By: Miguel Raz Guzmán Macedo

Re-posted from: https://miguelraz.github.io/blog/githubsponsors/index.html

GitHub sponsors – a useful lifeboat

By: Miguel Raz Guzmán Macedo

Re-posted from: https://miguelraz.github.io/blog/githubsponsors/index.html

Saludos ?

Hola! Me llamo Raz y este es mi granito de arena para quienes quieren empezar con el software libre (o encontrar fuentes de ingreso en este mundo). Puedes ser mi sponsor en GitHub para que escriba más cosas como esta y contribuya al software libre de Julia/Rust y sus traducciones en español.

GitHub Sponsors

with apologies to Holge and Randy and David and Logan and Hector and…

Summary:

You can get money via donations and your GitHub profile. This can take a few hours to setup and be a good side revenue, or an emergency lifeboat. Depending on where you live, your marketing skills, larger community environment and a slew of other factors, this may or may not work for you. This post is an exercise in Your Mileage May Vary from someone who spawned the game of life in Easy Mode (white cis english speaking STEM focused able male), so take what you can and dismiss what doesn't apply.

Make no mistake: living from GitHub sponsorship means charity with extra steps, and with a multinational corporation (ultimately, Microsoft, Github's owner) as your uncaring and all powerful boss. Assume they will use power to control your "wage" to align with their interests and diversify your risks accordingly.

If you live in the Global South and this program can apply for you, please consider getting started NOW. If you live in the Global North, consider sponsoring devs in the Global South with monthly payments – foreign exchange rate makes them life changing. If you are giddy for how to get started, my recommendations for a setup are farther down in this post.

Who what when where why

GitHub sponsors is a program you can sign up for (free) on github.com and receive donations from other people for (mostly) working on open source stuff. If you were already doing open source stuff, you can setup a profile and people can choose to give you one-time or monthly donations (more on that later) at tiers you are free to specify – from 1USD a month to full 666USD Bezos level patronage.

Github sponsors is attractive in comparison to other platforms because, at time of writing, they do not charge a percentage on your sponsorships.

Patreon charges (at time of writing), 5%+, and other (main stream) platforms are not far off.

This is an attractive proposition, but you should investigate before you launch yourself into the "content creator" lifestyle.

1. GitHub has yet, to my knowledge, bound itself legally into always respecting this financial agreement. It could start changing it's terms tomorrow, lest you obey some orders from corporate, as was the case recently with Twitch streamer's revenue sharing overnight change with …Amazon. That news was the most recent one off the top of my head, but every subscription/donation based platform can, has, and will unilaterally change your ~~wage split~~donations how they see fit.

2. This doesn't apply to every country. At time of writing, 68 regions can qualify for sponsorships of which, sadly, I only count 4 African countries, for a "global" program that has been running for almost 3 years now. Mexico initially wasn't on the beta list (for which there was promo where GitHub would match donations, to my chagrin), but I joined the waitlist and received my email after a while. Note that Iran, Venezuela, Russia and CubaN

• who i am

  • how i got started, my presence

  • marketing

• who i am not

  • orgs, umbrella, collectives

So. I think I've had what I would call a "moderately" succesful run with my GitHub sponsors. A lot of people have asked me about tips and tricks, and I'm not the one for

• what sponsors is

how it works

• how to setup your profile

• countries, bans, availability

• taxes

• Dos

• public presence: famous code, repos, books, talks, online presence (pandemic podcasts, community building)*

• big disclaimers, aka the don'ts:

• don't assume you won't pay taxes.

• uni might clash – grad students/scholarships may not work. dont knmow if amazon wish lists or payments in kind can be setup

• make this yourplan A, at least forever.

By: Miguel Raz Guzmán Macedo

Re-posted from: https://miguelraz.github.io/blog/onarts/index.html

Intro

When I tell people I study physics, more frequently than not I've had to help avoid a panic attack or two. There's always that 2nd grade teacher, the trauma, the gnashing of teeth; I don't really fault people for having gone through the pedagogic wringer and suffered the tyranny of schooling. This is the story I tell math-phobic to let them know I think they're right.

As usual, by sponsoring me on GitHub, I can continue my open source campaign. Plus, you get a monthly summary of all my writing shenanigans at the end of the month.

Art class

Let's imagine an you are in an ideal art classroom for beginners in secondary school. The recess bell rings and the kids are streaming in to their seats. In front of every kid there's a full decked-out art kit: brushes, paints, canvas and the works. Being their first art assignment, the kids will fill out one of those paint-by-number Monalisa's – there's chunks of the painting numbered 1 and they should all be green, all the 2 sections should be red, and so forth.

The brushes begun to dip, swirl, then dance across the canvases and the kids are jubilant. You've been completing the green->1 chunks when a hand strikes your fingers holding the brush.

Sorry kid we're in art class, and, in here, when you paint green stuff, you must do it always by holding the brush with these two fingers at a time, and you must stroke from left to right

Apoplectic, you ask "Why?"

Because I said so, and these are the rules for art.

…

You muster what courage you can and soldier on with the greens. Remember your parents' edict: failing this art class will mean detention, do overs during summer break, getting grounded – not a fun way to spend vacations. The teacher isn't too worried about explaining why these rules of art must be so, but questioning aesthetics isn't really proactive in the present situation.

Halfway through the reds, a swift hand strikes down your brush again:

In art class, when you paint the reds, you must use these other two fingers, and always stroke from the top to the bottom.

"How was I supposed to know that?"

Doesn't matter. Shape up or you'll fail this quiz.

…and you figure this will continue for each other color. The lesson is clear – disobey and be punished for failing these rules obtained from god-knows-where, so it's best to try and suss them out piecemeal from the teacher and avoid their wrath.

But every torment must end, and though there's been wailing and gnashing of teeth, your Mona Lisa is finished.

The teacher comes by, pops up your piece into the sunlight and delivers the coup de grace:

Ah! Look at this beauty – isn't art just beautiful?

My claim is twofold: any child that walks out of such an "art" class saying they like art is in need of a dire intervention and/or therapy, and that (modulo metaphoric license), that is basically how we teach "math" in most schooling systems I know (or rather arithmetic).

We show little empathy with kids about why they're learning a particular system, punish them based on our predetermined system of axioms without explaining why we chose such a system over many others, and people just learn to game the system enough to evade punishment (we're only talking about harsh impacts to your future economic prospects here!).

Why are we learning about these numbers and not others?

Because they build up to calculus and we've "decided" as a society that that goal is what will make you most productive.

How do we know these are the only kinds of numbers that have these rules?

There might be many! But you better learn these or else!

Why not choose different rules for our numbers? Why not have different axioms for our geometry?

We'll have none of that nonsense here you lil' insubordinate rascal…

Do we really need to optimize those missile trajectories?

Alright, that's enough thinking about where the tools we teach end up being applied.

…and so on.

Yes: some form of rote practice is needed to gain basic mathematical acumen – but nowhere near the level of attention that it deserves. Spelling drills are necessary to manipulate language, yet spelling bee championships do not poets make; neither should we conflate arithmetic worksheets and piles of homework with exercises in mathematical thinking.

Worst of all, I think is that people don't even have the vocabulary to know the worlds they aren't seeing. This is in contrast to musical experience – even if you never hit a solid note on your recorder, you can still appreciate songs and dance beyond your classroom disappointment. But how would you explain to someone that Daft Punk, Dolly Parton and Beethoven can coexist in the same universe of musical enjoyment if their (let's imagine for sake of argument) only musical exposure in life were the beeping of an alarm clock?

You'd get a lot more people traumatized about art and music class, and if I was a musician in that world, I'd also field a lot of people dumping their childhood traumas on me because I was "into music".