. The majority of the PSF’s work is focused on empowering and supporting people within the Python community. The PSF has active grant programs that support sprints, conferences, meetups, user groups, and Python development efforts all over the world. In addition, the PSF underwrites and runs PyCon US, the primary Python community conference. Being part of the PSF means being part of the Python community. Recently we changed the PSF to an open membership organization, so that everyone who uses and supports Python can join.

To learn more, visit https://www.python.org/psf/membership.

The No Starch Press Foundation is an IRS 501 (c) (3) tax-exempt non-profit corporation created to support and grow the collective knowledge and contributions of the worldwide hacker community.

We support hackers of all types, regardless of experience — whether that’s the passionate beginner or the lifelong hacker wishing to make a broader contribution to the hacker community and the world.

The Foundation was formed to give back to and strengthen the hacking community. The Foundation’s founder, William Pollock, has been closely involved with the hacking community since about 1999 and much of the success of his company, No Starch Press, is due to the support of the worldwide hacking community. To date, Pollock has given over $800,000 to the Foundation and is working to expand its donor base. The Foundation’s funding will be used to help strengthen and expand the hacking community, by educating the public about hacking and working to create safe and central places for the hacking community.

Categories
Current Events Tampa Bay

What’s happening in the Tampa Bay tech/entrepreneur/nerd scene (Week of Monday, May 17, 2021)

We’ve just passed the middle of May! Here’s your list of tech, entrepreneur, and nerd events for Tampa Bay and surrounding areas for the week of Monday, May 17 through Sunday, May 23, 2021.

This is a weekly service from Tampa Bay’s tech blog, Global Nerdy! For the past four years, I’ve been compiling a list of tech, entrepreneur, and nerd events happening in Tampa Bay and surrounding areas. There’s a lot going on in our scene here in “The Other Bay Area, on the Other West Coast”!

By “Tampa Bay and surrounding areas”, this list covers events that originate or are aimed at the area within 100 miles of the Port of Tampa. At the very least, that includes the cities of Tampa, St. Petersburg, and Clearwater, but as far north as Ocala, as far south as Fort Myers, and includes Orlando and its surrounding cities.

How long will this list contain only ONLINE events?

Last Thursday, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) announced that anyone who is fully vaccinated — meaning that they had their final vaccine two weeks or longer ago — can now stop masking and social distancing, including indoors in many cases. That means this list will start including in-person events, right?

Not just yet.

As I write this, 34.6% of the Florida population has been fully vaccinated (I’m one of them), and 45.1% has had at least one dose. Those numbers are a good sign, but I’m holding off on listing in-person events until after the 4th of July for the following reasons:

  • Most of the events aimed at a tech, entrepreneur, or nerd audience are still being held online.
  • The CDC’s announcement depends on people exercising good judgement. We live in Florida. Do the math.
  • If the CDC’s call was right, we’ll know by July 4th. If the CDC’s call was wrong, we’ll also know by July 4th.

I’m looking forward to life getting back to normal, but I’m also happy to exercise a few weeks’ worth of caution because I think it’s worth it.

Stay home, stay safe, stay connected, and #MakeItTampaBay!

This week’s events

Monday, May 17

Tuesday, May 18

Wednesday, May 19

Thursday, May 20

Friday, May 21

Saturday, May 22

Sunday, May 23

Do you have any events or announcements that you’d like to see on this list?

Let me know at joey@joeydevilla.com!

Join the mailing list!

If you’d like to get this list in your email inbox every week, enter your email address below. You’ll only be emailed once a week, and the email will contain this list, plus links to any interesting news, upcoming events, and tech articles.

Join the Tampa Bay Tech Events list and always be informed of what’s coming up in Tampa Bay!


Categories
Current Events Programming Tampa Bay

“Python: A Bicycle for the Mind” — 9:00 a.m. this Wednesday at the Women Who Code Tampa online meetup!

I’m talking about Python at this Wednesday’s Women Who Code Tampa online event!

This Wednesday, May 12th, from 9:00 a.m. to 10:00 a.m. Eastern (UTC-4), I’ll be in an online session where I’ll talk about using Python as a “bicycle for the mind”. I’m going to present a couple of Python tricks that I actually use to be more productive.

This session is this week’s installment of Women Who Code Tampa’s Coffee + Code, a weekly online networking event featuring a tech topic.

Here are the relevant links:

What’s this about “Bicycle for the mind”?

It’s how Steve Jobs describes computers in his appearance in a 1990 documentary film called Memory & Imagination: New Pathways to the Library of Congress.

Here’s what he said:

I think one of the things that really separates us from the high primates is that we’re tool builders. I read a study that measured the efficiency of locomotion for various species on the planet.

The condor used the least energy to move a kilometer. And, humans came in with a rather unimpressive showing, about a third of the way down the list. It was not too proud a showing for the crown of creation. So, that didn’t look so good.

But, then somebody at Scientific American had the insight to test the efficiency of locomotion for a man on a bicycle. And, a man on a bicycle, a human on a bicycle, blew the condor away, completely off the top of the charts.

And that’s what a computer is to me. What a computer is to me is it’s the most remarkable tool that we’ve ever come up with, and it’s the equivalent of a bicycle for our minds.

Categories
Current Events Tampa Bay

What’s happening in the Tampa Bay tech/entrepreneur/nerd scene (Week of Monday, May 10, 2021)

Happy first week of May! Here’s your list of tech, entrepreneur, and nerd events for Tampa Bay and surrounding areas for the week of Monday, May 10 through Sunday, May 16, 2021.

This is a weekly service from Tampa Bay’s tech blog, Global Nerdy! For the past four years, I’ve been compiling a list of tech, entrepreneur, and nerd events happening in Tampa Bay and surrounding areas. There’s a lot going on in our scene here in “The Other Bay Area, on the Other West Coast”!

By “Tampa Bay and surrounding areas”, this list covers events that originate or are aimed at the area within 100 miles of the Port of Tampa. At the very least, that includes the cities of Tampa, St. Petersburg, and Clearwater, but as far north as Ocala, as far south as Fort Myers, and includes Orlando and its surrounding cities.

Yes, many of us have had their first (and even second!) vaccines, but we’re not at the point where it’s advisable to return to pre-pandemic-style in-person events. It will happen soon, but in the meantime, I’m restricting this list to online events. In the age of broadband internet, smartphones, and social media, it’s not that hard. Stay home, stay safe, stay connected, and #MakeItTampaBay!

Monday, May 10

Tuesday, May 11

Wednesday, May 12

Thursday, May 13

Friday, May 14

Saturday, May 15

Sunday, May 16

Do you have any events or announcements that you’d like to see on this list?

Let me know at joey@joeydevilla.com!

Join the mailing list!

If you’d like to get this list in your email inbox every week, enter your email address below. You’ll only be emailed once a week, and the email will contain this list, plus links to any interesting news, upcoming events, and tech articles.

Join the Tampa Bay Tech Events list and always be informed of what’s coming up in Tampa Bay!


Categories
Current Events Podcasts What I’m Up To

Watch my live podcast recording with the Thunder Nerds tonight!

Tonight, May 6th at 7:30 p.m. EDT (UTC-4), I’ll be the guest of Tampa Bay tech podcasters, the Thunder Nerds, and you can watch LIVE it as we record!

With 279 episodes so far, The Thunder Nerds have been at this for a long time. I’ll chat with hosts Frederick Philip von Weiss and Brian Hinton about all sorts of things, not the least of which is how their podcast was a key part of the research I did to land my job at Auth0.

I’m sure that a good chunk of our conversation will be about what working at Auth0 is like, authentication and authorization, and possibly the hardware and electronic music dabbling that I’ve been doing lately.

The Thunder Nerds record their podcasts in such a way that you can watch the recording process LIVE on YouTube, and can even type in questions or comments as it’s happening! If you’d like to see how the sausage is made, follow this link tonight at 7:30 p.m. EDT and watch the fun!