Okay, time for another honest conversation about my mental health. For those of you new to my feed, this is something I do from time to time. Partly because it helps me, and partly because it helps de-stigmatise discussions about mental health.

This will be long, rambly, and personal. Imagine you’re on livejournal. There’ll probably be typos.

Some of you know I run the Australian National Rick Astley Hotline, on +61-3-8652-1453 . Today, in celebration of troublemakers everywhere, I’ve upgraded it.

Okay Internet, we need to talk about cure evangelism.

Sometimes you’ll have friends who aren’t doing too well. It could be their mental health. It could be their physical health. Maybe it’s social anxiety, or depression, or fatigue, or something else. Whatever it is, they’ve posted about it to social media as a way of getting support and maybe feeling a bit better.

Believe it or not, there are correct and incorrect ways to respond to this.

It’s 4am, and I’ve been goth-clubbing with @kittylyst, which of course meant I ended up having discussions about technologies with three-letter acronyms, and how to change the world. I have strong opinions about this, so I’m sharing them with you all.

Lots of people seem to think that very few people can change the world, but I feel that’s patently false. You change the world merely by living in it. That may be supporting the status quo (which is easy), or by rallying against it (which is more difficult). But for anyone who’s fought against how things are, it can feel like progress is impossible. It can feel that no matter how hard you try, you don’t make a difference.

But that’s bollocks.

For almost a decade, I’ve been presenting conference talks wearing a black top-hat. Indeed, this has become one of the most recognisable parts of my stage-persona. So I’m very pleased to say that you can win my original conference hat as part of the linux.conf.au charity raffle, raising money for Give Where You Live.