North Bay Python

Once ‘the world’s egg basket,’ this Gold Rush-era boomtown still delivers culinary riches | CNN Petaluma’s farm-to-table trend dates all the way back to the California Gold Rush of the mid-1800s. It’s still a culinary treasure with a historic downtown and easy access to the coast and wine countr...

WOOO! NUMBER 6! NUMBER 6! NUMBER 6!

www.cnn.com/travel/petal...

The front outside wall of a barn, covered in cream-coloured paint. Inside the barn, you can see a space set for a conference, with rows of chairs in the midfield and a projector screen. Two people are sitting at a desk. Hanging on the door (propped open) is a wooden North Bay Python logo.

bad news: For the first time in a while, you're going to have to wait a full year between #NBPy events

Good news: WE'RE COMING BACK! April 25th and 26th, 2026, at our favorite ranch just south of Petaluma. See you there!

buttondown.com/northbaypyth...

The front outside wall of a barn, covered in cream-coloured paint. Inside the barn, you can see a space set for a conference, with rows of chairs in the midfield and a projector screen. Two people are sitting at a desk. Hanging on the door (propped open) is a wooden North Bay Python logo.

bad news: For the first time in a while, you're going to have to wait a full year between #NBPy events

Good news: WE'RE COMING BACK! April 25th and 26th, 2026, at our favorite ranch just south of Petaluma. See you there!

buttondown.com/northbaypyth...

YouTube video by North Bay Python "Prompt engineering & social justice: what we know so far" - Tilde (Nbpy2025)

ICYMI, my @northbaypython.org talk on prompt engineering & bias is on YouTube. Thanks so much for having me! ://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WPkoNawv77Q

Last year's survey helped us improve everything from the dates of the event to how the sandwiches on the saturday were provisioned, and I'm sure we'll hear about something we didn't notice this year!

Hi, it's Chris here again. Hope you enjoyed the event!

We've just sent out our post-conference survey. If you were at #NBPy this year, consider responding so we know what worked well and what didn't, so we can improve for next year! Check your inbox!

Photo of two bright green, grassy hills with lush trees under a blue sky with fluffy clouds.

The @NorthBayPython logo lives! #NBPy #ExcavaCon

The backdrop of North Bay Python: Rolling green hills and cloudys with blue sky peeking through.

Another successful North Bay Python! I always leave with new ideas, technologies, approaches, and friends. I might have to propose a talk one of these years… 🤔 #nbpy

A group photo of everyone who helped strike the venue gathered around the brightly colored lectern front.

A photo of the lectern front featuring the green hills, blue skies, and fluffy white clouds of the North Bay Python branding leaning against a wine barrel on stage.

We did it again 💖 Thank you to all of our speakers, sponsors, reviewers, volunteers, and attendees for making North Bay Python something special. Our cups are so full -- we'll see you in 2026! #NBPy

With love,
@chrisjrn.fyi, @skimbrel.bsky.social, @aeracode.org, and @robin.riley.pub

Amanda and White Coat did *AMAZING* work. I've seen White Coat's work before, and it is, bar none, the best CART service I've ever seen at a tech conference.

This year we captured our traditional community strike on time lapse -- thank you to everyone who helped! #NBPy

The CFPs are open for @pybay.bsky.social and @pyohio.org -- please check them out!

PyOhio 2025 Schedule, talks and talk submissions for PyOhio 2025

The @pyohio.org CFP is open for the rest of today which is plenty of time for you to submit a talk idea (or 2 or 3!) I've always personally loved seeing talks that are a bit outside the "normal" for Python confs. If you have an idea, go now! PyOhio ❤️ first-time speakers!

pretalx.com/pyohio-2025/cfp

Slide of “social media awards”, including the live posting MVP Margaret Fero, the most engaged intro post for Maddy Muscari, and the second most popular hashtag for ExcavaCon.

And there were some “awards” of various dubiousness. #NBPy #ExcavaCon

A photo of Christopher on stage.

You can donate to help make sure #NBPy continues happening! nbpy.link/donate

#nbpy

Slide from the closing announcements with a list of humorous summaries of each talk.

Some things happened today at #NBPy

You should come join us next year!

North Bay Python: Prompt Engineering & Bias

They also shared their slides! speakerdeck.com/annthurium/n... are @annthurium.bsky.social 's #nbpy slides. Thanks, Tilde!

Other types of bias seen here include hemisphere bias (like disproportionately snowy images for "January") , locality bias ("Asian" disproportionately gives East Asian), and gender bias derived from languages' default noun gendering. - @annthurium.bsky.social at #NBPy

Both Stable Diffusion and Dall-E refused to generate "sensitive" images like "a gay couple" 🙃 Firefly did a better job, though! - @annthurium.bsky.social at #nbpy

When you specify that discrimination is illegal and undesirable, multiple research teams found that several different models return less discriminatory results. - @annthurium.bsky.social at #nbpy

A photo of the large and small barn at Reis Ranch under a blue sky with fluffy clouds and bright green rolling hills.

Shout-out to the weather for finally coming through on the @northbaypython.org brand promise 😂 #NBPy

The Claude team ran an experiment like this, but didn't incorporate aspects of real-world discrimination like intersectionality. - @annthurium.bsky.social at #nbpy

There's not any one commonly-used means of measuring bias in AI model output, but one common strategy is to give the same prompt with different demographic implications (for example, "John Smith" vs "Jane Smith" both as the actor in an otherwise-identical sentence). @annthurium.bsky.social at #nbpy

We're starting with examples of prompts! Prompts are what you give the model to request it complete a task. You can include examples with strategies like "one-shot prompting" (one example), or use chain of thought prompting to ask for step-by-step reasoning. - @annthurium.bsky.social at #nbpy

A photo of Tilde on stage beginning their presentation.

Capping off our weekend we have @annthurium.bsky.social with "Prompt engineering & social justice: what we know so far" ✊ #NBPy

Adding fault tolerance is even more important for embedded systems than traditional computers, and "watchdog" systems that can reset as needed can REALLY improve your system's ability to remain performant over time. - Oliver at #nbpy

under a bright but cloudy sky, green hills in the background, sits a yellow barn, with people milling around outside. there's two open doors with the North Bay Python logo hanging from them

The view from afternoon tea #NBPy

Configuration, security, and physical access to the device can also be huge issues; flash storage is a particular risk over time, both because it's subject to wear and tear and because power loss/insufficient power supply can corrupt hardware. - Oliver at #nbpy

Embedded devices can have problems with stability and with the need for long-term power, as well as resource constraints that can become a more significant issue on devices expected to run for years or decades. - Oliver at #nbpy