A walk through a modern apartment, through the eyes of the people for whom everything in it was new.

Yesterday, I went to see “Pride” at the National Theatre with a friend. I absolutely loved the 2014 movie when I first saw it in a small cinema in Munich. Since then, I must have seen it ten times or more and still cry every time I see the 1985 Pride march in the final scenes of the movie. I love the story, the character interactions, the soundtrack … all of it! Thus, back in April, when I saw posters—somewhere deep in the bowels of King’s Cross & St Pancras underground station—advertising a musical adaptation of Pride, I was equal parts excited and apprehensive. I needn’t have worried—the musical is excellent. The movie’s writer Stephen Beresford and director Matthew Warchus (both of whom have stage experience) have taken up the same roles for the musical. Both versions share a spirit of joy and solidarity, an emotional depth and many lines of dialogue. However, the musical is far more than a simple copy of the movie. The only song that made the transition from the movie to the stage is “Bread and Roses”, a traditional song of the women’s suffrage and labour movements; the collection of mainly 80s hits on the movie soundtrack was replaced with original songs written for the musical. These span genres—from rock to disco to folk—and help bring different settings and communities to life. The original songs are sometimes also used to pause the main storyline and put a spotlight on a particular character or topic. In one instance, this fell a bit flat for me: Siân has a solo number describing being torn between her new-found confidence and her doubts about leaving the safe, well-known role as mother and wife in the small village; yet we already saw indications of her growth woven through many earlier scenes and I did not feel the song added much. Other times, the spotlight adds to the experience, far beyond what the movie was able to show. This is best visible when it comes to HIV/AIDS: In the movie, the HIV/AIDS pandemic is a regular presence, but we only really feel its impact on a single character, Mark Ashton. In the musical, we get a song staged like a vigil, with candles being lit first one-by-one in actors’ hands, then in droves across the back of the stage, mourning the many brothers, friends and lovers lost. It’s an emotional gut punch that shows the scale of the pandemic and its devastating effects on communities. Yet the musical doesn’t dwell on the misery. It finds hope and friendship everywhere and even the emotional roller coaster ride that Jonathan takes us on right after the intermission was handled with aplomb. In the closing scene, we hear about the real-life future of several characters and about the National Union of Mineworkers’ vote that incorporated gay and lesbian rights into the Labour Party’s manifesto in 1985. For the eleventh time (or more), I have tears streaming down my face. It is, somehow, even more moving in this setting. Overall, “Pride” is a great adaptation of the 2014 movie. It is also a brilliant musical in its own right, according to my friend (who had neither seen the movie nor heard the real-life history before). All remaining showings have been sold out for months, but if you can get any returns or try your luck in the Friday Rush, it’s well worth it. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I will spend the rest of the evening on the couch, reading about the true story behind “Pride”. (I bought that book at Gay’s The Word, of course.)

Since the early years of web standards, Eric Meyer was an important advocate for and contributor to CSS. In 2014, after his daughter died of cancer, the web standards community added her favourite colour to the CSS specification in her memory. It is now called rebeccapurple. For this site’s theme, I use rebeccapurple a lot. Partly because it’s one of my favourite colours. And partly as a reminder: Even something as seemingly dry as a web standard specification is written by humans. Humans form communities. And every web standard—every technology—embodies the values of its community. Sometimes in hidden ways, sometimes in visible ones. Everytime I see this colour, it’s a gentle nudge to myself to help shape communities in line with my values. Also: Fuck cancer. Seriously.

[May 13, 2026] – The Python Software Foundation (PSF) is excited to announce that Hudson River Trading (HRT), a global leader in quantitative trading, has made a commitment to support Python and the PSF as a Visionary Sponsor. HRT’s "Visionary" sponsorship—our highest tier—will help to support the foundation’s core work of advancing and protecting the Python programming language and supporting a diverse and international community of Python programmers. HRT is the first quantitative trading firm to become a PSF Visionary Sponsor, alongside companies including NVIDIA, Google, Fastly, Bloomberg, Meta, and Anthropic. Contributions at this level directly fund the critical work that keeps Python thriving, including: * **CPython Development:** Ensuring the core language remains fast, stable, and modern. * **PyPI Infrastructure:** Maintaining the Python Package Index, which serves billions of downloads to developers worldwide. * **Community Programs:** Supporting Python workshops, events, and user groups globally, as well as hosting PyCon US each year. * **Security Initiatives:** Hardening the ecosystem against supply chain vulnerabilities. ### A Shared Commitment to Python Hudson River Trading is no stranger to the power of Python. As a leading multi-asset class quantitative trading firm, HRT relies on Python for research, data analysis, and engineering workflows. With this donation, HRT is giving back to the tools that empower their engineers and helping to ensure that Python remains flexible, effective, and welcoming in the ways that have made it one of the most popular programming languages in the world. Read more about Open Source at HRT on this page. _“Python is a cornerstone of HRT’s research and trading infrastructure. Our engineers use Python extensively to build cutting-edge tooling that enhances our developer workflows, and we believe strongly in contributing to the open source software that makes our work possible. We are proud to support the PSF as a Visionary Sponsor helping to safeguard Python as a robust, accessible, and community-driven language for years to come.”_   – Prashant Lal, Partner at Hudson River Trading _“Part of HRT's edge is our engineering, and one of our core values is 'Make It Better'. Our support of the Python Software Foundation – alongside our contributions to many other open source projects – reflects our desire to remain active, collaborative participants in the OSS engineering community over the long term, for the benefit of all.”_ – Hashem, Lead Software Engineer at Hudson River Trading _“At HRT, we’ve always believed that the best way to advance Python is by working hand-in-hand with the community. Our internal work onlazy imports gave us deep expertise in the problem space, and we channeled that experience directly into open collaboration by contributing to the development of PEP 810. We pride ourselves on being exemplary participants in both the trading markets and the open source community, and our sponsorship of the Python Software Foundation reflects that genuine spirit of collaboration.”_ – Pablo Galindo Salgado, Lead Software Engineer at Hudson River Trading As part of its ongoing participation in the Python ecosystem, HRT will be open sourcing some of its own projects and announcing additional OSS contributions later this year. To learn more about HRT’s open engineering, research, and data science roles, visit https://www.hudsonrivertrading.com/careers/. The PSF is grateful for Hudson River Trading’s support, alongside that of each of our Visionary Sponsors, and we hope you will join us in thanking them for their commitment to  the PSF and the Python community! ### About Hudson River Trading (HRT) Hudson River Trading (HRT) is a leading quantitative trading firm at the forefront of technical innovation in global financial markets. Every day, we bring together the world’s sharpest minds to collaboratively solve challenging problems and build technology that will drive the future of trading. Leveraging one of the world’s most sophisticated computing environments for research and development, we trade across asset classes and time horizons on more than 200 markets worldwide. We are a leading voice advocating for fair and transparent markets everywhere and dedicated to creating a better trading landscape for all. For more information, visit www.hudsonrivertrading.com. ### About the Python Software Foundation (PSF) The Python Software Foundation is a US non-profit whose mission is to promote, protect, and advance the Python programming language, and to support and facilitate the growth of a diverse and international community of Python programmers. The PSF supports the Python community using corporate sponsorships, grants, and donations. Are you interested in sponsoring or donating to the PSF so we can continue supporting Python and its community? Check out our sponsorship program, donate directly, or contact our team at sponsors@python.org!

I’ve lost track of the number of times I’ve realized that a song I’ve heard on and off for years (on the radio, in movies, in cover versions from other artists, …) was actually by David Bowie. A few years ago, I spent six weeks listening through his studio albums in chronological order. It was pretty awe-inspiring how one person could dabble in so many genres over the decades, yet always have something interesting to contribute—how, independent of genre, he was always so clearly himself. This multifacetedness makes it almost impossible to pick a favourite song. I like the sci-fi weirdness of Space Oddity, sure; but I equally enjoy the crooning in “Heroes”, the theatricality of Life on Mars, the glam rock of Moonage Daydream, and so many others. Yet, perhaps my real favourite is Hallo Spaceboy, from 1995’s 1. Outside album: It completely blew my mind right from the start—Bowie is doing Industrial?—and then blew my mind a second time at the awkward queer yearning of the lyrics. This week, ten years after his final album release and his death, feels like a good time to re-listen to this old Incomparable episode celebrating Bowie’s life and career.

Why Evan Spotte-Smith made that choice, and how they are finding the experience

A year ago today, I went to the Standesamt (German equivalent of the register office) with my long-time girlfriend. No—not to get married. But rather, to finally fix a mistake someone had made decades ago on my birth certificate. I’m non-binary. I’ve been out in all areas of my life for about 7–8 years, among close friends for almost 10; and I’ve been wondering about my gender identity long before that.1 For most of that time, however, it seemed impossible to get this officially acknowledged. In 2021, when the then-incoming German government announced plans to introduce gender self-determination, I was elated and anxious to see details and impatient. When the law finally came into effect in 2024, it was flawed but so much better than the slow, expensive and deeply invasive process it replaced. And, most importantly to me, it finally recognised non-binary gender identities on equal footing with binary ones. The same night that the law came into effect, I emailed the Standesamt to register my intent to correct my gender marker. Some bureaucratic back and forth and a mandatory three-month waiting period2 later, I finally got an appointment for December 3rd, 2024. In the weeks leading up to it, I oscillated between excitement and anxiety—what if there is some unexpected hurdle? What if …? What if …? … On the day, waiting in the hallway of the Standesamt before my appointment, I was getting incredibly nervous. My heart was in my throat; I was staring at paintings hanging in the hallway but they barely registered; only holding my girlfriend’s hand helped me make it through moment after moment until—a few minutes delayed—I was invited into the office. The appointment itself went about as well as I’d hoped. Confirm the chosen name and gender, sign the form, pay the processing fee and voila!—after a decade of waiting, I was finally, officially, government-recognisedly non-binary! 🎉 After that, it took a week or so to get a corrected birth certificate and another couple of weeks to receive a new passport which says “Geschlecht / Sex / Sexe: X”. And it’ll take many more years for certain companies or governments to recognise that X. But to hell with them. I’m proud to be non-binary. I’m proud to break their buggy databases. And today, I have an anniversary to celebrate. 💛🤍💜🖤In hindsight, there were signs for at least 20 years; maybe more. ↩︎I did mention the new law still had flaws … ↩︎

Attached: 1 image I’m looking through my Macintosh user guide (the booklet that accompanied my 1984 Macintosh) for the first time in a while, and I’m a little obsessed with this graphic explaining scrolling.

Have you enjoyed RSECon either this year or in the past? Would you like to be involved in organising RSECon26 which is taking place 9-11th Sep 2026? We have a call out for Committee Members, for details and application see https://society-rse.org/rsecon26-committee-call/ (Call closes 10th Oct 2025) #rsecon26 #rse

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