Jon Banafato

I don't know who needs to hear this, but "it's not even that hard, just try" isn't a constructive response when someone says they're struggling with a task. Offering help is a fine option, and so is not kicking someone when they're down.

Some day, I'll learn to write conference recap blog posts.

I successfully avoided earning a volunteer badge ribbon at PyOhio this weekend, despite what some other folks may tell you.

RE: @AlSweigart@mastodon.social

Listen to Al. Volunteer at PyOhio.

I am following a particular mastodon thread that is quite amusing. I'm tempted to participate but fear that some of the references might go over my head.

PyOhio is this week! It's a wonderful conference that I look forward to attending, and you should too.

Registration is still open at https://www.pyohio.org/2026/attend/registration/.

And if you, like me, forgot to order your t-shirt in the first round, you can still get one shipped directly to you at https://www.pyohio.org/2026/attend/shirts/.

I have recently doubled down on some travel gear, and it has made trips over the last few months quite a bit more pleasant. Of note, I can recommend a travel pillow, a dedicated outfit for plane days, and modern noise-cancelling headphones (my last ones were showing their age and had already had several ear pad replacements).

I was talking with someone about Conference Chats recently, and they seemed pretty shocked to learn that there are 300 of us in the group. Like any community, some are more active than others, and it's still a pretty tiny fraction of the population of conference and community organizers that could be part of it, but it's certainly grown a bit over the years from its "a few of us on a calendar invite" origin.

📺️ Mortimer & Whitehouse: Gone Fishing

Sometimes, winding down with a fishing show is what one needs.

I am revisiting pdfpc after a number of years away from it. Not quite like riding a bike, but I am pretty quickly falling back into the workflow and why I find it comfortable as someone who spends a lot of time in a terminal-based text editor.

📺️ Taskmaster

Back home and catching up on a couple of episodes.

If you participated in PyCon US, please fill out the survey. It helps a lot. Remind your friends.

RE: @frank@frankwiles.social

This is a wonderful question and one I'll be following for myself, as well.

PyCon US starts this week! Are you local to the Long Beach area? There's a schedule (https://us.pycon.org/2026/schedule/) packed full of talks, tutorials, open spaces, and many other events to connect with your Python communities. Find out more and join us at https://us.pycon.org/2026/attend/information/!

Becoming more excited for PyCon US by the moment. Packing and prep will soon be replaced by seeing folks I don't see often enough, meeting new friends, watching talks, and the many, many other events that happen at and around the conference. See you there?

RE: @pycon@fosstodon.org

If you're attending PyCon US (you should!), this is the last call to book your hotel at the discounted conference rate. Staying at the conference hotel is always fun, and it helps out the conference a ton.

Why is it that I keep seeing "everyone should pin their GitHub Actions versions to a SHA because that's the secure way to do it" and not "GitHub should build tooling that creates and manages Actions lockfiles by default"? Am I just missing that version and only seeing the former one boosted?

@mahryekuh As an organizer, I have asked for this (but not always, and it depends on the event and context). Adding couple of reasons I'm not seeing already present in responses here:

• If you're presenting from a conference's computer, this allows for some advance testing so that presentations are known to work on the AV setup.

• If you're presenting from your own computer, and your computer is not working or available for some reason at presentation time, backups are good to have.

There is apparently a flood watch in parts of Pennsylvania including Pittsburgh. Stay safe out there. https://weather.com/en-NA/weather/alerts/localalerts/l/be93c45fa06315da7fc7a7e6763b6adb939da1c83fa7497bb39e3ff112212b8c

I've only just learned of this rendition of Because The Night by Garbage and Screaming Females, and it's every bit as great as you'd expect it to be https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=tOmKGjy-Ct0