The Neighbour's Cat Won [en]

[fr] Morsure de chat. Pas mon chat: chat du voisin que j'ai acculé (chez moi, pour le leur ramener) même après qu'il m'ait prévenu à grands coups de griffe qu'il était trop paniqué pour venir tranquillement. Moralité: les chats ont de longues dents pointues et ne se les lavent pas.

**Thanks to everybody for their sympathy and wishes of speedy recovery!**

The Neighbour's Cat Won

Not much typing. Cat bite. Details later. Nice cat. Not Bagha. Silly Steph.

Some details.

Friday Update:

Cat Bite Update

Infected. Another appointment tonight. I hope they don’t leave me in this huge splint too long. Can’t do anything!

**Friday night update:**

It Just Gets Better...

Left arm: infected cat bite. They have long sharp canines and don’t like being cornered in a strange place by a strange person. Splint that forbids any use of my hand — will stick around for at least another 2-3 days.

Right arm: catheter. I had 3 doses of antibiotic through IV over the last 24 hours, and am headed for at least that many over the week-end. There are only so many veins in the arm you can stick needles in.

Now, we hope the long canine didn’t go deep enough to infect the bone — or I’m looking at 4-6 weeks of treatment.

Fingers crossed, everybody, please.

**Video Update:** the story and more details.

How it happened:

The consequences:

**Sunday morning update: I can haz fingers!**

I Can Haz Fingerz!

Still got the catheter, though it hurts less now the tap is on the outside of my forearm.

Great improvement: fingers on my left hand! I can type somewhat! Things are taking a good turn. Thumb joint still very painful, so I’m a little worried it could be inflamed/infected — but gosh, does it feel good to have part of my hand back.

**Sunday evening news: good!**

**Monday update: shower!**

From now onwards, things are on the right track. I can remove my splint if I like, infection seems gone, but it’s still inflamed. So, I can type and do most of what one expects to do with two hands, just a bit slower and more painfully.

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Photography: Being the Model [en]

[fr] Une chose qui m'énerve fréquemment, ce sont les médias qui désirent me faire photographier pour illustrer leur article, mais qui ne considèrent pas "normal" que le photographe me donne une copie des photos faites. C'est mon image, merde.

Branching off on the [Lane Hartwell–Richter Scales story](http://technorati.com/search/%22lane%20hartwell%22) to react to a paragraph of Lane’s post [Please don’t steal my work](http://fetching.net/2007/10/please-dont-steal-my-work/):

> Along with this, everyday I am hit up with requests for me to give people photos I have shot of them. I’ll be shooting an event and people will push their business cards on me and tell me to “email them the shots”. When I politely explain that I won’t be doing that, and why I won’t be doing that, they usually get nasty with me. If I tell them they can purchase a file or print from me, 9 times out of 10 I never hear back from them.

Lane Hartwell, Please don’t steal my work

Just to make things very clear: I’m not taking a stand on the issue at hand here, which I believe is far more complex than “she’s right” or “she’s wrong”. I’m just reacting to one paragraph of her post, because it reminds me of something that pisses me off regularly.

I see **no reason whatsoever** for which I should not have the right, as the person on the picture, to have a copy of the photograph that was shot of me. This happens to me *very regularly* when I’m interviewed by the press and they bring along a photographer to shoot a few pics to illustrate the article: I ask the photographer to e-mail me the shots, or at least those which made the cut. So far, three actually did it — and I thank them very much for it. Most of the time, I never hear from them again.

And it pisses me off.

Why should the photographer **own** a representation of me? I’m not saying I should own it exclusively, either. The photographer has the rights to the image, but I consider I should at least have the use of it for my personal/promotional use.

Same goes for events. If I’m at a conference, or giving a talk, and I let you photograph/film me, consider that I’m CC by-nc-sa. If you take a photograph of me and “all rights reserved” it, that means I am not allowed to use it in my blog, for example — as far as I understand things.

There is something of a joint ownership in a photography. I’m not saying I’ve figured it out. I’m somebody who takes photographs (though I don’t make any money out of them), so I understand the point of view of the person taking photos, but I’m also (frequently) photographed, and I don’t like being dispossessed of my image.

Thoughts and discussion welcome.

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Notes From San Francisco [en]

So, roughly half-way through my five-week trip to San Francisco, what’s going on? I haven’t been blogging much lately, that’s for sure.

For once, I took some photographs from the plane. Unfortunately my camera batteries ran out just as we were coming down on San Francisco, and my spare ones were in the luggage compartment above my head. Oh, well.

Flying to San Francisco 31

I got some first-level questioning at immigration coming in. No, not the sort where they take you to a separate room, become much less friendly, and have boxes of rubber gloves on the counter. This is how it went:

– …And what is the duration of your stay?
– Five weeks.
– …And what do you do in… over in Switzerland?
– I’m a freelance… internet consultant. *OMG that sounds bad.* …I’m actually here to work on a book project. *Yeah I know I should never volunteer information.*
– What’s the book about?
– Er… teenagers and the internet.
– And…?
– Er… Well, the situation with teenagers and the internet, and what we’re doing about it in Switzerland.
– And what are you doing about it?
– Well, not enough!
– And? Come on, tell me more about it.
– Er… OK. *OMGOMG* Well, see, teenagers are really comfortable with computers and the internet, and so they’re chatting, blogging, etc. — they’re digital natives, see? — and parents, well, they’re clueless or terrified about the internet, and they don’t always understand what’s going on in their kids lives online, so basically, we have teenagers who are spending a lot of time online and sometimes getting into trouble and parents don’t know or don’t care about what they’re doing there, so we have this… chasm between generations and…
– Thank you. You can go.

The pick-up from the airport was wonderfully orchestrated and much appreciated. Being driven into town by somebody friendly rather than having to use unfamiliar public transportation really makes a difference. Thanks to all those involved (yes, it took that many people!)

Waiting on the Sidewalk

Then, through some freak breakdown of all modern forms of communication (partially documented on Twitter), I ended up waiting outside on the sidewalk for almost an hour while my kind host Tara waited for me inside her appartment. We worked it out finally, and I was introduced to my (nice and spacious) room before going to hang out at [Citizen Space](http://citizenspace.us/). A nice dinner out with Chris, Tara and Jimmy to end the day, and I happily collapsed in my bed at a respectable local hour. You will have taken note that I did not collapse at 4pm feeling like a zombie, thanks to having taken [melatonin](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Melatonin) on the plane. (It [doesn’t seem to work that well for Suw](http://chocnvodka.blogware.com/blog/_archives/2007/6/29/3057876.html), but it works perfectly on me, and I’m never traveling between continents without it again.)

The four next days went by in [a blur of Supernova madness](http://climbtothestars.org/archives/2007/06/21/taking-photos-at-supernova/): too many people, too many sessions, food with ups and downs, parties with [cupcakes](http://flickr.com/photos/bunny/sets/72157600415592611/) and others at the top of [skyscapers](http://flickr.com/photos/bunny/sets/72157600430915725/). I took [lots of photographs](http://flickr.com/photos/bunny/collections/72157600420716687/) and even [a video sequence that got some attention](http://www.viddler.com/explore/steph/videos/5/).

Supernova First Day 33

During the next week, I started settling down. Met and hung out with old friends, made new ones, unpacked my suitcases, went walking around in town, saw [Dykes on Bikes](http://flickr.com/photos/bunny/sets/72157600459417123/), the [Gay Pride Parade](http://flickr.com/photos/bunny/sets/72157600487653731/), and the [iPhone launch](http://flickr.com/photos/bunny/sets/72157600579979445/), photographed [skyscrapers in the night](http://flickr.com/photos/bunny/sets/72157600607158151/), ordered a new camera, got my MacBook (partly) repaired, and even [dropped in at Google to take notes of Suw’s talk there](http://climbtothestars.org/archives/2007/06/27/suw-charman-at-google-does-social-software-have-fangs/).

All this, actually, is documented in [my Twitter stream](http://twitter.com/stephtara) — maybe I should add a whole lot of links? — be sure to keep an eye on it if you’re interested in a more day-by-day account of what I’m doing here.

Overall, things have been good. A small bout of homesickness a few days ago, but I’m feeling better now. I need to start focusing on the things I want to get done (blogging, writing, book, writing, fixing things for clients…) — holiday over now!

Downtown San Francisco By Night 9

I’ve been thinking about my “work career” a little, too. I’m very happy doing what I’m doing, but I’m not going to be doing “Blog 101” for ever — I can feel my interests shifting somewhat already. I’ve been interested in the “social tools at large” department for a long time, but unfortunately it seems to translated to “blogging” in most of the work I do, so I’d like to expand my horizons in that direction a little. I’ve had a couple of talks with people in startups recently, and I realize it’s a kind of environment I wouldn’t mind working in — at least part-time. We’ll see what happens.

I’m also realizing that there is more potential than I first thought around [the two main things I care about these days](http://climbtothestars.org/archives/2007/06/22/what-do-you-care-about/): teenagers online and internet language issues. Hence, the book, and also a talk on the subject of languages on the internet which I’ll be giving at Google this coming Tuesday.

Also in the “work” department, two other things have been on my mind. First, the idea of opening up a coworking space in or around Lausanne ([Ollie is having the same kind of thought](http://b-spirit.com/blogollie/?p=2140) — we’re talking). Second, trying to find a solution so that I don’t have to do maintenance on my clients’ WordPress installations once all is rolling, or spend hours swimming in HTML, CSS and WordPress theme PHP template tags. Not that I don’t know how to do it or don’t enjoy it once in a while, but it’s really not the kind of work I want to spend my time doing. So, I’ve been starting to ask around for names of people who might do this kind of thing (for a reasonable fee), and even thinking of recruiting some students in Lausanne that I could coach/train so that they can do most of the work, and call me up only for major problems. So, see, I’ve been thinking.

Some people have been asking me if I was planning to move here. Indeed, 5 weeks in the city looks suspiciously like a scouting operation. Actually, traveling has an interesting side-effect for me: I tend to come back home thinking “gee, Lausanne is *such* a great place to live! I’m never moving!” Sure, I have some underlying personal issues which contribute to making me overly attached to my hometown, and I know that someday I might end up living elsewhere. But really, for the moment, I don’t think I’d want that.

And even though I’m told San Francisco is very “European” compared to the rest of the US (which I have yet to see) I can’t help seeing how “horribly American” it is. Don’t get me wrong, I really like this city and am enjoying my time here. I know that what I say can give wrong impressions (for example, people — especially Indians — read [the story of my year living in India](http://climbtothestars.org/logbook) and think that I hated the country; it’s not true, I really loved it, and can’t wait to go back). But I walk around San Francisco and see all the signs with rules and regulations and “stupid” warnings (like, God, the pineapple chunks I buy at Whole Foods haven’t been pasteurized and may contain harmful germs! or, don’t use the hairdryer in the bath tub!), the AT&T Park and other manifestations of what to me is “consumerism gone mad”, I hear about health care and [“you’re expected to sue” horror stories](http://www.zephoria.org/thoughts/archives/2007/06/23/sicko_barack_an.html), visa lotteries for non-renewal, the education system…

So, yes, I’m focusing on the negative. And Switzerland, even though it’s a wonderful country ;-), has its negatives too. Like many natives all over the world, I’ve developed a selective blindness to what is “wrong” in the land I come from, considering much of it “normal” as I have been brought up with it. I know that. But too much of what I see here makes my skin crawl. I’m really enjoying spending some weeks here, I love my friends, the food and the sunshine, but I don’t think I’d be happy living here.

Misty Skyscrapers in Downtown San Francisco 10

Well, this was one of these longer-than-expected posts, and it’s occupied most of my morning. My tasks for this afternoon are (in this order):

– one WordPress install for a client
– spending a little more time trying to see if there is hope for the aggravating Google Groups problem I bumped into, and if not, setting up a Yahoo! Group instead
– writing a post for [bub.blicio.us](http://bub.blicio.us) or working on my book — whichever I most feel like.

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I Photowalked on Haight Street [en]

[fr] Je suis allée faire un "photowalk", c'est-à-dire une promenade-réunion dont l'objectif est de se balader en prenant des photos. Voici quelques photos que j'ai prises et que j'aime bien. Je crois qu'il faut qu'on organise quelque chose de similaire à Lausanne. Qui est partant?

Friday evening I met up with a bunch of people to go [photowalking in Haight Street](http://upcoming.yahoo.com/event/208307/). A photowalk is simply an occasion to stroll around and [take photos in the company of other nice people](http://flickr.com/photos/bunny/sets/72157600450567468/). I think we need to start organizing things like this in Lausanne — anybody interested?

Here are some of the photos I took.

Photowalking 11 in Haight 80

Photowalking 11 in Haight 77

Photowalking 11 in Haight 63

Photowalking 11 in Haight 46

Photowalking 11 in Haight 61

Photowalking 11 in Haight 34

Photowalking 11 in Haight 22

Photowalking 11 in Haight 8

Photowalking 11 in Haight 43

Photowalking 11 in Haight 10

Photowalking 11 in Haight 17

Photowalking 11 in Haight 87

Photowalking 11 in Haight 91

Search for photos from this photowalk [on Flickr](http://flickr.com/photos/tags/photowalking11) and [on Zooomr](http://beta.zooomr.com/search/photos/?q=photowalking11).

I might add links to other participants’ sets/photos/blogs later, if I have the courage.

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LIFT'06 Photographs [en]

[fr] Les photos de LIFT'06 aujourd'hui sont en train d'être mises en ligne à  vitesse tout petit v. Merci de votre patience.

You probably noticed I’ve been [uploading LIFT’06 photographs](http://www.flickr.com/photos/bunny/sets/72057594058518485/) to Flickr since yesterday. I took a whole bunch of really fun photos last night, but upload is slow as slug, so I don’t know when they’ll be up. Thanks for your patience!

Cosy Geeking
Robert and Anina geeking away

Almost all of my photos are CC-licensed. Feel free to use them on your blogs if you’re speaking about the conference — a mugshot or two does tend to liven-up text-only conference notes.

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SwissBlogSouperLausanne [fr]

La réunion des bloggueurs suisses à  Lausanne a bel et bien eu lieu. Quelques photos sont en ligne.

J’avais prévu d’écrire une tartine mais comme je suis toute démoralisée (oui, je viens seulement de réaliser que lorsque je redressais une photo dans Photoshop, elle passait de 18 à  56Kb en un clin d’oeil) et que j’ai déjà  passablement tartiné aujourd’hui, je vous fais grâce d’un excès de logorrhée.

Seb, tes photos, on les voit bientôt ?

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