it's saturday morning. why not submit a thing to our call for proposals? consider it a welcome distraction from literally anything else that's happening right now. pretalx.northbaypython.org/nbpy-2026/cfp

one month until our submissions deadline, but did you know you can submit a talk proposal _today_? we get to know that we're reaching people, we stress less about having a program to fill, _and_ we get some fun stuff to read! submit your talk ideas today! pretalx.northbaypython.org/nbpy-2026/cfp

here is an email from our newsletter about our humble request for your talk ideas buttondown.com/northbaypyth... also consider signing up for our newsletter so you don't have to remember to read our socials to read our newsletter posts thank you

hello! chris is on vacation (no new website yet), but apparently time waits for no conference, and it's time for us to ask you what you want to talk about! Do you want to speak at California's hyper-local barn-based #Python conference? Please send us your talk ideas! 2026.northbaypython.org #NBPy

WOOO! NUMBER 6! NUMBER 6! NUMBER 6! www.cnn.com/travel/petal...

bad news: For the first time in a while, you're going to have to wait a full year between #NBPy events Good news: WE'RE COMING BACK! April 25th and 26th, 2026, at our favorite ranch just south of Petaluma. See you there! buttondown.com/northbaypyth...

bad news: For the first time in a while, you're going to have to wait a full year between #NBPy events Good news: WE'RE COMING BACK! April 25th and 26th, 2026, at our favorite ranch just south of Petaluma. See you there! buttondown.com/northbaypyth...

ICYMI, my @northbaypython.org talk on prompt engineering & bias is on YouTube. Thanks so much for having me! ://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WPkoNawv77Q

Hi, it's Chris here again. Hope you enjoyed the event! We've just sent out our post-conference survey. If you were at #NBPy this year, consider responding so we know what worked well and what didn't, so we can improve for next year! Check your inbox!

The @NorthBayPython logo lives! #nbpy #excavacon

Another successful North Bay Python! I always leave with new ideas, technologies, approaches, and friends. I might have to propose a talk one of these years… 🤔 #nbpy

We did it again 💖 Thank you to all of our speakers, sponsors, reviewers, volunteers, and attendees for making North Bay Python something special. Our cups are so full -- we'll see you in 2026! #NBPy With love, @chrisjrn.fyi, @skimbrel.bsky.social, @aeracode.org, and @robin.riley.pub

Amanda and White Coat did *AMAZING* work. I've seen White Coat's work before, and it is, bar none, the best CART service I've ever seen at a tech conference.

This year we captured our traditional community strike on time lapse -- thank you to everyone who helped! #NBPy

The CFPs are open for @pybay.bsky.social and @pyohio.org -- please check them out!

The @pyohio.org CFP is open for the rest of today which is plenty of time for you to submit a talk idea (or 2 or 3!) I've always personally loved seeing talks that are a bit outside the "normal" for Python confs. If you have an idea, go now! PyOhio ❤️ first-time speakers! pretalx.com/pyohio-2025/cfp

And there were some “awards” of various dubiousness. #nbpy #excavacon

You can donate to help make sure #NBPy continues happening! nbpy.link/donate

Some things happened today at #nbpy You should come join us next year!

They also shared their slides! speakerdeck.com/annthurium/n... are @annthurium.bsky.social 's #nbpy slides. Thanks, Tilde!

Other types of bias seen here include hemisphere bias (like disproportionately snowy images for "January") , locality bias ("Asian" disproportionately gives East Asian), and gender bias derived from languages' default noun gendering. - @annthurium.bsky.social at #NBPy

Both Stable Diffusion and Dall-E refused to generate "sensitive" images like "a gay couple" 🙃 Firefly did a better job, though! - @annthurium.bsky.social at #nbpy

When you specify that discrimination is illegal and undesirable, multiple research teams found that several different models return less discriminatory results. - @annthurium.bsky.social at #nbpy

Shout-out to the weather for finally coming through on the @northbaypython.org brand promise 😂 #NBPy

The Claude team ran an experiment like this, but didn't incorporate aspects of real-world discrimination like intersectionality. - @annthurium.bsky.social at #nbpy

There's not any one commonly-used means of measuring bias in AI model output, but one common strategy is to give the same prompt with different demographic implications (for example, "John Smith" vs "Jane Smith" both as the actor in an otherwise-identical sentence). @annthurium.bsky.social at #nbpy

We're starting with examples of prompts! Prompts are what you give the model to request it complete a task. You can include examples with strategies like "one-shot prompting" (one example), or use chain of thought prompting to ask for step-by-step reasoning. - @annthurium.bsky.social at #nbpy

Capping off our weekend we have @annthurium.bsky.social with "Prompt engineering & social justice: what we know so far" ✊ #NBPy

Adding fault tolerance is even more important for embedded systems than traditional computers, and "watchdog" systems that can reset as needed can REALLY improve your system's ability to remain performant over time. - Oliver at #nbpy

The view from afternoon tea #nbpy

Configuration, security, and physical access to the device can also be huge issues; flash storage is a particular risk over time, both because it's subject to wear and tear and because power loss/insufficient power supply can corrupt hardware. - Oliver at #nbpy

Embedded devices can have problems with stability and with the need for long-term power, as well as resource constraints that can become a more significant issue on devices expected to run for years or decades. - Oliver at #nbpy

These historically wouldn't have been computers, but today a lot look more like your PC than older versions of that device. - Oliver at #nbpy

Spare a moment for the humble heaters at #nbpy who are literally freezing their components off to make you warm 🤣

For today, we're using vidicon31's definition that an embedded system is "a device that contains a computer that the average person would not consider being a computer", with examples like microwaves, cars, and thermostats. - Oliver at #nbpy

Our next #nbpy talk comes from Oliver Rew on robust embedded systems with Python!

Please welcome Oliver Rew to the stage who is presenting "Python Untethered: Building Robust Embedded Systems" 🚀 #NBPy

Tuples are immutable, but can contain a reference to a mutable idea, making the immutability a bit shallow and subject to only certain senses of the word "change" - Trey at #nbpy (This is so delightful! ✨)

Ooooh, that link from earlier (trey.io/nbpy2025) apparently includes not only this content but also extra resources Trey couldn't fit into this year's #nbpy presentation on even more fun edge cases!

Assignments don't just look like "a = 1", but also include imports, for loops, & more! BUT "augmented assignments", AKA "in-place operators", are actually not an assignment but a mutation *in most cases*. If an object doesn't handle +=, though, it might be an assignment instead! - Trey at #nbpy

We are often checking whether a list contains a reference to an equivalent object. - Trey at #nbpy

We often use the word "contains" when discussing Python lists, but @treyhunner reminds #nbpy that lists don't actually *contain* objects. They point to them!

Equality, Trey reminds #nbpy, is to check if they're equivalent, whereas identity checks if they're actually the same. (Some nearby horses sound unimpressed by this)

We're learning about pointers (in a visual-metaphor) sense, and the two types of change in Python from Trey at #nbpy. "Assignments change variables and mutations change objects", SO it's important to remember that variables don't contain objects AND we also have parallels for equality vs identity.

I'm back in my #nbpy seat and very excited for Trey Hunner's talk, which has trey.io/nbpy2025 in the footer for your following-along convenience!

Kicking off our last session block we have @trey.io presenting "Variables and objects: it's pointers all the way down" 🐢 #NBPy

If you saw the ‘no ads, weapons, genocides, Microsoft Teams’ slide: that was from my talk yesterday at #nbpy. It’s more about the list I wanted to make for myself, and why I ended up doing what I do. Content warning: marine facts https://youtu.be/X9gGYZ9G_d4

The sun came out to play 🤩 #NBPy

I'm not in infosec so I haven't actually seen a threat model diagram before. Super interesting! @maggiefero.bsky.social @northbaypython.org