Hello Rubyist! The Portland Ruby Brigade, also known as pdxruby and pdx.rb, is a user group for Ruby programmers in the Portland, Oregon area. The group welcomes all programmers interested in the language and its implementations, tools, libraries and frameworks, such as Ruby on Rails. The group has been meeting since August 2002 for presentations, demos and discussions applicable to all skill levels, from newbies and experts. Every month people come together to share their knowledge, projects and enthusiasm for Ruby.

Learn more about PDX.rb at: https://pdxruby.org/

Portland Java User Community! We are having an in-person event on Tuesday, March 14th out of the Google offices in downtown Portland. Join fellow Java enthusiasts for an hour of networking, learning, and planning for future events, over Pizzas and drinks.

Agenda:

6:30 - 7:00 - Assembling, meeting & greeting

7:00 - 7:05 - Call to order, Welcome, Introduction

7:05 - 7:30 - Microbenchmarking with JMH : Sean Sullivan

7:30 - 7:55 - Java in the Cloud - best practices: Biju Kunjummen

8:00 - 8:15 - Tear down

Wesley Rolfson will be joining us to discuss Instrumentation.

Data Instrumentation is the process of connecting things like output (from sensors, actions taken by a user, or feedback from a user action) and forming them into Events/messages which are then stored/translated into data structures.

In this Talk Wesley will cover: -What Data Instrumentation is -How it is applied by organizations -Where it fits in most data pipelines -What analytics should pay attention to -What graphic interface/ product owners should consider -Walkthrough 2 examples (website and application)

Join us Friday, February 3rd at 1 pm Pacific Time (2p MT, 3p CT, 4p ET) in our Google Meet room.

RSVP on Meetup: https://bit.ly/TechTalk023 RSVP on Eventbrite: https://bit.ly/TechTalkE023

Can't make it live? We will be posting the recording to our Tech Talks playlist on our YouTube Channel: https://bit.ly/TTA-techtalks

Don't miss this great opportunity to learn and network!

Bio: Semih Salihoğlu is an Associate Professor and a David R. Cheriton Faculty Fellow at University of Waterloo. His research focuses on developing systems for managing, querying, or doing analytics on graph-structured data. His main on-going systems project is Kùzu, which is a new graph database management system that integrates novel storage, indexing and query processing techniques. He holds a PhD from Stanford University and is a recipient of the VLDB 2018 Best Paper and the VLDB 2022 Best Experiments and Analysis Paper awards.

Abstract: In this talk, I will present the Kùzu graph database management system (GDBMS) that we are developing at University of Waterloo. Datasets and workloads of popular applications that use GDBMSs require a set of storage and query processing features that relational DBMSs (RDBMSs) do not traditionally optimize for. These include optimizations for: (i) many-to-many (m-n) joins; (ii) cyclic joins; (iii) recursive joins; (iv) semi-structured data storage; and (v) support for universal resource identifiers. Kùzu aims to integrate state-of-art storage, indexing, and query processing techniques to highly optimize for this feature set. I will start by presenting the overall vision of Kùzu and then talk about the novel join operators in the system that performs joins using compressed factorized representations of intermediate tables. Kùzu is actively being developed to be a fully functional open-source DBMS with the goal of wide user adoption and under a permissible license.

Weekly Meeting of the Personal Telco Project, a volunteer based non-profit working to unfuck telecommunications policy locally, and also to build free-to-the-end-user public internet access.

The Portland Elixir/BEAM group is getting back together in the physical world.

Hack and Help Night Expectations

Hack and help nights are you opportunity to meet other people interested in Elixir or other BEAM-based languages in the real world. You can be a total newbie or just have interest in some of the ideas it brings.

Some free food and drink will be provided courtesy of sponsors.

You should try to attend if you:

Are new to Elixir and want to see what it's all about.

Need help with something you're working on or an idea you have.

You like listening and helping others, or just want to motivate people.

Want access to some hardware, electronics and sensors to play around with Nerves on.

Want to discuss the latest happenings in the community.

Need somewhere away from home to work on a project.

Just want something social to do.

We're still trying to lock in the venue for the in-person events and venues may change over time, as might the rules regarding masking depending on peoples' comfort level.

For the most part, the mask rules will follow the same restrictions as the venue and will evolve based on current trends of the virus and feedback from the community. If you're interacting with or sitting next to someone, and they would prefer for you to also be masked while nearby, please be considerate of their request.

Sponsorship

If you or a company you work for would like to host an event, or sponsor food, beverages or venue costs, please let me know! (see Event Coordinator Contact below).

Event Coordinator Contact

• Daniel: By email ([email protected]) or @dhedlund on the elixir-lang slack

The Portland Elixir/BEAM group is getting back together in the physical world.

Hack and Help Night Expectations

Hack and help nights are you opportunity to meet other people interested in Elixir or other BEAM-based languages in the real world. You can be a total newbie or just have interest in some of the ideas it brings.

Some free food and drink will be provided courtesy of sponsors.

You should try to attend if you:

Are new to Elixir and want to see what it's all about.

Need help with something you're working on or an idea you have.

You like listening and helping others, or just want to motivate people.

Want access to some hardware, electronics and sensors to play around with Nerves on.

Want to discuss the latest happenings in the community.

Need somewhere away from home to work on a project.

Just want something social to do.

We're still trying to lock in the venue for the in-person events and venues may change over time, as might the rules regarding masking depending on peoples' comfort level.

For the most part, the mask rules will follow the same restrictions as the venue and will evolve based on current trends of the virus and feedback from the community. If you're interacting with or sitting next to someone, and they would prefer for you to also be masked while nearby, please be considerate of their request.

Sponsorship

If you or a company you work for would like to host an event, or sponsor food, beverages or venue costs, please let me know! (see Event Coordinator Contact below).

Event Coordinator Contact

• Daniel: By email ([email protected]) or @dhedlund on the elixir-lang slack

The Portland Elixir/BEAM group is getting back together in the physical world.

Hack and Help Night Expectations

Hack and help nights are you opportunity to meet other people interested in Elixir or other BEAM-based languages in the real world. You can be a total newbie or just have interest in some of the ideas it brings.

Some free food and drink will be provided courtesy of sponsors.

You should try to attend if you:

Are new to Elixir and want to see what it's all about.

Need help with something you're working on or an idea you have.

You like listening and helping others, or just want to motivate people.

Want access to some hardware, electronics and sensors to play around with Nerves on.

Want to discuss the latest happenings in the community.

Need somewhere away from home to work on a project.

Just want something social to do.

We're still trying to lock in the venue for the in-person events and venues may change over time, as might the rules regarding masking depending on peoples' comfort level.

For the most part, the mask rules will follow the same restrictions as the venue and will evolve based on current trends of the virus and feedback from the community. If you're interacting with or sitting next to someone, and they would prefer for you to also be masked while nearby, please be considerate of their request.

Future Meeting Cadence

We'll be switching to the following format moving forward:

Last Tuesday of the month remains a virtual-only event, combining both the Portland and Seattle groups and anybody else who would like to join us virtually. This event has been mostly a "demos on demand" during the pandemic but will start to move back toward a 50/50 split with a pre-announced presentation for part of the event. If you have something you'd like to talk about, let the event coordinator know (see Event Coordinator Contact below). Future event dates will be: Jun 28, Jul 26, Aug 30, and Sep 27.

Two weeks before the meeting on the last Tuesday (third from last Tuesday), will be an in-person hack and help night in Seattle. Future event dates will be: Jun 14, Jul 12, Aug 16, and Sep 13.

The following night after the Seattle hack night will be an in-person hack and help night in Portland. Future event dates will be: Jun 15, Jul 13, Aug 17, and Sep 14.

Sponsorship

If you or a company you work for would like to host an event, or sponsor food, beverages or venue costs, please let me know! (see Event Coordinator Contact below).

Event Coordinator Contact

• Daniel: By email ([email protected]) or @dhedlund on the elixir-lang slack

The Portland Elixir/BEAM group is getting back together in the physical world.

Hack and Help Night Expectations

Hack and help nights are you opportunity to meet other people interested in Elixir or other BEAM-based languages in the real world. You can be a total newbie or just have interest in some of the ideas it brings.

Some free food and drink will be provided courtesy of sponsors.

You should try to attend if you:

Are new to Elixir and want to see what it's all about.

Need help with something you're working on or an idea you have.

You like listening and helping others, or just want to motivate people.

Want access to some hardware, electronics and sensors to play around with Nerves on.

Want to discuss the latest happenings in the community.

Need somewhere away from home to work on a project.

Just want something social to do.

We're still trying to lock in the venue for the in-person events and venues may change over time, as might the rules regarding masking depending on peoples' comfort level.

For the most part, the mask rules will follow the same restrictions as the venue and will evolve based on current trends of the virus and feedback from the community. If you're interacting with or sitting next to someone, and they would prefer for you to also be masked while nearby, please be considerate of their request.

Future Meeting Cadence

We'll be switching to the following format moving forward:

Last Tuesday of the month remains a virtual-only event, combining both the Portland and Seattle groups and anybody else who would like to join us virtually. This event has been mostly a "demos on demand" during the pandemic but will start to move back toward a 50/50 split with a pre-announced presentation for part of the event. If you have something you'd like to talk about, let the event coordinator know (see Event Coordinator Contact below). Future event dates will be: Apr 26, May 31, Jun 28, and Jul 26.

Two weeks before the meeting on the last Tuesday (third from last Tuesday), will be an in-person hack and help night in Seattle. Future event dates will be: Apr 12, May 17, Jun 14, and Jul 12.

The following night after the Seattle hack night will be an in-person hack and help night in Portland. Future event dates will be: Apr 13, May 18, Jun 15, and Jul 13.

Sponsorship

If you or a company you work for would like to host an event, or sponsor food, beverages or venue costs, please let me know! (see Event Coordinator Contact below).

Event Coordinator Contact

• Daniel: By email ([email protected]) or @dhedlund on the elixir-lang slack

This month's topic: Code Generation on the Java VM

Code generation has become a mainstream technique for building modern Java applications. Whether you are using OpenAPI, GraphQL, or gRPC, your team can leverage code generation to speed up development and reduce defects. This presentation will discuss common code generation techniques. We’ll examine how to automatically generate Kotlin, Java, and Scala code.

Bio

Sean Sullivan is a Principal Software Engineer in Portland Oregon. He is passionate about code generators and automated delivery pipelines. Sean is a frequent speaker at the Portland Java User Group.

RSVP at https://www.meetup.com/PDXJUG/events/285348647/

The Portland Elixir/BEAM group is getting back together in the physical world for the first time since the start of the pandemic.

Hack and Help Night Expectations

Hack and help nights are you opportunity to meet other people interested in Elixir or other BEAM-based languages in the real world. You can be a total newbie or just have interest in some of the ideas it brings.

Some free food and drink will be provided courtesy of sponsors.

You should try to attend if you:

Are new to Elixir and want to see what it's all about.

Need help with something you're working on or an idea you have.

You like listening and helping others, or just want to motivate people.

Want access to some hardware, electronics and sensors to play around with Nerves on.

Want to discuss the latest happenings in the community.

Need somewhere away from home to work on a project.

Just want something social to do.

We're still trying to lock in the venue for the in-person events and venues may change over time, as might the rules regarding masking depending on peoples' comfort level.

For the most part, the mask rules will follow the same restrictions as the venue and will evolve based on current trends of the virus and feedback from the community. If you're interacting with or sitting next to someone, and they would prefer for you to also be masked while nearby, please be considerate of their request.

Future Meeting Cadence

We'll be switching to the following format moving forward:

Last Tuesday of the month remains a virtual-only event, combining both the Portland and Seattle groups and anybody else who would like to join us virtually. This event has been mostly a "demos on demand" during the pandemic but will start to move back toward a 50/50 split with a pre-announced presentation for part of the event. If you have something you'd like to talk about, let the event coordinator know (see Event Coordinator Contact below). Future event dates will be: Apr 26, May 31, Jun 28, and Jul 26.

Two weeks before the meeting on the last Tuesday (third from last Tuesday), will be an in-person hack and help night in Seattle. Future event dates will be: Apr 12, May 17, Jun 14, and Jul 12.

The following night after the Seattle hack night will be an in-person hack and help night in Portland. Future event dates will be: Apr 13, May 18, Jun 15, and Jul 13.

Sponsorship

If you or a company you work for would like to host an event, or sponsor food, beverages or venue costs, please let me know! (see Event Coordinator Contact below).

Event Coordinator Contact

• Daniel: By email ([email protected]) or @dhedlund on the elixir-lang slack

Presented by Ryan Wright, Founder, thatdot.com Abstract

This talk will introduce Quine: a brand new open source “streaming graph interpreter” meant as a new fundamental infrastructure component to address major challenges in data engineering and simplify enterprise data pipelines.

Quine fits in between the world of databases and stream processing systems. As data streams in from Kafka, Kinesis, etc., Quine builds it into a graph. Then using “standing queries”—queries that live inside the graph and efficiently propagate—it finds matches to complex patterns in the graph and streams the results out right away. Quine maintains a stateful representation of all data streamed through (like a database) so that complex results are built from the combination of new streaming data and potentially very old data—all without having to manage any time windows. Since the graph is fully versioned, you can always query for what the data used to be, at any historical moment. Quine is meant to be a complete package of everything that lives between two Kafka topics: high-volume events stream in, and highly-meaningful interpreted results stream out.

In this talk, we will explain the how Quine works under the hood, discuss some of the interesting and brain-bending challenges we had to confront in order to create it, and show some uses cases to illustrate why it’s important for modern data pipelines. Quine implements a property-graph data model on top of an asynchronous graph computational model. It’s like Pregel with Actors. Each node is capable of performing arbitrary computation, so we can bake in some powerful capabilities deep in the graph; and then package it up for easy use into user-contributed “recipes” available in the Github repo. Quine is free and open and the repo will be publicly available in February, and actively supported by thatDot and the community.

What You Will Learn This talk will introduce Quine: a brand new open source “streaming graph interpreter” meant as a new fundamental infrastructure component to address major challenges in data engineering and simplify enterprise data pipelines.

RSVP for Google Meet or Zoom link

Cost Free! (suggested donation $5-15 for non-members)

If you’ve paid any Data PDX/DAMA membership dues during 2019-2021 or are an employee of a corporate member, please choose Member RSVP.

Where

RSVP for Google or Zoom link

Date – Thursday, March 10th

Time – 4:30pm – 5:30pm

Why We’ve Changed Our Name

DAMA PDX has been rebranded as Data PDX. You’ll notice both the updated website and logo. While a shift in name only, this update represents our goal as a Board to better tailor the meeting content, group direction, and cross-marketing of other user groups and local organizations. DAMA will continue to be our governing body and we intend to remain affiliated to the shared values of training and exposure to all things data management. Our goal is to promote the world of enterprise data management in Portland metro and SW Washington.

Our new mission statement: To promote conversations around modern, enterprise-ready solutions to data-driven professionals in the Portland metro area

Agenda:

Membership Survey

Review results of survey questions about Topics and Content, Meeting Cadence, Meeting Format (including in-person vs virtual), and other items.

New “interim” Board Members and Elections

Finally, it’s our pleasure to announce that we have a few new “interim” Board Members who have been contributing to the group at a high level during the reassessment process.

Speakers

Your all-volunteer Data PDX board:

Michael England, President

Shawn Duffy, VP of Finance (incoming)

Gene Merrill, VP of Online Services

Bryant Alvey, VP of Membership (interim)

Katina Fischer, VP of Programs and Education (interim)

Where

Virtual event, RSVP for Google Meet or Zoom registration details

When

Date – Thursday, Feb. 24th

Time – 4:30 – 5:30pm

Portland Linux/Unix Group General Meeting Announcement

Who: Russell Senior
What: Russell's Excellent High Altitude Balloon Adventure
Where: https://meet.jit.si/pdxlinux
When: Thursday, October 7th, 2021 at 7pm
Why: The pursuit of technology freedom

Russell volunteers with the Portland State Aerospace Society's (PSAS) OreSat program as an Industry Advisor. PSAS is a rocket club at Portland State University. The OreSat program works towards having small interactive satellites put into orbit by friendly launch services. OreSat currently consists of three small satellites based on a common design, the first one is due to launch in January. Russell's role is to help out with a system called dxwifi, a long distance S-band communication link. The goal is for ground-based student groups around the state to receive live video broadcast from orbit as the satellite passes overhead. Earlier this year, a high school student applied and got our satellite a ride on a high altitude balloon through a NASA program. One of the goals was to capture wifi data being transmitted by the payload. Because of the distances involved, this requires aiming a directional antenna at the balloon. This talk will tell the story of how Russell waded his way towards a solution using math, some hand tools, open-source software and some ingenuity.

About Russell:

Russell has been a Linux user since 1992. He worked for a few decades doing data management, programming, and analysis for a small scientific consulting firm. Since 2005 he has been deeply involved in the Personal Telco Project and trying to bring about telecommunications policy in the users interests, while also hacking on router firmware. Since 2018, he's been involved in an effort to bring at-cost fiber infrastructure to the Portland metro area, Municipal Broadband PDX.

PLUG is open to everyone and does not tolerate abusive behavior on its mailing lists or at its meetings.

How can employees at any level help companies embrace inclusive design? How can existing employees drive an organization towards more inclusive hiring?

At a young age, Janna realized that not everyone can access the world in the same way. Both through her own experience on and off crutches and her experience with a mixed hearing/deaf theater troupe, she gained a passion for making life accessible for all. This talk will focus on how to grow, and nurture, the practice of inclusion in your organization.

Agenda:

• 5:45–6:00pm Networking
• 6:00–6:15pm Introductions & announcements
• 6:15–7:00pm Presentation
• 7:00–7:30pm Q&A and discussion
• 7:30–7:45pm Wrap up

About the presenter:

Currently a Manager of User Experience Research at Hinge Health, Janna C. Kimel has practiced design research for over 15 years. Her current role ensures that the organization's experiences are seamless and help participants build healthy habits for a pain free life. In her past 2 roles, she has also led employee ERGs focused on accessibility. Janna has focused on health technology and wearables over the course of her career. She has run her own small consultancy and has worked at Intel, Microsoft to Regence Blue Cross Blue Shield and Dexcom.

She has published and presented on accessibility, behavior change, user research and wearable technology. She is a ramblin' wreck with a master's degree in industrial design from Georgia Tech.

Let's talk InfoSec!

RSVP: https://www.meetup.com/OWASP-Portland-Chapter/events/280657220/

Bios:

Cassie Clark: Passionate about bringing humans into security. She develops awareness programs focused on behavior change, user enablement, and culture. As Security Awareness Lead Engineer at Brex, she built and leads security awareness for employees and customers. Prior to Brex, she built the security awareness function at Cruise and focused on security engagement at Salesforce. She holds a Master’s degree in Women’s Studies and can often be seen holding a cup of coffee.

Traci Esteve: As Director of Technology Governance and Risk for The Standard in Portland, Oregon, Traci Esteve is committed to protecting the confidentiality, integrity, and availability of information and processing resources. She began her career as a developer and infrastructure engineer. This led to her rise to a premier technical architect at Accenture and to expanding the practice in Asia and Europe. Her journey includes staying home to raise her two sons and serving as an advisor to organizations to increase profitability, maximize customer value, and effectively meet regulatory requirements. She has a BS in Applied Science, MBA certification from Miami University, and a certification in Cybersecurity Risk Management from Harvard University. Traci enjoys cooking with her family, drawing, hiking, and encouraging high-school students to believe in themselves.

Portland Linux/Unix Group General Meeting Announcement

Who: João Corrêa
What: Hardware-Assisted Fine-Grained Control-Flow Integrity: Adding Lasers to Intel's CET/IBT
Where: https://li584-253.members.linode.com/PLUG
When: Thursday, September 2nd, 2021 at 7pm Pacific
Why: The pursuit of technology freedom

his talk presents FineIBT, a compiler-based enhancement that enables fine-grained forward-edge Control-Flow Integrity (CFI) policies on top of Intel's Control-flow Enforcement Technology (CET). By combining the new hardware features with compiler instrumentation, FineIBT anchors indirect control transfers to sanity checks, enabling policies more restrictive than those supported solely by CET and increasing its effectiveness against control-flow hijacking attacks. An evaluation through custom benchmarks shown that FineIBT provides similar security guarantees with less performance costs when compared to Clang CFI, retaining its penalty between 1% and 7% while the latter added overheads between 5% and 53%. Beyond that, FineIBT also has other perks, such as benefiting from the CET's hardening against transient execution attacks and not depending on Link-Time Optimizations. This talk will explore the FineIBT implementation recently sent to the kernel-hardening mailing list, then discuss specific scenarios, such as how it could be used in the Linux kernel, possible improvements and expected challenges. Technical reference: https://www.openwall.com/lists/kernel-hardening/2021/02/11/1

Joao is an Offensive Security Researcher at Intel. His research interests are mostly focused in compiler-enabled features and analyses, but he will normally be down to chat about anything that involves binaries. Joao holds a PhD from the University of Campinas, where he worked on kCFI, a Control-Flow Integrity implementation for the Linux kernel (featured at Black Hat Asia 2017) and he also spent some time working for SUSE, where he bootstrapped the development of libpulp, an user-space live patching framework (featured at Linux Developers Conference Brazil 2019 and SUSE Labs Conference 2018).

PLUG is open to everyone and does not tolerate abusive behavior on its mailing lists or at its meetings.

Digital and physical surveillance are at all-time highs, and privacy is dissipating from our society. The consequences to us individually and collectively are significant, but what can we do about it?

In this session, AJ Rice will discuss what governments should and shouldn’t do to protect our privacy, evaluating good regulations and bad ones. Rice will also discuss managing trade-offs and what steps we can take individually and collectively to better protect our privacy, as well as provide some privacy-focused tech tips and tricks.

After the presentation and Q&A, the session will conclude with a guided hands-on exercise in threat-modeling and evaluating privacy-related tradeoffs geared at helping attendees better protect their own privacy and manage privacy-related tradeoffs in their own lives.

This is part-3 of a special 3-part privacy workshop in June. If you miss part 1 and/or part 2, you’re still more than welcome to attend this session:

For the meeting link and password, please RSVP via Meetup or send an email to: ta3mevents AT pdxprivacy.org.

Speaker bio:

AJ Rice is a privacy advocate and the Founder & CEO of Privo Mobile - a tech startup making dumb phones designed for kids with a modern user experience and interface. AJ is author of the privacy blog Private Matters.

Related links: Privo Mobile - https://www.privomobile.com/ Private Matters blog - https://privatematters.substack.com

By attending this TA3M meeting, you agree to follow our Code of Conduct: https://www.meetup.com/Portlands-Techno-Activism-3rd-Mondays/pages/22681732/Code_of_Conduct/

{short} Code of Conduct Portland's Techno-Activism 3rd Mondays is dedicated to providing an informative and positive experience for everyone who participates in or supports our community, regardless of gender, gender identity and expression, sexual orientation, ability, physical appearance, body size, race, ethnicity, age, religion, socioeconomic status, caste, or creed.

Our events are intended to educate and share information related to technology and activism, and anyone who is there for this purpose is welcome. Because we value the safety and security of our members and strive to have an inclusive community, we do not tolerate harassment of members or event participants in any form.

Audio and video recording are not permitted at meetings without prior approval.

Digital and physical surveillance are at all-time highs, and privacy is dissipating from our society. But why should we care about privacy if we have nothing to hide?

In this session, AJ Rice will discuss how a lack of privacy affects us as individuals and as a society. Using specific examples, Rice will cover the direct consequences of a world without privacy and also the more subtle ways an absence of privacy undermines the rights of those who have nothing to hide.

After the presentation and Q&A, the session will conclude with a guided hands-on exercise in threat-modeling geared at helping attendees better understand the individual risks posed to them by different types of surveillance.

This is part-2 of a special 3-part privacy workshop in June. If you miss part 1, you’re still more than welcome to attend this session:

Part 3: Monday 6/28 – What we can do about it

For the meeting link and password, please RSVP via Meetup or send an email to: ta3mevents AT pdxprivacy.org.

Speaker bio:

AJ Rice is a privacy advocate and the Founder & CEO of Privo Mobile - a tech startup making dumb phones designed for kids with a modern user experience and interface. AJ is author of the privacy blog Private Matters.

Related links: Privo Mobile - https://www.privomobile.com/

Private Matters blog - https://privatematters.substack.com

By attending this TA3M meeting, you agree to follow our Code of Conduct: https://www.meetup.com/Portlands-Techno-Activism-3rd-Mondays/pages/22681732/Code_of_Conduct/

{short} Code of Conduct Portland's Techno-Activism 3rd Mondays is dedicated to providing an informative and positive experience for everyone who participates in or supports our community, regardless of gender, gender identity and expression, sexual orientation, ability, physical appearance, body size, race, ethnicity, age, religion, socioeconomic status, caste, or creed.

Our events are intended to educate and share information related to technology and activism, and anyone who is there for this purpose is welcome. Because we value the safety and security of our members and strive to have an inclusive community, we do not tolerate harassment of members or event participants in any form.

Audio and video recording are not permitted at meetings without prior approval.

There’s a myth our personal data is all anonymous and that the different bits of information we give to different companies remain in separate silos; that a bunch of companies know a little about us, but no one has a complete view. In reality, our data is so granular it can easily be used to identify us, and so widely shared it can easily all be linked together.

In this session, AJ Rice will provide a broad overview of what the internet knows about us, how companies and governments track us, and why they track us. The session will cover what data specific companies and industries collect about us, how they obtain the data with or without our knowledge, and what happens to that data after they collect it.

After the presentation and Q&A, the session will conclude with a guided hands-on exercise geared at helping attendees better understand what data is being collected about them personally.

This is part-1 of a special 3-part privacy workshop in June:

Part 2 Monday 6/21 – Why Privacy Matters

Part 3 Monday 6/28 – What we can do about it

For the meeting link and password, please RSVP via Meetup or send an email to: ta3mevents AT pdxprivacy.org.

Speaker bio:



AJ Rice is a privacy advocate and the Founder & CEO of Privo Mobile - a tech startup making dumb phones designed for kids with a modern user experience and interface. AJ is author of the privacy blog Private Matters.

Related links:

Privo Mobile - https://www.privomobile.com/

Private Matters blog - https://privatematters.substack.com

By attending this TA3M meeting, you agree to follow our Code of Conduct: https://www.meetup.com/Portlands-Techno-Activism-3rd- Mondays/pages/22681732/Code_of_Conduct/

{short} Code of Conduct Portland's Techno-Activism 3rd Mondays is dedicated to providing an informative and positive experience for everyone who participates in or supports our community, regardless of gender, gender identity and expression, sexual orientation, ability, physical appearance, body size, race, ethnicity, age, religion, socioeconomic status, caste, or creed.

Our events are intended to educate and share information related to technology and activism, and anyone who is there for this purpose is welcome. Because we value the safety and security of our members and strive to have an inclusive community, we do not tolerate harassment of members or event participants in any form.

Audio and video recording are not permitted at meetings without prior approval.

Portland Java User Group virtual meetup

RSVP on Meetup: https://www.meetup.com/PDXJUG/events/278107253/

This month's topic is Automated Refactoring for Java.

Abstract:

This talk will focus on how engineering teams can leverage automated refactoring tools that originated at Netflix to greatly reduce the time and effort required when migrating to new versions of frameworks like Spring and JUnit and between language versions.

Does this scenario sound familiar?

Your organization has many Java-based microservices and applications that are critical for the day-to-day operation of your business. Over time, you find that your applications have a large number of dependencies on third-party technologies and libraries that have different release cadences. Invariably, your organization encounters pressures to upgrade those dependencies for any number of the following reasons: critical bug fixes, security updates, expiring support, "modernization", or technical enablement. Refactoring a single application to update its third-party dependencies can be a tricky and manual process. At the organization level, performing the same refactoring operation across all of your applications can result in weeks of effort.

This talk introduces OpenRewrite, an open-source ecosystem that specializes in mass, automated refactoring with a focus on Java source code, Maven build files, XML, YAML, and property files. We will discuss how the framework enables the creation of composable, prepackaged recipes that can be used to automate common framework migration and how these recipes can be integrated into both Maven and Gradle builds. This talk will include some live demonstrations of Rewrite's tools to perform automated migrations on real-world, Spring applications and libraries.

Bio:

Tyler Van Gorder is a principal software engineer at Moderne Inc where he focuses on frameworks and tools for automated refactoring. He is a committer on the OpenRewrite project and has a passion for building tools that enable developers to do their jobs more effectively. Prior to joining Moderne, Tyler worked as a lead software engineer for a large, e-commerce company where he focused on company-wide libraries using Spring, Spring Boot, and Spring Cloud. In his spare time, you might find Tyler on a basketball court or hiking, with his wife, in the mountains around Portland.

Join us for an all-day Scrum training on May 22nd, 2021; featuring Suzanne Ward MBA MEng PMP CSM CSPO PSM CSP, a Scrum Master & Agile Coach/Trainer from Intel.

Our world is changing fast. Markets and consumers are demanding faster, cheaper and better products. Demands for quicker turnaround on new product development and innovation have only increased. How do companies like Google, Yahoo, Amazon, and Apple keep up? They practice agile techniques, in particular they utilize scrum to manage their projects.

Scrum has the power to transform project management across every industry, every business, and even across your personal life. By using Scrum, you’ll become more agile, discovering how to react more quickly and respond more accurately to the inevitable change that comes your way. By staying focused, collaborating, and communicating with customers and your team, you can accomplish what truly needs to be done — successfully.

Come get a taste of the future of project management and learn about the Scrum process.

This one day training with exercises will cover the material from scrum introduction certification class and Product Owner role in the Scrum Process.

LEARNING OBJECTIVES

Learn about the Scrum Process. Learn what a Product Owner and Scrum Master is responsible for. Come away with insights on how to manage your next project

BENEFITS

Retain more information because of our unique hands-on approach; based on the latest research into brain science. Be entertained by stories from our real-world experienced and knowledgeable instructors. Maximize investments already made by gaining valuable Professional Development Units (PDUs). Increase your personal worth within your company and in the marketplace. Network with people from Intel Corporation and other software companies.

WHO SHOULD COME?

People whose work is completed through projects and through teams; Engineers, Software Engineers, Marketing Professionals, Project Managers, Program Managers, Business Executives, Technology Professionals, Students in MBA or undergrad business and engineering programs.

SPEAKER'S CAREER ACCOMPLISHMENTS

• Product, Brand, and Marketing Management in diverse range of markets and industries, with P&L responsibilities up to $100 million annual sales.
• Quick Learner of new industries/product offerings with results-oriented achievements. Created excitement around a static accessories category in condensed time frame. Created full line of support, educational, training, and presentation materials. Impact of efforts increased sales from $16.4M to $37.2M in 24 months.
• Program management for multiple high tech/electronic development projects, averaging $3 million annual budget. Serve in project manager and product manager capacities. Two successful worldwide launches in 3 years. $1M annual OEM/B2B sales and $10M annual sales.
• Combine demonstrated product management leadership experience with strong hands-on technical background. Equally comfortable delving into product requirements with hard-core engineers as well as presenting to executive level decision makers.
• Uniquely skilled at fostering new ideas, building successful cross-functional teams, and nurturing a culture of consumer-driven product development and user experience innovation.
• Experience working in and managing cross-functional, cross-division, cross-geographic and multicultural sales, marketing and engineering organizations.
• International program management, sourcing, engineering, OEM/ODM management/development experience. Overseas work assignments in EU and Asia with extended stay in Asia.

SUZANNE WARD'S CERTIFICATIONS

• PMP, Project Management Professional, Project Management Institute
• PSM, Professional Scrum Master, Scrum.org
• CSM, CSPO, Certified Scrum Master, Certified Scrum Product Owner, Scrum Alliance
• CSP, Certified Scrum Professional, Scrum Alliance

PROFESSIONAL DEVELOPMENT UNITS

By attending this training you’ll receive professional development units (PDU). They are for professionals looking to maintain Project Management Institute (PMI)- certified credentials. Eligible PDUs: 8 PMP PDUs

ADDITIONAL FOR AUDIENCE

SW Engineers: eXtreme Programming, Test Driven Development, Pair Programming, Project Managers: Bridging the Gap between Project Management and Scrum.

Join the Portland Accessibility and User Experience Meetup to celebrate the 10th Global Accessibility Awareness Day in partnership with the A11yBay community and many other partner Meetups!

May 20 marks the 10th Global Accessibility Awareness Day and we will be sharing our excitement by partnering with sister Meetup groups around the world. Our goal is to make this the largest Meetup on accessibility and inclusive design!

TALKS & GUEST SPEAKERS:

We'll open with word from A11yBay and a special guest appearance of GAAD Co-Founders Joe Devon and Jennison Asuncion. They will have an exciting announcement to make. We then will turn to our speakers. We have three confirmed now, with more to come.

Terri Rodriguez-Hong recently published "What it's like having a hidden disability in Silicon Valley" in Fast Company. She'll join us to reflect on the article and to have a discussion about her journey.

Deque System's Carie Fisher will present The Future of Accessibility is a "Choose Your Own Adventure" Book. The question Carie will address is: do designers and developers really think they can build an accessible experience for all - even though there are endless combinations of browsers, ATs, settings, and user preferences?

Our other confirmed speaker is Marc B.D. Greenberg. Robots are entering the public space and our lives more and more. In one form or another—from Roomba to Aibo and home, sidewalk, and in-store robots—they are getting designed and released into our lives and spaces. What accessibility considerations should be made and how can we get in front of that?

AGENDA:

(subject to tweaking as May 20 grows near!)

• 4:30 – 4:45 pm PT – Welcome from A11yBay and GAAD Co-Founders
• 4:45 – 5:15 pm PT – Terri Rodriguez-Hong "Reflections and Discussion on What it's like having a hidden disability in Silicon Valley"
• 5:15 – 5:55 pm PT – Carie Fisher's talk: "The Future of Accessibility is a 'Choose Your Own Adventure' Book"
• 5:55 – 6:15 pm PT – Marc B.D. Greenberg's talk: "Robots and Accessibility"
• 6:15 – 6:30 pm PT – Talk to be announced
• 6:30 – 6:45 pm PT – Optional zoom break-out room socializing

ZOOM DETAILS:

• This is an online event and will happen through Zoom:

The Zoom URL will be published on this event page a few days before the meetup and shared via email (sent through meetup messages) with people who RSVP via the meetup site.

Check to make sure your email settings are enabled to receive "event updates from organizers" in your account settings or you may not receive the message.

• How socializing in zoom break out rooms will work:

We’ll use the zoom breakout rooms feature to give folks an opportunity to network and chat with others in small group conversations with randomized participants.

If you do not feel comfortable making conversation with other people during this meetup, we'll pause briefly after the main talk content so you can log off. Those who want to chat can just stay on the zoom!

• Zoom tips for controlling closed captions and screen reader alerts:

More details on our Meetup event page.

Learn how to “Stop Starting and Start Finishing”

Join us for an all day Kanban workshop on May 15th, 2021; featuring Suzanne Ward MBA MEng PMP CSM CSPO PSM CSP, a Scrum Master & Agile Coach/Trainer from Intel.

Our Kanban workshop will help you adopt a value–centric system of planning and executing your work. In the one-day training, we cover the basics of Kanban, one of the agile processes, through a combination of theory and extensive exercises. With in-depth exercises and coaching from an experienced practitioner, participants will learn how to initiate change with Kanban and bring in process improvements by identifying and addressing bottlenecks, prioritize, and initiate collaboration.

LEARNING OBJECTIVES

Understand how to make prioritization, sequencing, and scheduling decisions based on economic factors instead of hunches. Learn how to forecast single and multiple work items (releases, sprints) and be able to answer the questions like "When will the work be finished?" accurately instead of guessing due dates. Acquire skills to avoid emotional objections to changes in general and to Kanban WIP limits introduction in particular. Enabled by seven Kanban cadences, be able to introduce continuous learning and improvement process by implementing organizational feedback loops. Familiarize with Kanban Risk Management approaches, service orientation, asymmetrical commitment and rollout phases for a Kanban initiative. Increase Kanban knowledge to manage, sustain and scale evolutionary improvements in their organization.

BENEFITS

Get a thorough understanding of the Kanban method, its core principles and practices. Learn how to design and introduce a Kanban system into your existing work environment. Understand how to improve service delivery with Kanban systems and ensure better customer focus. Learn to maximize benefits of the Pull-based workflow, limit Work In Progress (WIP) through continuous collaboration and active, ongoing learning and improving by defining the best possible team workflow. Learn concepts through case studies, interactive role play, exercises and discussions. Retain more information because of our unique hands-on approach; based on the latest research into brain science. Be entertained by stories from our real-world experienced and knowledgeable instructors. Maximize investments already made by gaining valuable Professional Development Units (PDUs). Increase your personal worth within your company and in the marketplace. Network with people from Intel Corporation and other software companies.

WHO SHOULD COME?

Kanban is one of the easiest ways to get your process and delivery under control, anyone with work that needs to get done will benefit. Kanban works across multiple functions of an organization, from senior managers looking to adopt Lean Management to members of delivery teams willing to improve their working practices. Who should come? People whose work is completed through projects and through teams;

  * Senior Managers
  * Program and Project Managers
  * Product Managers, Product Owners and Business Analysts
  * Scrum Masters, Team Leads and Change Agents
  * Product & Software Developers & Testers
  * Software Engineers, Marketing Professionals, Project Managers,
  * Agile Coaches & Practitioners (Scrum, XP, DSDM, AgilePM, etc.
  * Portfolio Managers, Supply Logistics Professionals.
  * Other roles such as HR and Finance professionals

SPEAKER'S CAREER ACCOMPLISHMENTS

  * Product, Brand, and Marketing Management in diverse range of markets and industries, with P&L responsibilities up to $100 million annual sales.
  * Quick Learner of new industries/product offerings with results-oriented achievements. Created excitement around a static accessories category in condensed timeframe. Created full line of support, educational, training, and presentation materials. Impact of efforts increased sales from $16.4M to $37.2M in 24 months.
  * Program management for multiple high tech/electronic development projects, averaging $3 million annual budget. Serve in project manager and product manager capacities. Two successful worldwide launches in 3 years. $1M annual OEM/B2B sales and $10M annual sales.
  * Combine demonstrated product management leadership experience with strong hands-on technical background. Equally comfortable delving into product requirements with hard-core engineers as well as presenting to executive level decision makers.
  * Uniquely skilled at fostering new ideas, building successful cross-functional teams, and nurturing a culture of consumer-driven product development and user experience       *       innovation. Experience working in and managing cross-functional, cross-division, cross-geographic and multi-cultural sales, marketing and engineering organizations.
  * International program management, sourcing, engineering, OEM/ODM management/development experience. Overseas work assignments in EU and Asia with extended stay in Asia.

SUZANNE WARD'S CERTIFICATIONS

  * PMP, Project Management Professional, Project Management Institute
  * PSM, Professional Scrum Master, Scrum.org
  * CSM, CSPO, Certified Scrum Master, Certified Scrum Product Owner, Scrum Alliance
  * CSP, Certified Scrum Professional, Scrum Alliance

When loading a web page, a sighted page visitor can take in almost all information at a glance and home in on what they want to explore — a whole-to-part approach. A blind screen reader user, on the other hand, must reverse the process and gather bits of information through page exploration to create the full picture — a part-to-whole approach. If sighted design stakeholders are not mindful of the differences in these strategies, they may disregard helpful bits of information that allow the most efficient exploration and understanding for blind visitors. Using parallels from pedestrian navigation such as the importance of “landmarks” and “boundaries,” our presenter Dr. Michele A. Williams will help create common ground between sighted and blind communities to ensure blind screen reader users are best accommodated in Web and other digital design.

Event begins at 6:00pm; join early starting at 5:45pm for networking.

Agenda:

• 5:45–6:00pm Networking
• 6:00–6:15pm Introductions & announcements
• 6:15–7:00pm Presentation
• 7:00–7:30pm Q&A and discussion
• 7:30–7:45pm Wrap up

About the presenter:

Dr. Michele A. Williams has 15 years of academic and industrial experience in UX, accessibility, and technology. She is passionate about ensuring people with disabilities are not excluded from technology. Her well-rounded experience includes training, design consultation, field research with people with disabilities, and code remediation for building WCAG-compliant technology.

Dr. Williams holds a B.S. in Computer Science, Masters of Software Engineering with a concentration in Human-Computer Interaction, and PhD in Human-Centered Computing with a focus on accessibility. Along with industry project contributions, her research and designs have resulted in several cited publications, international presentations, and a patent application (see LinkedIn for more details).

Coupling her passion with her expertise, she now offers consulting services including accessibility training for UX professionals and key stakeholders, and project advising including research facilitation and design consultation. Contact her for a consultation experience tailored to your needs. More about Dr. Williams' work on her website or follow her on Twitter.

Portland Linux/Unix Group Online Meeting Announcement

Who: Glenn Dufke
What: Object Pascal Development with Lazarus and Free Pascal
Where: https://li584-253.members.linode.com/PLUG
When: Thursday, May 6th, 2021 at 7pm Pacific
Why: The pursuit of technology freedom

When developing software for multiple platforms, designing a functional user interface can often be a challenge.

Often C/C++, C# or even Python is used, but an overlooked, full-fledged IDE and development tool is Lazarus / Free Pascal.

Using Object Pascal, a strongly typed, easy to read, learn and modern compiled programming language, you can quickly write advanced applications and design beautiful user interfaces with the strong component based model and form designer.

It has its inspiration from Delphi, a commercial development tool which also can target multiple platforms, though the IDE itself runs on Windows only.

The underlying Free Pascal compiler has a high degree of compatibility, which means you can share code between Delphi and Free Pascal fairly easy.

In this presentation I will touch on the versatility and benefits of using this development tool for your next open source project and how easy it is to get started.

PLUG is open to everyone and does not tolerate abusive behavior on its mailing lists or at its meetings.

PLUG Page with information about all PLUG events: https://pdxlinux.org/ Follow PLUG on Twitter: http://twitter.com/pdxlinux

Portland Java User Group virtual meetup

Topic: Guardrail: State of the Union

Twilio's Guardrail project is a building block for Java and Scala RESTful API's. This talk will summarize recent enhancements to the Guardrail ecosystem. Attend this presentation if you want to learn about Guardrail's design principles, features, and roadmap

Sean Sullivan is a software engineer in Portland Oregon. He works on platform systems at Twilio. He is passionate about Scala, code generators, and automated delivery pipelines. Sean is a frequent speaker at the Portland Java User Group.

Slides: https://speakerdeck.com/sullis/guardrail-state-of-the-union-2021-04-13

Want to learn how to take your projects to the Next Level

Practical Training for Scrum

Join us for an all day Scrum training on April 10th, 2021; featuring Suzanne Ward MBA MEng PMP CSM CSPO PSM CSP, a Scrum Master & Agile Coach/Trainer from Intel. Our world is changing fast. Markets and consumers are demanding faster, cheaper, and better products. Demands for quicker turnaround on new product development and innovation have only increased. How do companies like Google, Yahoo, Amazon, and Apple keep up? They practice agile techniques, in particular, they utilize scrum to manage their projects. Scrum has the power to transform project management across every industry, every business, and even across your personal life. By using Scrum, you’ll become more agile, discovering how to react more quickly and respond more accurately to the inevitable change that comes your way. By staying focused, collaborating, and communicating with customers and your team, you can accomplish what truly needs to be done — successfully.

Come get a taste of the future of project management and learn about the Scrum process. This one-day training with exercises will cover the material from Scrum introduction certification class and Product Owner role in the Scrum Process.

LEARNING OBJECTIVES

Learn about the Scrum Process. Learn what a Product Owner and Scrum Master is responsible for. Come away with insights on how to manage your next project

BENEFITS

* Retain more information because of our unique hands-on approach; based on the latest research into brain science.
* Be entertained by stories from our real-world experienced and knowledgeable instructors.
* Maximize investments already made by gaining valuable Professional Development Units (PDUs).
* Increase your personal worth within your company and in the marketplace.
* Network with people from Intel Corporation and other software companies.

WHO SHOULD COME?

People whose work is completed through projects and through teams; Engineers, Software Engineers, Marketing Professionals, Project Managers, Program Managers, Business Executives, Technology Professionals, Students in MBA or undergrad business and engineering programs.

SPEAKER'S CAREER ACCOMPLISHMENTS

* Product, Brand, and Marketing Management in diverse range of markets and industries, with P&L responsibilities up to $100 million annual sales.
* Quick Learner of new industries/product offerings with results-oriented achievements. Created excitement around a static accessories category in condensed time frame. Created full line of support, educational, training, and presentation materials. Impact of efforts increased sales from $16.4M to $37.2M in 24 months.
* Program management for multiple high tech/electronic development projects, averaging $3 million annual budget. Serve in project manager and product manager capacities. Two successful worldwide launches in 3 years. $1M annual OEM/B2B sales and $10M annual sales.
* Combine demonstrated product management leadership experience with strong hands-on technical background. Equally comfortable delving into product requirements with hard-core engineers as well as presenting to executive level decision makers.
* Uniquely skilled at fostering new ideas, building successful cross-functional teams, and nurturing a culture of consumer-driven product development and user experience innovation.     * Experience working in and managing cross-functional, cross-division, cross-geographic and multicultural sales, marketing and engineering organizations.

International program management, sourcing, engineering, OEM/ODM management/development experience. Overseas work assignments in EU and Asia with extended stay in Asia.

SUZANNE WARD'S CERTIFICATIONS

* PMP, Project Management Professional, Project Management Institute
* PSM, Professional Scrum Master, Scrum.org
* CSM, CSPO, Certified Scrum Master, Certified Scrum Product Owner, Scrum Alliance
* CSP, Certified Scrum Professional, Scrum Alliance

PROFESSIONAL DEVELOPMENT UNITS

By attending this training you’ll receive professional development units (PDU). They are for professionals looking to maintain Project Management Institute (PMI)- certified credentials. Eligible PDUs: 8 PMP PDUs

ADDITIONAL FOR AUDIENCE

SW Engineers: eXtreme Programming, Test Driven Development, Pair Programming, Project Managers: Bridging the Gap between Project Management and Scrum.

I (https://twitter.com/turoczy) have been looking for an excuse to user Twitter Spaces, the audio only Clubhouse competitor. And an idea dawned on my that was basically an audio version of Silicon Florist. What if I held a Spaces event where founders got to pitch their startup or startup concept to an audience?

We've had a number of amazing founders sign up to participate. Now, we need an audience to listen to their pitches. Won't you please join us?

---

If you’ve got a startup to pitch at a future event — it doesn’t have to be tech — please sign up. We'll ask you to deliver a three minute pitch on your company. And then I may ask you a couple of follow up questions, but we won’t open it up to a full Q&A. So it should be a safe space. That means, even if you haven’t perfected your pitch, it’s a good environment to practice.

https://airtable.com/shrbhvH34pzlSPArH

Curious about what's happening in the digital accessibility legal space? Wonder why accessibility is even a legal issue to begin with? Lainey Feingold will bring us up-to-date about accessibility as a civil right and how advocates are using the law in the United States to advance disability inclusion by eliminating digital barriers. Come learn about pending accessibility lawsuits, what courts say about digital accessibility, and what strategies are available to advocates besides the confrontation and expense of a lawsuit. We'll also talk about the importance of avoiding fear when thinking about the law and what to expect from the Biden/Harris administration in the digital accessibility legal space. Plenty of time for questions and conversation.

Event begins at 6:00pm; join early starting at 5:45pm for networking.

Agenda:

• 5:45–6:00pm Networking
• 6:00–6:15pm Introductions & announcements
• 6:15–7:00pm Presentation
• 7:00–7:30pm Q&A and discussion
• 7:30–7:45pm Wrap up

About the presenter:

Lainey Feingold is a disability rights lawyer, an international speaker, and the author of Structured Negotiation, A Winning Alternative to Lawsuits. Structured Negotiation has a twenty-five year track record in resolving complex accessible technology claims without the expense and conflict of traditional litigation. Lainey has worked in the digital accessibility space since 1995 and helped negotiate the first web accessibility agreement in the United States in 2000. She also serves as the accessibility subject matter resource for Disability:IN, the leading business disability global inclusion non-profit organization. Lainey has spoken to #a11y and #UX meetups across the United States and in Toronto and is excited to join us in Portland! More about Lainey’s work on her website or follow her on Twitter.