Laura Savino

@savinola
621 Followers
193 Following
457 Posts
Tech speaker with heart; builds Photoshop on iOS
pronounsshe/her

Don’t miss James Dempsey and the Breakpoints tonight!

It’s beautiful weather for a free outdoor acoustic show featuring the high drama of “Almost Dropped My iPhone” and the uncanny catchiness of “The Liki Song.” 🏝️

When: from 6 pm on, music around 7 pm

Where: Bale Breaker in Ballard, outside, at picnic tables

More details here! https://xcoders.org/2025/08/12/special-event-breakpoint-jam-with.html

Special Event! Breakpoint Jam with James Dempsey and the Breakpoints

This should have occurred to me before to ask here but it still feels weird for Reasons.

Do I know someone who would accept money to mentor me writing some research papers? I am very much *not* asking for someone to write them. I just have no great sense of what would be appropriate for some Graduate program applications.

something I just realized is probably an ask/guess culture thing: being “nosy” as impolite behavior because you’re supposed to wait until someone volunteers information if they want to share, vs “failing to be curious” as impolite behavior because you’re supposed to proactively exhibit interest in other people
At #Monktoberfest, @phire recommends taking some not-so-easy steps to keep your values aligned with your work:

Does anyone have an app they like for practicing Devanagari?

I just restarted Hindi and Duolingo is somehow just an utter pain in the butt. I can deal with the context-free drill-and-kill initial lessons, but inconsistent romanization of the trickiest-to-hear letters is driving me up a wall (like ट is “Ta” in one place and “ṭa” in another and I cannot cope)

"So I made a GitHub...."

"You have to update The Repo on The GitHub."

"I didn't just do the GitHub once, I did it TWICE"

😂😂😂😂

The brilliant and hilarious @CSLee at #monktoberfest

Jimmy Carter turns 100 today. He is proof that decency and goodness can exist in public service.

Did you know that Jimmy Carter heroically saved Canada from a nuclear meltdown when he was a naval officer?

It's true!

The world’s first nuclear reactor meltdown occurred in the Ottawa Valley — and a young U.S. naval officer was brought in to contain the disaster — 72 years ago.

Leading a team of two dozen men, 28-year old Lieutenant Carter had himself lowered into the damaged reactor.

As a blind person, my favorite feature of iOS 18 is the "Less Noise" option hiding in the Adaptive AirPod settings. It's basically transparency mode, with every sound coming from a clear spatial location, but chilled out: a little less HVAC hum, subway squeak, guy on phone. I get peace *and* i get to stay well-oriented enough to move confidently based on what i hear. A rare moment of tech euphoria in this day and age

I just got off a conf-talk-planning call with some leaders in a tech stack I’m pretty unfamiliar with and — are there just vibrant, thriving micro communities all around?!

I’m always scared to step outside “my people” but every time I do, I’m in awe of the scope and depth of craftsmanship of an entirely new discipline

I quite dislike the term self-surveillance for any form of observation and data-making about the self. "Surveillance" is too much a state category. I think as a psychological metaphor it's invoking cognitive vigilance as the only possible mechanism used when you observe yourself -- yes, vigilance (and hypervigilance) is one possibility, but when mindful reflection is *also* a possibility, that's an important distinction. Self-measurement seems less loaded. Measurement can be a valuable behavior.