pre-release: PyCon CA meeting announcement

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Subject: 
ANN: PyCon CA at Colony Ballroom Sat August 10, 9:55p


PyCon CA
=========================
When: 9:55 AM Saturday August 10, 2013
Where: Colony Ballroom
Our main goals:

Support the efforts of Montreal Python as they prepare to host PyCon North America in 2014 and 2015. This is the first time that the main PyCon conference is going to be outside of the US. Let's take this opportunity to showcase the Canadian Python community, and step up to the challenge as speakers and volunteers.

Strengthen the Canadian Python community by providing more opportunities for us to share knowledge and ideas, encourage support and education for speaking at conferences, and increase the visibility of developers, organizations, and companies within the community.

PyCon Canada is entirely run by volunteers who are passionate about these goals.
None

Topics
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1. PyCon Canada 2013 Keynote - Jacob Kaplan-Moss
Jacob Kaplan-Moss
tags: Keynote
Keynote - Jacob Kaplan-Moss
Saturday, August 10 2013 09 AM

 recording release: yes license: CC BY-SA 2.5 CA  
 Video: http://pyvideo.org/video/2294/keynote-jacob-kaplan-moss 
2. Notable Features of Python
James Powell
tags: Tutorial
Decorators, generators, and context managers are among many notable features in Python that also make Python a notable language. This tutorial discusses these features and how they can be used to model problems in a very robust, flexible, and Pythonic way.
 recording release: yes license: CC BY-SA 2.5 CA  
 Video: http://pyvideo.org/video/2295/notable-features-of-python 
3. NLTK vs Twitter: A Voyage into Linguistic Frontiers
Max Thayer
tags: Talk
Language is complicated. We'll show you how to use statistics and geography to do linguistic research without the hassle of semantics using Flask for data collection, the NLTK for data parsing, and d3 for pretty graphs.
 recording release: yes license: CC BY-SA 2.5 CA  
 Video: http://pyvideo.org/video/2296/nltk-vs-twitter-a-voyage-into-linguistic-frontie 
4. Android: The Land that Python Forgot?
Christopher Neugebauer
tags: Talk
A fast-paced overview of mobile development for Python programmers. Is Android the land that Python forgot, and if so, what can we do about it?
 recording release: yes license: CC BY-SA 2.5 CA  
 Video: http://pyvideo.org/video/2354/android-the-land-that-python-forgot 
5. UnRESTful APIs with Tastypie
Ari Lacenski
tags: Talk
Web APIs built with REST patterns may sometimes need to offer services that don't fit the REST model. This talk will discuss when an application might need to use both REST and RPC patterns, and delve into working examples for a Django site whose API runs on Tastypie.
 recording release: yes license: CC BY-SA 2.5 CA  
 Video: http://pyvideo.org/video/2300/unrestful-apis-with-tastypie 
6. How to Make Friends and Influence Developers
Mahdi Yusuf
tags: Talk
This talk will teach you how to grow a community around your project. I will be sharing interesting data points from the PyCoder's Weekly newsletter on what resonates well with developers, specifically in the Python community. 
 recording release: yes license: CC BY-SA 2.5 CA  
 Video: http://pyvideo.org/video/2302/how-to-make-friends-and-influence-developers 
7. Git Happens
Jessica Kerr
tags: Talk
Git: it's all the rage in source control. You may use it, but do you understand it? A million tutorials on the
internet tell you what to type, but not why. Let me show you in pictures what's going on behind the scenes in git. 

Learn how to navigate, write, and untangle your commit history. Do more than control your source: make it tell a story. After this talk, git will make sense, and so will your project history.
 recording release: yes license: CC BY-SA 2.5 CA  
 Video: http://pyvideo.org/video/2303/git-happens 
8. The Importance of Experimentation
Juan Lavista Ferres
tags: Talk
Controlled experiments, also called randomized experiments and A/B tests, have had a profound influence on multiple fields, including medicine, agriculture, manufacturing, and advertising. In software development, multiple techniques are used to define product requirements; controlled experiments provide a valuable way to assess the impact of new features on customer behavior.

Having run hundreds of experiments on more than 20 websites, including some of the world’s largest, like msn.com and bing.com, we have learned some important practical lessons. These lessons, even for seemingly simple univariate experiments, aren’t taught in Statistics 101.
 recording release: yes license: CC BY-SA 2.5 CA  
 Video: http://pyvideo.org/video/2306/the-importance-of-experimentation 
9. 250GB of RAM for 34¢/hour: EC2 spot instances 
Kamal Marhubi
tags: Lightning talk
Ever needed 250GB of RAM, but just for a few minutes or hours? With Amazon's EC2 spot instances, you can get a machine with 250GB of RAM for as little as 34¢/hour! I'll give a recipe for getting set up with Python + your packages in 10 minutes, and get a remote IPython Notebook to work with.
 recording release: yes license: CC BY-SA 2.5 CA  
 Video: http://pyvideo.org/video/2311/250gb-of-ram-for-034hour-ec2-spot-instances 
10. Saturday Morning BreakfastSerial: Hacking Arduinos in Python
Swift
tags: Talk
Normally when you want to hack on arduino, you have to code in C. We as Python devs know that sucks! Introducing BreakfastSerial, a framework that makes it simple to interact with Arduinos using just Python. You'll learn the basics, see some fun demos, and become a hardware-hacking pro in no time.
 recording release: yes license: CC BY-SA 2.5 CA  
 Video: http://pyvideo.org/video/2310/saturday-morning-breakfastserial-hacking-arduino-0 
11. Making Embeddable Web Widgets Without Iframes
Christopher Lambacher
tags: Lightning talk
This talk will cover how Tindie created embeddable widgets using Django, TastyPie &, Sqwidget... without iframes.
 recording release: yes license: CC BY-SA 2.5 CA  
 Video: http://pyvideo.org/video/2342/making-embeddable-web-widgets-without-iframes-0 
12. Hyperopt: A Python library for optimizing the hyperparameters of machine learning algorithms
James Bergstra
tags: Lightning talk
Hyperopt provides parallel infrastructure and Bayesian optimization algorithms that can tune the hyperparameters of machine learning systems (including pre-processing steps) as well as domain experts. This talk introduces hyperopt architecture and usage.
 recording release: yes license: CC BY-SA 2.5 CA  
 Video: http://pyvideo.org/video/2313/hyperopt-a-python-library-for-optimizing-the-hyp 
13. Communicating Sequential Processes: Multicore Programs in Standard CPython
Simon Law
tags: Talk
We live in a multicore world now: your cellphone has more CPUs now than your desktop did a decade ago.

Traditionally, Python programs have been sequential. With  Communicating Sequential Processes (CSP), you can transform your CPython programs into concurrent programs.
 recording release: yes license: CC BY-SA 2.5 CA  
 Video: http://pyvideo.org/video/2318/communicating-sequential-processes-multicore-pro 
14. Fundamentals of Python Debugging
Chris Calloway
tags: Tutorial
Find out how to use Python's built-in debugging facilities. 
 recording release: yes license: CC BY-SA 2.5 CA  
 Video: http://pyvideo.org/video/2317/fundamentals-of-python-debugging-0 
15. PRISM-AS-A-SERVICE: Not Subject to American Law
Lynn Root
tags: Talk
X-as-a-Service products are integral in the U.S. tech industry with their ability to take the pain out of server configuration, maintenance, provisioning, data storage and other aspects of running a server. With the recent outing of PRISM, a clandestine national security electronic surveillance program, the next desirable IT feature is "not subject to American law." How can we leverage cloud-based software while maintaining privacy?

This talk is a look at what exactly PRISM is, how PRISM affects cloud services, and how best to approach securing data and preserving privacy within the cloud.
 recording release: yes license: CC BY-SA 2.5 CA  
 Video: http://pyvideo.org/video/2319/prism-as-a-service-not-subject-to-american-law 
16. Supporting Everything - Python2/3, Mac/Linux/Windows
James Saryerwinnie
tags: Talk
There comes a time in the life of a library where it must leave your machine
and find a home in a far away computer.  That computer might even run windows.
This talk will show how you can write a library that supports Linux/Mac/Windows
and runs on python 2 and 3.
 recording release: yes license: CC BY-SA 2.5 CA  
 Video: http://pyvideo.org/video/2321/supporting-everything-python23-maclinuxwind 
17. The Joys and Pains of Using Pyramid
Éric Araujo, Hadrien David
tags: Talk
A tour of Pyramid’s best and worst features, from the perspective of developers who love elegance and pragmatism.
 recording release: yes license: CC BY-SA 2.5 CA  
 Video: http://pyvideo.org/video/2324/the-joys-and-pains-of-using-pyramid 
18. Skyfield and 15 Years of Bad APIs
Brandon Rhodes
tags: Talk
I released the first version of PyEphem in 1998.  Built with SWIG, it made astronomical calculations in Python only slightly more convenient than writing C code to make raw calls to the libastro library.  A massive rewrite five years later improved the interface, but a decade of fielding questions from users has convinced me to re-think how an API can better help programmers cope with an unfamiliar and complex domain like astronomy.  This talk will explore how API design, NumPy integration, and modern high-performance Python computation combine in Skyfield, the new pure-Python astronomy library that I will release during the PyCon Canada sprints!
 recording release: yes license: CC BY-SA 2.5 CA  
 Video: http://pyvideo.org/video/2325/skyfield-and-15-years-of-bad-apis 
19. Python Webapp Modern Workflow
Blaise Laflamme
tags: Talk
How can we make our Python web development workflow less painful and more predictable? By using a collection of tools and best practices for both back+front ends like Buildout, Grunt, Bower and Fabric.
 recording release: yes license: CC BY-SA 2.5 CA  
 Video: http://pyvideo.org/video/2327/python-webapp-modern-workflow 
20. From Source to Code: How CPython's Compiler Works
Brett Cannon
tags: Talk
How the heck does CPython take a blob of bytes you call source code and create another blob of bytes called bytecode which it is able to execute to make the magic of Python programs work? This talk's aim is to provide a conceptual answer to that question. The overall process of tokenizing, parsing, creating an AST, and then finally emitting bytecode will be covered. 

If you have no clue what any of those previous words meant, don't worry! This talk will be accessible to people who are not compiler experts. We'll also cover how various parts of the compiler are exposed through Python's standard library so you can play with what you learn afterwards.
 recording release: yes license: CC BY-SA 2.5 CA  
 Video: http://pyvideo.org/video/2331/from-source-to-code-how-cpythons-compiler-works 
21. Diving into Open Data with IPython Notebook & pandas
Julia Evans
tags: Talk
I'll walk you through Python's best tools for getting a grip on some new open data: IPython Notebook and pandas. I'll show you how to read in data, clean it up, graph it, and draw some conclusions, using some open data about the number of cyclists on Montréal's bike paths as an example.
 recording release: yes license: CC BY-SA 2.5 CA  
 Video: http://pyvideo.org/video/2330/diving-into-open-data-with-ipython-notebook-pan 
22. Open source circuit simulator in Python
Shivkumar Iyer
tags: Lightning talk
Simulation of large interconnected electrical circuits particularly with nonlinear controllable devices requires significant computational overhead and also generates a large amount of data. The proposed circuit simulator intends to be able to solve nonlinear systems for large time intervals.
 recording release: yes license: CC BY-SA 2.5 CA  
 Video: http://pyvideo.org/video/2335/open-source-circuit-simulator-in-python 
23. A Flask of full-text search with PostgreSQL
Dan Scott
tags: Talk
Building a web application does not have to be hard! This talk walks through a real web application, in under 200 lines of code, that uses Flask for the web and PostgreSQL for its fast, built in text search support.
 recording release: yes license: CC BY-SA 2.5 CA  
 Video: http://pyvideo.org/video/2334/a-flask-of-full-text-search-with-postgresql 
24. Bloomcast - Python Facilitating Operational Oceanography
Doug Latornell
tags: Lightning talk
Bloomcast is a daily prediction of the beginning of the aquatic growing season in the Strait of Georgia. Python makes it possible by collecting meteorological and river flow data, running a Fortran code, analyzing its results, and publishing the prediction to the web - all while I sleep.
 recording release: yes license: CC BY-SA 2.5 CA  
 Video: http://pyvideo.org/video/2336/bloomcast-python-facilitating-operational-ocean 
25. A 65-Year-Old Map Nobody Has Ever Seen
Anton Dubrau
tags: Lightning talk
In March, the city of Montreal released thousands of aerial photos taken in 1947. I combined some of these images and overlaid them on a current satellite map. I'll explain what went into making this (~100 hours of work), and how I'm going to extend it to the whole island.
 recording release: yes license: CC BY-SA 2.5 CA  
 Video: http://pyvideo.org/video/2337/a-65-year-old-map-nobody-has-ever-seen 
26. PyCon Canada 2013 Keynote - Hilary Mason
Hilary Mason
tags: Keynote
Keynote - Hilary Mason
Saturday, August 10 2013 05 PM

 recording release: yes license: CC BY-SA 2.5 CA  
 Video: http://pyvideo.org/video/2341/keynote-hilary-mason 
27. PyCon Canada 2013 Keynote - Karen Brennan
Karen Brennan
tags: Keynote
Keynote - Karen Brennan
Sunday, August 11 2013 10 AM

 recording release: yes license: CC BY-SA 2.5 CA  
 Video: http://pyvideo.org/video/2293/keynote-karen-brennan 
28. Exploring the Google Analytics API
Vanessa Sabino
tags: Talk
Google Analytics is an excellent tool to track what happens in your website or your mobile app. In this talk, you'll learn how to query your data using the Python library for the Core Reporting API and why you should be doing it.
 recording release: yes license: CC BY-SA 2.5 CA  
 Video: http://pyvideo.org/video/2298/exploring-the-google-analytics-api 
29. Why Open Source Works
Alex Gaynor
tags: Talk
Open source software powers the world. But it defies a lot of conventional expectations about how people organize and innovate. This talk will explore the psychology, sociology, and economics of open source, and how we come together to effectively build things.
 recording release: yes license: CC BY-SA 2.5 CA  
 Video: http://pyvideo.org/video/2299/why-open-source-works 
30. Python and Hadoop: Big Data Application Development with PyCascading
Craig Hawco
tags: Talk
Big Data is not typically an area talked about when working with Python. We'll discuss some of the options out there, considerations about interfacing with the rest of your data solution, and the advantages and shortcomings of working with Python in the Hadoop ecosystem. 
 recording release: yes license: CC BY-SA 2.5 CA  
 Video: http://pyvideo.org/video/2301/python-and-hadoop-big-data-application-developme 
31. EduPsych Theory for Python Hackers v.2.0
Mel Chua
tags: Talk
I've taken two years of graduate courses in pedagogical design, educational psychology, and community development. I save you $50k in tuition and hundreds of hours of reading and give you the short version for Pythonistas who care about education and outreach. You'll learn how to critically analyze and describe your Python learning/teaching methods and progress to other hackers and/or educators. This is a revised and expanded version of a talk given at the last PyCon in Santa Clara, with insights from the current batch at Hacker School.
 recording release: yes license: CC BY-SA 2.5 CA  
 Video: http://pyvideo.org/video/2305/edupsych-theory-for-python-hackers-v20 
32. Mobile Web Performance Hits You Didn't Know About
Bijan Vaez
tags: Lightning talk
Stop spending hours shaving milliseconds of your load time when there are some things that can contribute 500ms or more of latency to your mobile apps. I'll touch on a few things you might not have been aware of that can affect the performance of your internet connected mobile apps.
 recording release: yes license: CC BY-SA 2.5 CA  
 Video: http://pyvideo.org/video/2307/mobile-web-performance-hits-you-didnt-know-about 
33. Bayesian Methods for Hackers
Cameron Davidson-Pilon
tags: Talk
We present an overview of the opensource IPython book Probabilistic Programming and Bayesian Methods for Hackers, including some practical Bayesian algorithms: ranking, A/B testing, and a winning solution to a recent Kaggle competition. 
 recording release: yes license: CC BY-SA 2.5 CA  
 Video: http://pyvideo.org/video/2304/bayesian-methods-for-hackers 
34. Pyramid-Royal: building restful web services the easy way
Hadrien David
tags: Lightning talk
Pyramid provides a great foundation to build applications that follow the Resource-Oriented Architecture described in the book RESTful Web services, but you have to build the top layer.  Discover Pyramid-Royal, an Open Source library that provides that layer.
 recording release: yes license: CC BY-SA 2.5 CA  
 Video: http://pyvideo.org/video/2308/pyramid-royal-building-restful-web-services-the 
35. Job Security (in Python)
Christopher Neugebauer
tags: Lightning talk
(Needs description.) 
 recording release: yes license: CC BY-SA 2.5 CA  
 Video: http://pyvideo.org/video/2347/job-security-in-python 
36. Switching character sets with the engine running (on the web)
Taavi Burns
tags: Lightning talk
(Needs description.) 
 recording release: yes license: CC BY-SA 2.5 CA  
 Video: http://pyvideo.org/video/2348/switching-character-sets-with-the-engine-running 
37. Cool stuff in Augmented and Virtual Reality
Michael Kwan
tags: Lightning talk
(Needs description.) 
 recording release: yes license: CC BY-SA 2.5 CA  
 Video: http://pyvideo.org/video/2349/cool-stuff-in-augmented-and-virtual-reality 
38. Shopify Checkout
Chris Saunders
tags: Lightning talk
(Needs description.) 
 recording release: yes license: CC BY-SA 2.5 CA  
 Video: http://pyvideo.org/video/2350/shopify-checkout 
39. Introduction to Security Testing with SAT Solvers
Vijay Ganesh
tags: Lightning talk
Automatic security testing remains a key challenge for the software industry. In the last few years, there has been a wealth of techniques developed in academia from diverse variety of fuzzing to Boolean SAT solver-based symbolic testing. I will briefly talk about the opportunities and challenges of test automation with a special focus on SAT solvers.

 recording release: yes license: CC BY-SA 2.5 CA  
 Video: http://pyvideo.org/video/2309/introduction-to-security-testing-with-sat-solvers 
40. Ontario Beer Finder App
Dan O'Connell
tags: Lightning talk
(Needs description.) 
 recording release: yes license: CC BY-SA 2.5 CA  
 Video: http://pyvideo.org/video/2351/ontario-beer-finder-app 
41. Quick Wins for Better Website Security
Dan Callahan
tags: Talk
Learn quick and easy techniques to improve your website's security, protect against session hijacking, and defend against XSS and data injection attacks.
 recording release: yes license: CC BY-SA 2.5 CA  
 Video: http://pyvideo.org/video/2315/quick-wins-for-better-website-security 
42. SASS me up, Scotty
Ricardo Vazquez
tags: Tutorial
Join Ricardo Vazquez, UI/UX Designer at 500px, in discovering how to write beautiful CSS. This tutorial will cover one of the most popular preprocessors being used in production websites today. SASS uses the power of Ruby conventions in order to deliver an organized and logical structure to CSS.
 recording release: yes license: CC BY-SA 2.5 CA  
 Video: http://pyvideo.org/video/2314/sass-me-up-scotty 
43. The Red Balloon: Lessons on community building from the Public Lab
Dana Bauer
tags: Talk
TBD
 recording release: yes license: CC BY-SA 2.5 CA  
 Video: http://pyvideo.org/video/2316/tbd 
44. An Overview of the Facebook cache
Yannick Gingras
tags: Talk
Facebook leverages in-memory data stores extensively.  Even though caching is a conceptually simple service, several problems inherent to our scales make the deployment of our in-memory data store particularly interesting and challenging.


 recording release: yes license: CC BY-SA 2.5 CA  
 Video: http://pyvideo.org/video/2320/an-overview-of-the-facebook-cache 
45. Single Artifact Deployments for Python Applications
Jason Filipe
tags: Talk
Deploying python applications should be fast, safe and repeatable. In this talk I will outline a new deployment process developed at Wave Accounting and show you the tips and tricks you'll need to build your own system.
 recording release: yes license: CC BY-SA 2.5 CA  
 Video: http://pyvideo.org/video/2343/single-artifact-deployments-for-python-applicatio- 
46. Planting Open Source Seeds
Kenneth Reitz
tags: Talk
An in-depth review of the stages that most open source projects go though, and the decisions their maintainers face. Requests will be used as an example — lessons learned and best practices will be covered.
 recording release: yes license: CC BY-SA 2.5 CA  
 Video: http://pyvideo.org/video/2322/planting-open-source-seeds 
47. Build Your Infrastructure - with Python!
Ed Leafe
tags: Talk
Cloud computing is changing the way that businesses think about their infrastructure. Rather than ordering and managing hardware, they can now provision what they need with a few clicks or API calls. This talk will demonstrate building infrastructure using our favorite language: Python!
 recording release: yes license: CC BY-SA 2.5 CA  
 Video: http://pyvideo.org/video/2326/build-your-infrastructure-with-python-0 
48. Lessons from Classic Industrial Design for a Digital World
Linn Vizard
tags: Talk
What can classic Industrial Design teach us about designing for digital? This talk looks at design icons from typewriters to chairs and asks how we can apply learning from the breadth of industrial design to creating compelling digital products.

 recording release: yes license: CC BY-SA 2.5 CA  
 Video: http://pyvideo.org/video/2329/lessons-from-classic-industrial-design-for-a-digi 
49. Hy: A Lisp That Compiles to Python
James King
tags: Talk
Hy is a Lisp that compiles to Python AST.  It has full interoperability with Python and macros!  This talk introduces Hy and will dig into the compiler and demonstrate how dynamically generating Python ASTs can be fun and useful.
 recording release: yes license: CC BY-SA 2.5 CA  
 Video: http://pyvideo.org/video/2328/hy-a-lisp-that-compiles-to-python 
50. Testing Django Projects at Scale
Ash Christopher
tags: Talk
Tests are extremely useful to developers, but as projects get larger, tests can begin to get in the way of a smooth delivery pipeline. In this talk I present some issues I have experienced, and offer 10 pragmatic guidelines that may help developers maximize their test usefulness.
 recording release: yes license: CC BY-SA 2.5 CA  
 Video: http://pyvideo.org/video/2333/testing-django-projects-at-scale 
51. Lessons Learned in Teaching Python
Alexandra Strong
tags: Talk
Sharing what you know with others is extremely rewarding, and helps to further develop your Python skills. I'll share my teaching experiences: materials, lesson plans, difficulties, engagement, and more. If you've considered     teaching Python, this talk will give you insight into what it takes!
 recording release: yes license: CC BY-SA 2.5 CA  
 Video: http://pyvideo.org/video/2332/lessons-learned-in-teaching-python-0 
52. Go for Python Hackers
Greg Ward
tags: Talk
There is a resurgence of native-compiled programming languages going on. Some of this work is in response to Python; we're now part of The Establishment against which newcomers are measured. I'll give an overview of Go, a recent native-compiled language, and how it relates to Python. 
 recording release: yes license: CC BY-SA 2.5 CA  
 Video: http://pyvideo.org/video/2345/go-for-python-hackers-0 
53. How to Learn Python in Five Minutes
Daniel Moniz
tags: Lightning talk
How can you help a beginner learn Python? Included in this lightning talk will be a simple framework for learning the language, and tips/resources about stumbling blocks along the way.
 recording release: yes license: CC BY-SA 2.5 CA  
 Video: http://pyvideo.org/video/2344/how-to-learn-python-in-five-minutes 
54. playSVG: scripting vector graphics with geometry
Justin Barca
tags: Lightning talk
* Python and SVG: why is it relevant ?
* pLAySVG structure
* new constructs in geometric programming
* gallery showing and Inkscape extension demo
 recording release: yes license: CC BY-SA 2.5 CA  
 Video: http://pyvideo.org/video/2346/playsvg-scripting-vector-graphics-with-geometry 
55. A Bad Idea in Python
Rory Geoghegan
tags: Lightning talk
(Needs description.) 
 recording release: yes license: CC BY-SA 2.5 CA  
 Video: http://pyvideo.org/video/2352/a-bad-idea-in-python 
56. Built in Numb support in Python 3-4
Christopher Lambacher
tags: Lightning talk
(Needs description.) 
 recording release: yes license: CC BY-SA 2.5 CA  
 Video: http://pyvideo.org/video/2353/built-in-numb-support-in-python-3-4 


Location
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Colony Ballroom


About the group
---------------