Joining Transit!

Richard A. 5 Comments

After more than 7 years as a Happiness Engineer / Happiness Rocketeer at Automattic (the company behind WordPress.com, the Jetpack plugin, the Akismet service, and many more), I am moving on to a new role as Project Manager at Transit!

At Automattic, I have been privileged to be part of the mission of Democratizing Publishing; I was also lucky to travel the world. One thing that I always tried to do every time I could (Paris, Buenos Aires, Madrid, etc) was to take public transportation (especially metros!). And my love of public transportation eventually led me to creating the Transit Mapping Symposium (I’m still sad that we had to cancel this year’s edition, but we’ll try again at a later date). So, it seemed only natural that my next move is to something related to that passion. Hence, Transit! It’s the best app out there for trip planning on public transit and other mobility modes around the world.

Even though I’ve been working from home during my time at Automattic, I’ve still used Transit every chance I got. I’ve been a fan of the app ever since I read this 2016 post on how they generate their maps. I try to use their GO function as often as I can; I hope to improve my standings with time!

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My GO stats

Transit’s co-founder, Sam Vermette, was kind enough to be our opening speaker in the inaugural edition of the Symposium, and I’ve been in touch with the people there ever since. I guess it was only a matter of time before something like this would happen!

I’ve made some very dear friends at Automattic, but the great thing about working for a company that’s distributed around the world is that now, I’ll have people to visit, no matter where my new role takes me!

I’ll miss my friends in the global WordPress community, but greater and better public transportation and active transportation (also known as active mobility) are sorely needed to fight against climate change; I’m very happy that I’ll be doing my bit to make the experience better and to help encourage people to use those modes of transportation more.

And now, with the crisis and uncertainty caused by the COVID-19 virus (see here the drastic drops in app usage everywhere, a proxy for ridership), I’m even more eager to pitch in and help in any way I can.

 

Dune – “etymological” riddle solved?

Richard A. Leave a comment

I recently re-read Dune for something like the 5th time. I love the book; I find that I always look at water in a different way for months after I’ve read it.

On reading it this time, I came across this word in the text and the glossary:

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As a native French-speaker, I immediately saw what it must be: Écoutez! For the non-French-speakers among you, that translates to Listen!

I searched on Google for any other mentions of ikhut-eigh and écoutez or écouter, and found nothing. So I’m possibly the first one to have seen this connection. It wouldn’t be completely strange, either. There are several words in the glossary that have clear French roots: verite, proces verbal, and of course, melange, the spice itself. So I’m convinced that this little mystery is solved. Unless Frank Herbert completely made it up, of course.

Playa del Carmen with the family

Richard A. 1 Comment

As many of my friends know, I am spending most of the summer in Mexico City, visiting my wife’s family. I have a few posts to write about some of the things I’ve done, so keep reading my blog later this week for more!

So far, most of the summer has been spent with me working, and small evening or weekend outings (you can see some pictures of those on my other site). For the first time in all the times we’ve come here, this year I decided to take the family on a jaunt elsewhere, away from Mexico City. Back in April of this year, and again in 2014, I went to Playa del Carmen in the Yucatán for a team meetup, so I thought that it would be fun to go back with the family, so my boys could see the beach and the Mayan ruins that I knew well. At the same time, I didn’t want to have to deal with “where are we going to eat” every day, so for the first time ever, we went to a relatively cheap all-inclusive hotel. It ended up working out pretty well!

Our first night there, we got there just in time for supper, and the pool was already closed, so we just hung out on the beach for a while after eating, enjoying the sound of the surf, and the starlit sky. Then, on our first full day there, we spent it on the beach and in the pool, with the occasional break for some food or a drink. It was pretty nice to have a full day of “nothing to worry about but food”. I don’t know if it was because of the particular day (Monday), or because of the risk of rain (we saw lots of rainclouds over the sea, out near Cozumel island, and rain too, but it didn’t end up coming our way), or whatever the reason was, it was pretty quiet that day. I was even able to take pictures of the beach and beach chairs, with hardly anyone around:

 

The next day was our adventure day! In April, we had done a private tour with Mayans’ Explorers, and it went really well for us, so I contacted them again to ask them for a tour for just us. It was easier this way than signing up with large groups of 20 or 30 people, and much more enjoyable and flexible.

We started at about 7am from the hotel, in one of the typical little tour vans of the area.  First on the agenda: a visit to Tulum. I had wanted to go to Tulum for as long as I could remember. The images of the ruins with the ocean right below the cliff always impressed me. However, it was already STUPID hot and humid by the time we got there around 8am, and and unfortunately, the access to the beach was closed. Oh well. My kids can come back on their own when they’re older. In any case, there was a lot of sargassum seaweed (the whole Mayan Riviera coast is suffering from an excess of it this year, as you may have spotted in some of my photos), so it wouldn’t have been all that great.

After we left the ruins, soaked in sweat, we went to a nearby beach for some snorkelling. We had hoped to see some turtles, but none were around. However, we saw lots of other fish, as well as some rays, and what looked like a barracuda. The boys enjoyed it a lot! I don’t have any photos of the scuba diving though, since we left our phones on dry land!

After scuba diving, we went to the Cobá ruins. It was super-hot again. However, our driver said “It looks like it might rain, do you want umbrellas?”..  No, no need, a bit of rain doesn’t hurt…

So we visited the first pyramid in Cobá, and the first “juego de pelota” (the classic Mayan ballgame court). Then, we rented bikes to go to the second pyramid, which is very steep but that you can climb all the way to the top. I went to the top in 2014. However, this time, my youngest son went up maybe 10 steps and said “Nope, nope, I’m going back down”, so I went down with him. That’s when a few drops started. “Just a few drops, not a big deal.” As you can imagine, those few drops became more and more, until it was really a downpour. My older son, meanwhile, had climbed all the way to the top with our guide; he got a good view, at least! Everyone climbed down; they were the last ones to reach the bottom. We all ran to a nearby small shelter, and waited out the rain. Except the rain didn’t stop. Soon the water started running in rivulets, and then streams, everywhere. Some tourists, with their blue plastic rain ponchos, were still going to the pyramid though; I guess they figured they had paid for it so they might as well go! I don’t any of them dared to climb it, however.

After waiting a while, our guide said “I don’t think this will stop any time soon”, so off we went to our bikes, water up to our ankles. It was a good 10 minute bike ride back to the entrance; what an adventure! Biking along in basically a river, under driving rain. I won’t forget it!

 

After we made it back to our van, soaked, we headed out to a local cenote, Multum Ha. We had to go deep underground to reach the water. The water was cool, refreshing, and crystal-clear. I loved the experience of swimming in it!

And that was the end of our adventure day in Playa del Carmen!

 

Transit Mapping Symposium

Richard A. 1 Comment

Last June, I went to Paris for WordCamp Europe. There, I met up with Jug Cerovič, an amazing transit map maker, whose maps are truly works of art. We talked about his book and his work, and during our conversation, I said that it would be absolutely fantastic to be able to gather all the people who work in this admittedly niche world of transit mapping, and to share ideas and thoughts on all aspects of it. Jug told me, “Let’s do it!” At first I thought it was a pipe dream, how could we possibly pull it off? But after thinking for a bit, I realized that it wasn’t that far-fetched! Since I knew that I had a 3-month sabbatical coming up this summer (thanks to my employer, Automattic; every employee gets 3 months off after 5 years of service), I had already decided that I wasn’t going to organize another WordCamp, so I knew that I would have the time available to fill the hole in my heart; I really like organizing things! And, I have the skills and experience in event organizing that would make putting a much smaller conference together relatively easy. From Jug’s side, he has the contacts in the field, as well as his own clearly-articulated vision of how transit mapping should progress in this age of apps and smartphones. Lacking both of those things, I needed him to put this gathering together, just as much as he needed me to handle the organizing and logistics. And thus, the Transit Mapping Symposium was born!

After several months of contacting different potential participants, Jug was able to put together a great list of speakers:

  • Sam Vermette, from Montreal’s own Transit app (which I love!)
  • Joey Reid, representing the very influential Human Transit, founded by Jarrett Walker
  • René-Claude Bouchard and Francis Brisebois from the STM
  • Peter Lloyd, author of a book on the Vignelli NYC subway map
  • Representatives from Naver, South Korea’s biggest search engine and web destination
  • Kickmap’s very own Eddie Jabbour
  • Anton Dubrau, a key blogger on Montreal transit
  • Representatives from Apple Transit
  • Jens Unger, a representative from Here.com
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Eddie Jabbour from Kickmap

Quite the lineup! We unfortunately had a couple of speaker cancellations due to circumstances outside of our control. However, as luck would have it, one of our attendees had flown all the way from Singapore to show us the work on mapping and signage that he’s doing in their transit system, and he agreed to prepare a presentation for us. It was a great way to finish the Symposium; Samuel Lim’s presentation was expertly done, funny, and informative. Thanks Samuel, and thank you to all of the other speakers who attended!

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Drinks at the pub after the Symposium ended (photo by Samuel Lim)

 

So, now the Symposium is over….  for this year! After the success of the event, Jug and I have agreed that we have to do it again. This year it was in Montreal, so next year, we’re going to do it in Paris! See you then!

Projet Montréal

Richard A. 1 Comment

Tomorrow is election day in Montreal. Last time around, we elected Denis Coderre, ex-immigration minister, and ex-MP from Montreal North, where I grew up. I didn’t like him back then as immigration minister, and I did not vote him as Mayor. I disagree with many of the things he has done or wants to do:

So he’s definitely not getting my vote this election either.

Today I had the pleasure of briefly meeting who I hope will be elected mayor today, Valérie Plante.

When she first won the leadership of the oppostion party, Projet Montréal, almost a year ago, I didn’t have much of an opinion of her. However, that has changed over the past few months, and especially over the spanse of the electoral campaign. The most important aspect which made her and Project Montréal win my vote, is the audacious idea of a new metro line for Montreal, the Pink Line (la Ligne Rose). The idea of this line is to relieve pressure on the eastern half of the Orange line (and Berri-UQAM station) which are operating at or above capacity during rush hour in particular, and also to serve poorer, dense neighbuorhoods that currently are far from any metro station and which cause long commute times for their residents; in particular, Montreal North!

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The Pink Line; opening in 2025?

Here are some fascinating articles about this Pink Line and what it would entail:

I look forward to casting my vote tomorrow, and to the future of transit in Montreal!

POSTSCRIPT:  She won!!

Excited about the future of transit in our fair city!!!!!!

Learning Dutch: Beginnings

Richard A. 9 Comments

Back in August, I attended a conference in Montreal which was all about polyglots and languages: Langfest. So many attendees at the conference had name-tags that said which languages they spoke or were learning to speak. Most people had 3 or more; several were even on their 7th or 8th language! While I was there, I started thinking on what my next language would be. Italian or Portuguese are obvious choices since they are so close to French and Spanish; they’d likely be relatively easier to learn. But they don’t inspire in me a strong desire to learn them right now. Then there was a quick presentation on Icelandic, which seems interesting! It’d be quite a challenge to learn it, though. So, I left the conference without a chosen language, and decided to think on it for a little bit.

A couple of weeks ago, I went to Automattic’s Grand Meetup, where all of my colleagues from around the world gather for 1 week of work and socializing. You can see some of my friend’s posts here: Lisa, Stephen, Kathryn, Ryan. While I was there, I chatted a bit with Ines, a colleague from the Netherlands. And that’s when it hit me: Dutch!

So I’ve started looking for Dutch courses in Montreal. I’m not finding any, though. I asked on Twitter for help, and another one of my colleagues, Mark, said this:

Great question, Mark! Here’s why I’ve settled on Dutch:

  1. I want to learn a 4th language as a personal challenge, but I also don’t want something TOO hard so that I don’t get discouraged along the way; I can try a hard one for my 5th. 🙂
  2. Dutch is close to English in many ways (written and spoken) which might make learning it a bit easier, but different enough that it will still require a lot of work and practice to get right. It feels like a good balance.
  3. I love flying KLM and have been through AMS-Schiphol airport a few times; maybe one day I’ll actually get to visit Amsterdam too! It’d be great to have at least a fair grasp of the language if I do.
  4. I’d like Automattic’s Grand Meetup to be in Europe one year, and Amsterdam would be a GREAT location for flights. Look at this!
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From http://www.flightconnections.com/ ; all the direct flights to AMS!

So, those are the reasons! My motivation doesn’t have any deep meaning behind it or anything; I just want to see if I can do it!

So, my first step is to get some books & CDs from the library. I will also watch videos online. For example, I’ve started watching these:

 

They’re good, but I need more structure to learn.I’d love to be in a class and learn along with other people. To that end, I signed up on a site called Multilingual Cafe, and hope that a class will open at some point. If you’re in Montreal and also want to learn Dutch, sign up for a group session! (Thanks to Isabelle for the link!)

Once I have a book or two, I’m going to try to do at least 30 minutes a day of practicing, reading, and watching videos. It isn’t much, but since I don’t have anyone I can practice *with*, it will have to do for now. I will try to find a conversation group once I have the basics, later. If you have any leads for me for a group in Montreal, let me know!

So that’s it! I’ll update my progress here in a month or so.

WordCamp Montreal

Richard A. 1 Comment
organizers photo WordCamp 2017.jpg

Great photo of this year’s gang: Jennifer, me, Carl, Andrea, and Alex. Photo by Jer Clarke: http://jerclarke.org/

In 2010, I went to my very first WordCamp. It was my first time going to an event like that: a conference on a subject which, at the time, I was just starting to delve into. I really enjoyed my experience that weekend; I met some great people, and learned a lot! The local community was just full of friendly and knowledgeable people, who were always enthusiastic about sharing their thoughts and ideas. At the time, most of the monhtly meetups were on topics that were pretty much over my head, but I enjoyed going to them anyways because I always ended up learning something, and the other people who came to them were also very nice and friendly.

So, I kept going to the events. I also went to WordCamp Montreal 2011, and also 2012. Now, for those who know me, I like organizing things. I really like organizing things. By things, I mean events, or outings, or get-togethers; I don’t mean my desk (I won’t show you a picture of it). At the afterparty in 2012, I had the great idea of approaching Jer, one of the organizers, and saying “Hey, I’d like to help with anything you need me for next year!”, and before I knew it, I was in! I’ve been on the organizing team for WordCamp Montreal since 2013 now (here’s 2014, 2015, 2016, and 2017). I’ve also been part of the team that organizes our local meetups too (here’s where you can sign up to find out about future WordPress Montreal events, on Meetup.com). And being part of the organizing team brought me, indirectly, to my current job at Automattic (the folks behind WordPress.com); being at the events, and helping where I could, got me noticed, and it certainly helped having it on my CV.

But, after 5 years of doing it, I decided earlier this year that I need a break. Running WordCamp, as well as the local WordPress community events, is a lot of work! We have a great team of organizers, but it’s still a lot that needs to be done. We actually start the preliminary booking for the WordCamp venue in November or so, as well as the hunt for sponsors. A lot of time and effort goes into our events, and I was starting to feel tired of always having to think of things for the meetups or WordCamp itself, and occasionally annoyed at minor details. So, before I found myself becoming bitter or burnt out, I decided that this year’s edition, 2017, would be my last as a WordCamp and Meetup organizer, for a year or two. We’ll see if I come back afterwards; I do like organizing things, so it might be hard to stay away for too long! However, it will also be nice to be able to go to WordCamp next summer as a pure attendee (though I may volunteer for a few hours). Not having that responsibility anymore just feels nice right now.

I was going to add some pictures from past WordCamps, but, I’m bad at taking pictures, so I only have some from 2013. So instead, go and have a look at some great ones that other people have taken:

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Passing on the torch, ha! Another great picture by Jer Clarke: http://jerclarke.org/

 

Oh, and remember how I mentioned that I really like organizing things? Well, I’m in the early, preliminary planning stages of organizing another conference on something near and dear to my heart, and not WordPress-related, either! I’ll reveal the secret as soon as I’m ready to announce it. 🙂

Trees

Richard A. Leave a comment

A couple of weeks ago, there was a freak windstorm in Montreal. Winds reached speeds as high as 110km/h in short bursts in some parts of the city (mostly in NDG, but also in St-Henri and a few other parts). These high winds managed to bring down dozens of trees; one large park in NDG was practically ripped apart by the winds. You can see some pictures in this Montreal Gazette story, and in this CBC News story.

Luckily, no-one was hurt anywhere as far as I’m aware. Unluckily, the trees behind my building were some of the ones that took a beating. A mature silver maple broke in half: it’s top half cracked off and ended up precariously balanced against our back staircase. Another tree, which was already leaning a bit beforehand, toppled over completely, but for one thin trunk that stayed put. Other branches from other nearby trees also were broken and fell into the back yard. It created quite a mess.

When the landlord came and took a look, he decided that it was too dangerous to leave the maple trunk just balanced against the staircase, so with the help of a nieghbour, we pushed it down to the ground.

The next day, the tree pruners came to clean up the mess. All that greenery, gone.

Now, we no longer see a wall of green when out on our back balcony; instead, I can see all the neighbours. It’s also much sunnier (and hotter) on the balcony. It’s sad, but such is life. Maybe next summer we’ll plant a tree in the corner to replace the fallen one.

Water Polo

Richard A. 3 Comments

For the past 8 months or so, my oldest son has been part of an Intro to Water Polo class and team, offered by the local aquatic sports club, CASO (Club aquatique du Sud-Ouest). He’s been to weekly practices and several matches. In March, we went to matches that were part of Les Jeux de Montréal, and annual sport event for kids. The games were held in the Complexe sportif Claude-Robillard, where the water polo matches for the 1976 Olympics were held; that was pretty neat for me, since I’m an Olympics buff. Another time, we had a parents vs kids match, where the rules were, let’s say, a bit looser (there were definitely more than 5 players on each side!). That was fun, but it also made me realize how difficult it is to *not* touch the bottom of the pool!

Yesterday, we went to the final tournament of the season for the “Ligue des Pamplemousses” (Grapefruit League), the league of about 8 kids teams in the Montreal area. Antoine is in the Under 12 age category. Since his team was ranked in first place after the rest of the season, they skipped the quater-final round, and went straight to the semi-final, against the CDN-Chaos. What a match it was! Antoine defended really well, it was by far his best game of the season. Him and Number 8 from the opposing team were always together, each one defending very well, neither giving the other player an inch. Then, in the last period, Antoine scored a beauty of a goal. He swam with the ball, kept it out of reach from the defense, looked for someone to pass to, couldn’t find anyone, so instead, he shot to the top of the net, and in it went! Final score, 4-1 for CASO! On to the final gold-medal game of the season!

The final game was to be played against Laval. They had a strong-looking team; 11 players versus our 8 (so they were able to change players more often and keep everyone more refreshed), and one 12 year old who was a giant compared to the others; he looked like he was 15 or 16!

So, on to the game. It was a close battle, back and forth, back and forth. Several close calls, the ball hitting the crossbar, or sailing right over. At the end of the first two 5m25s periods (there are 4 periods total), the score was tied: 3-3 and then 5-5. Then in the 3rd period, disaster for the Laval team: the goalie, in trying to avoid a rushing attacker, put his hand too far back and ended up putting the ball in his own net. Goal for CASO! Laval battled back from that mistake, and the period finished with them ahead, 8-6. One period left!

By the start of the final period, you could tell that the kids on both sides were tired, but especially for CASO. Antoine told me that the kids on his team were more than nervous; they had only been in the lead once in the game, always battling back to tie it, but never able to get ahead. Could they actually tie the game again, and then take the lead when it counted?

More swimming back and forth, more missed chances on both sides. Then CASO got a penalty shot awared to them, and they scored! It was now a one goal game, 8-7. But not long after, Laval scored again. At this point, it should have been 9-7, but the person in charge of the electronic scoreboard made a mistake, and made it 8-8! The Laval parents in the stands got all excited, waving at the officials, trying to get them to see the error. Meanwhile, the kids kept playing; CASO scored! In all the confusion with the scoreboard I didn’t see how they scored, but all of a sudden it said 8-9 in CASO’s favour! Finally the officials noticed the error, and they fixed it. It was actually 9-8 for Laval. More furious battling, and then another penalty shot for CASO, 9-9! Then, with less than a minute to go, CASO went straight to the net, with their strongest swimmer going for it. Right then, with 36 seconds to go, Laval called a timeout. CASO’s momentum was stopped, but everyone got a chance to breathe. Laval changed their goalie at this point. When play started again, the CASO player hesitated and hesitated, before finally taking the shot with only 6 seconds left. The goalie made the save! Only a couple of seconds before we’d be going to overtime!

And then disaster struck again.

The new goalie for Laval reached back to throw the ball far down the pool, but… she reached back too far. The ball went into the net. And then, game over. CASO won!

When this happened, the Laval parents were in shock. They couldn’t believe what just happened. Stunned silence. For a second there I thought, no, the officials can’t let our team win that way, that’s a really shitty way to win. But I saw the Laval coaches react (one knocked over a chair). So did the officials. Everyone knew that she had actually put the ball in her own goal. It counted. It was over. The rules are the rules. If they hadn’t counted it as a goal, CASO could definitely have argued for it. The Laval players were devastated. A couple of them were crying when they walked away from the pool. The parents were still in shock, none of them believing what had just happened.

I thought a lot about this game yesterday and today. First and foremost, what a horrible way to lose a game. The kids on the losing team looked bitterly disappointed. I don’t know if it’s a good or a bad life experience to go through something like that. On the one hand, it’s just a game. Laval got their silver medals in a little ceremony afterwards. On the other hand, learning to deal with disappointment, adversity, and “bad luck”, is an important life skill. Hopefully, the cliché of “What doesn’t kill you, makes you stronger” holds true for these kids. Still, I couldn’t help but feel bad for them. The league does what it can to promote fair play, and teamwork, and just having fun while playing. But during the Jeux de Montréal, I saw matches that ended being 13-0 or 14-2, total blowouts. Those couldn’t have been fun for the kids on either side. This match was different, so unbelievably close throughout. CASO got a few lucky breaks, but then, so did Laval; crossbars and timeouts at just the right moment (not mention having more players) certainly helped them stay just one step ahead of CASO for most of the game. One thing’s for sure: no player on either team is (hopefully) going to make the same mistake again when it’s their turn in goal.

What a season it was. I never thought I’d get so excited watching kids play water polo (sorry for the lack of pictures, I was too into watching the game!), but the coaches of all teams really did an excellent job with their teams. You could see the progress that individual children made. The CASO coaches (Marin, Vincent, and all the others) always encouraged the kids, showed them how to improve their techniques, and were great all around. Bravo to CASO and all the other teams in La Ligue des Pamplemousses!