TAM – Transparent Anatomical Mannikin | McMillen Center for Health Education – Today at work we somehow got on the topic of Healthy Harold the Giraffe. This was an initiative in Australia where a van drove to schools and a giraffe character taught kids healthy lessons like how to brush their teeth and have safe sex and not do drugs. I remarked that at my school in Indiana, we made a yearly field trip to a health centre where a transparent android woman would talk to us and parts of her body would light up to illustrate, like, the circulatory system or whatever. As I said it, I realised how weird it sounded. Did that really happen or am I misremembering it?! On a whim, I fired up google and the name popped into my head: “McMillen Health Center.” A few seconds later, I found it. They have a whole page about her. TAM – the transparent anatomical mannikin! She really exists! I didn’t make it up. How cool.

LIVE STREAM: Three confirmed dead after Sydney hostage crisis ends – 9news.com.au – We woke up to some very sad news. I’m going to jot down my impressions and experience before I forget them.

Yesterday. It was a sunny Monday, the week before Christmas break, and I was mostly preoccupied with covering for a few people who were out sick on my team. My bus came up George Street past Martin Place and let me out at Wynyard around 9:35am. I went in and we had our team stand-up at 9:45. A few minutes later, my brother came online to remind me I said I’d Skype with my niece and nephews to wish them a happy birthday. At 10:15am I ducked into a conference room to chat with them. While I was talking to them, I heard a guy outside the meeting room say something about a “hostage situation at Martin Place.” I quickly pulled up Twitter and immediately saw what was happening. Without wanting to trouble the kids, I fired off a quick message to my team in Hipchat.

I said goodbye to my brother and told the kids I loved them. I sent Rodd a message telling him to turn on the TV. (He was working from home for a few hours; I advised him to just stay there.) When I came out of the meeting room, I could already hear that most of the TVs on the floor had been turned to the news. Others had the live stream running on their monitors. Someone was saying, “We could’ve gone there for coffee! What if we’d decided on a whim to go there instead!?” The next few hours were weird, with no one really knowing what to do. HR sent an email at 11:30, “encouraging” us all to stay in the building. I sat through a meeting on advertising, most of which went in one ear and out the other while I kept one eye on Twitter. My desk overlooks the outdoor plaza at Australia Square, and it was emptier than I’d ever seen it (except for a handful of tradies glued to an outdoor TV set watching the news). At 12:30, a crowd of us gathered in the kitchen to watch Tony Abbott’s news conference. (He did an okay job.) I messaged Kunaal in India to tell him to get online. (His team built the 9News site and I knew he’d want to see how it was holding up.) I posted on FB and assured my family that we were safe. Someone said the food court beneath our building was closed, so we joked about eating snacks from last week’s Christmas hampers for lunch. We started to hear that some offices in the city were closing and sending people home. A few people inquired about leaving, so I reached out to HR again. They said that the building was “secure” (in that they were checking IDs of everyone coming in), and that police were still asking us to stay in the building. In the kitchen I saw someone eating a burger from a takeout joint around the corner. “Where did you get that?!” Turns out he just went out and got it. That broke the tension, and more people went out to get food. Through the afternoon, things almost started to feel a little normal at times. Operations sent us a message with an internal network link to watch the news stream to save bandwidth. I turned off Twitter because the rampant speculation was making me crazy. Some people went home, worried that transport was going to be disrupted. By 4:30 the office was feeling empty. I had thought earlier that I might have to walk home (going by Darling Harbour to avoid the city) or possibly take a train from Wynyard if they were still running. Instead when I stepped out at 5pm, I could see a steady stream of buses coming up George Street. I got right on one and trundled past Martin Place for the second time that day. If I strained, I could see the crowd of rubberneckers up the block towards the Lindt Cafe. Traffic was lighter than normal though, so I got home quickly. Other than a few shops being closed, it was like a normal day. I got home, kissed the Snook, turned on the news, and opened a bottle of wine.

Star Wars Bowling Bag Style Purses | ThinkGeek – Yes, I would carry a Boba Fett bag, and I would be Queen of the Nerds. Don’t care. Come on, Santa Claus. Help a girl out!

Play Your Ukulele | MetaFilter – Epic uke post. I might need to dust her off over the Xmas break…

No, I didn’t spend the whole day reading Flipboard. But I realised this morning that my automated posts hadn’t run since Monday, and upon investigation I discovered that my cronjobs weren’t working. There was some weirdness with my server Monday, so maybe that’s part of it. At any rate, I just set them up again so the previous post is about four days’ worth. You’re welcome.

Werner Herzog Inspirationals – Brilliant. I kind of want to print a bunch out and get them framed.

Margaret Hamilton, lead software engineer, Project Apollo – Medium – Great photo, and great story too!

What’s the Friends Quote You Use the Most? — Vulture – No brainer. For the Snook and me, it’s definitely: “Custard, good. Jam, good. Meat, gooood.”

WebBlast Xmas 2014 – Eventbrite – WebBlast is making its triumphant return tomorrow night at the Pumphouse in Darling Harbour. This is a networking event for the local web development industry and everyone’s welcome to attend. There are no speeches or talks; just an open bar to facilitate lots of socialising! My company Mi9 is a sponsor, so I’ll be there throughout the night. Come by and say hello…

What is an expert, anyway? – Medium – Great essay by @pamelafox on something I’ve been thinking about lately. I’m coming to the end of my first year officially leading a team, and I’m pushing myself to take on new challenges (like speaking at conferences and nominating for awards). It still feels weird though. I struggle to think of myself as an expert in any particular field. I especially identified with this bit:

“I decided a long time ago that I am generally happier pursuing a variety of skills and figuring out how to combine them, versus pursuing a very particular skill and focusing on that for years.”

I like being a generalist, but I can’t shake the feeling that the tech industry values Subject Matter Experts more highly. Who’d be a generalist when you can be a “Node ninja” or “UX specialist,” right? There’s no pithy way to sum up being an integrator, someone who likes bringing a team together to solve a problem or deliver something cool.

And of course, there’s always the lurking spectre of imposter syndrome. Pamela doesn’t mention it, but I reckon it’s a big part of why a lot of people are hesitant to apply the “expert” label. My brain just falls so easily into the trap of devaluing the things that I’m good at. I can recognise this in other people and tell them why it’s not true, but it’s so hard to counteract the doubts in your own mind. The only strategy I’ve got is to continually push myself to get out there, to apply for new opportunities and challenges and to seek feedback from people I respect. Today I asked someone if they’d be willing to give me a reference for an award, and he replied, “Honestly I’d be delighted and honoured to.” That made my day. I might not consider myself an expert yet, but I’m doing all right.