Programming

The Internet has been angry lately about Things in Tech, as the Internet usually is. And inevitably there have been the people saying "can't we just focus on code without the politics?" Which, while an understandable desire (and one I agree with), is simply impractical. What's especially telling, though, are the people who specifically name-drop FOSS (Free/Open Source Software) as something that is a-political and should be kept that way.

That... demonstrates a complete and total lack of awareness of Free Software itself. I assume in most cases that it's honest ignorance, so I will try to briefly explain why that is not the case. (Feel free to point people to this article in the future the next time they start down that line of thinking; just be nice about it.)

Learning is important. I trust that is a non-controversial statement.

Much has been said about learning styles, and I will not repeat it here. However, something I see less talked about is learning phases. Specifically, I want to talk about two distinct phases of learning: Up and Out.

While learning usually is applied to a skill, the concept I'm talking about applies to anything: Learning a new skill, getting accustomed to a new community, or culture, or country, or tradition, or religion, or practice, or... pretty much anything.