"All I Ever Wanted" - Michael Brun featuring Louie

Not too long ago, I came across this awesome track:

https://soundcloud.com/kidcoconutofficial/michael-brun-feat-louie-all-i-ever-wanted-from-xoxo-the-netflix-original-film

It's "All I Ever Wanted" by Michael Brun, a Haitian DJ. The song is from XOXO, a film that, according to Wikipedia, is a Netflix original. I know next to nothing about the creators of the song but "All I Ever Wanted" is an amazing track!

A year since Wikimania

I posted this on Facebook earlier:

"Wow! It's hard to believe that it's been exactly one year since I attended the final day of Wikimania 2014. Met several amazing people that day, including some I'd known online for many years."

I covered Wikimania in this post and this one. I enjoyed the event and enjoyed meeting in person some people whom I have known online for years. While my life was rapidly changing back then, August 2014 is a completely different world from my current reality.

The Wikipedia badge

As part of my Wikimania package, I was supposed to receive a free t-shirt and bag upon entry to the event; however, because of the huge turnout (combined with my attendance on the final day) all of the "goodies" had gone. I did receive this fancy little badge, though, which is shaped in the form on Wikipedia's logo:

I also received an apology and a hug from the head of Wikimedia UK, which I didn't expect at all. As far as I am concerned, that hug was compensation! The material goods can be obtained elsewhere, but hugs are special.

Wikimania 2014 images

Here are some of my images from the final day of Wikimania 2014; I used my phone and my brother's camera for this photography:

I took this from the Barbican Centre's squared spiral stairs looking out; the domed building in the background in St Paul's Cathedral. I forgot to mention this in my previous post, but the venue for Wikimania 2014 was the Barbican Centre, which is a performing arts centre located in the City of London (the City of London is a separate entity to London itself; look it up and you'll see).

This is the guide to all of the Barbican's levels; I visited up to floor four and I think -1 was the lowest I visited.

This is the "village" from an above balcony. The village featured gift shops and a coffee shop, as well as representatives from several Wikimedia local chapters. Chapters help to promote Wikipedia on a local level.

These are two posters and a pillow within the village, which were located next to the desk for Wikimedia UK's representation at Wikimania 2014.

The two highest floors featured this refreshing conservatory. There weren't many people in the conversatory itself; instead, most were in the two nearby seating areas.

The Barbican's main hall as people awaited the closing speech. Shortly after the hall was filled, the audience was shown a short film about Wikipedia Zero. Wikipedia Zero is a project started by the Wikimedia Foundation to ensure that everyone in the world can access Wikipedia via their phones without having to incur any mobile/cell phone data charges.

The man of the hour: Jimbo Wales, there to deliver the closing speech. Much of his speech focused on the need to improve civility on Wikipedia; in particular, he talked about users who contribute large amounts of content but are hostile towards other people. Mr. Wales expressed his opinion that such users, while adding plenty to Wikipedia, are net-negatives to the site because they drive away others.

This is Ihor Kostenko, whom Mr. Wales announced as the "Wikipedian of the Year". He was Ukrainian and was a significant contributor to the Ukrainian Wikipedia, as well as a promoter of Wikipedia on social media; Kostenko was killed back in February when a sniper shot him during his participation in the Ukrainian protests.

These two women are Cynthia Ashley-Nelson (see bottom of link) and Adrianne Wadewitz, who were two highly influential and respected Wikipedians; both of them died this past April and their losses were felt throughout the community on the English Wikipedia. I thought it was fitting for a tribute to them to be included in Mr. Wales' speech.

After Mr. Wales' speech officially closed Wikimania 2014 and set the stage for Wikimania 2015 in Mexico, the rest of the evening and night featured a party. I met several more Wikipedians - including more people I'd known online for years - in the first two hours after the speech; most attendees left the venue during this time to eat elsewhere, so I was fortunate to meet as many as I did while I had the chance.

At last, I was able to see The Shard, which is the tallest building in the United Kingdom and European Union. I missed seeing this tower during my previous two trips to London but luckily for me, it was visible through a gap in the buildings near the Barbican Centre. This was taken after 7:00pm and, as you can see, it was still fairly light outside.

At around 9:15, I left Wikimania 2014 and the Barbican Centre; by this time, most people had already exited and everyone I knew had gone. I had to take a picture of Barbican Centre before I returned to my train station; this picture was taken with my phone on its low light setting.

I have numerous other pictures of Wikimania 2014, but I consider the overwhelming majority of them to be unsuitable to post here because they are either similar to the above or are close-up images of people, such as a few that I took in the diversity workshop and a few selfies with a friend. I was selective with my photography because I wanted to enjoy the conference rather than see everything with my cameras while experiencing nothing.

Finally, there is also this group photo of many of the conference's attendants (enlarged version here); it was taken just prior to Mr. Wales' speech. I am in the picture, but good luck trying to find me!

Wikimania 2014

The event in London I attended yesterday was the final day of Wikimania 2014. Wikimania is the annual conference held by the Wikimedia Foundation, the charitable organisation that maintains Wikipedia. Each year, the conference is held in a different city around the globe; in May 2013, London's bid to host the conference was successful.

I attended one session at Wikimania: a diversity/gender gap workshop. One of Wikipedia's problems is that male contributors to the site vastly outnumber women (nine-to-one, by official estimates, although I hope that women actually make up a greater percentage than that); the session discussed some ways to close the gender gap. I also attended the closing speech, which was given by Jimbo Wales, who is the founder/co-founder of Wikipedia.

Overall, I had a great time. I met people whom I've known or heard about online for many years and people whom I've already met offline. I still have to sort out my pictures; I'll post a few of them tomorrow.

Foxes follow-up

Nearly a week ago, I posted two songs from Foxes, "Let Go for Tonight" and "Youth". I also briefly mentioned the song Zedd with with her, called "Clarity".

This afternoon, I was listening to an interview with Foxes on the radio. The interviewers noted that she had won a Grammy Award; sure enough, when I checked the list of winners for the 2014 Grammys, she and Zedd won the Grammy Award for Best Dance Recording for "Clarity".

While Foxes won a Grammy as a featured artist, her win is impressive given the short amount of time she's been prominent: her Wikipedia page was created in May of 2013 and she's been active since 2011, although the general public only started hearing about her last year. It would be great if her upcoming studio album, titled Glorious, or one of her solo singles wins a Grammy, too.

The toad again

Here is another picture of the toad (taken on the same night):

When my brother and I saw the toad, neither of us wanted to catch it. We were correct not to pick it up: we think that this toad is a common toad, which is a poisonous species. Do you see those large lumps behind the toad's eyes? Those are the parotoid glands, which secrete the toad's poisons. The common toad has enough poison in its parotoid glands and skin to kill an adult human.

As friendly as the toad looked, it was wise not to touch it! While the frogs we get here and in Southern Oregon are slimy, at least they're not poisonous; the Wikipedia article about the common toad has an informative section about the effects of the species' poison.

"Ayshalak" - Elissa

When reading my friend and fellow blogger Jessica's blog earlier today, I saw that she had briefly mentioned the Lebanese singer Elissa, a performer of Arabic pop music. I've known about Elissa for year, as I came across her Wikipedia article in 2007; I re-discovered her a few years later either by randomly browsing YouTube one day or being linked to her when looking up the music of Israeli pop singer Dana International. Even though I can't understand Elissa's lyrics, I do like her voice and her music; I have her 2002 album, Ayshalak.

This is "Ayshalak" from Ayshalak:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2EhC-tMcXUo

I have Ayshalak because that was the Elissa album available on Amazon UK; I received it at Easter. Ayshalak is the first album I own that isn't sung in English; before owning a copy of Ayshalak, the only albums that I owned with significant amounts of another language to English were a couple of Shakira's, which contained Spanish tracks.

I'm quite pleased that Jessica mentioned Elissa; it's good to know another person who knows about her!