[A transcript of the SIGCSE 2010 conference: Table of Contents]
Day 2 brought three sessions worth their own blog entries, but it was also a busy day meeting with colleagues. So those entries will have to wait until I have a few free minutes. For now, here are a few miscellaneous observations from conference life. On Wednesday, I checked in at the table for attendees who had pre-registered for the conference. I told the volunteer my name, and he handed me my bag: conference badge, tickets to the reception and Saturday luncheon, and proceedings on CD -- all of which cost me in the neighborhood of $150. No one asked for identification. I though, what a trusting registration. This reminded me of picking up my office and building keys on my first day at my current job. The same story: "Hi, I'm Eugene", and they said, "Here are your keys." When I suggested to a colleague that this was perhaps too trusting, he scoffed. Isn't it better to work at a place where people trust you, at least until we have a problem with people who violate that trust? I could not dispute that. The Milwaukee Bucks are playing at home tonight. At OOPSLA, some of my Canadian and Minnesotan colleagues and I have a tradition of attending a hockey game whenever we are in an NHL town. I'm as big a basketball fan as they are hockey fans, so maybe I should check out an NBA game at SIGCSE? The cheapest seat in the house is $40 or so and is far from the court. I would go if I had a posse to go with, but otherwise it's a rather expensive way to spend a night alone watching a game. SIGCSE without my buddy Robert Duvall feels strange and lonely. But he has better things to do this week: he is a proud and happy new daddy. Congratulations, Robert! While I was writing this entry, the spellchecker on my Mac flagged www.cs.indiana.edu and suggested I replace it with www.cs.iadiana.edu. Um, I know my home state of Indiana is part of flyover country to most Americans, but in what universe is iadiana an improvement? People, listen to me: problem-solve is not a verb. It is not a word at all. Just say solve problems. It works just fine. Trust me. -----