The schwag of the conference was limited to a breath mint/toothpick dispenser courtesy of Pacific Northwest National Laboratory, one of the “gold” sponsors of the conference. I don’t know if they’re intentionally suggesting anything to the 90% male attendance at the conference, but biting down on the mints did help me keep my cool and suppress my bad thoughts about Northwest Airlines’check-in personnel.

The presentations Thursday and Friday were very good, easily justifying my attendance. I especially found Maureen Stone‘s tutorial insightful. Some of the stuff I already suspected from trial and error, like blue text on a black background (the default for the linux “ls –color” command) is a terrible idea. Other areas were thought-provoking.
Read Full Article →