How To Submit Presentations To Conferences

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With the VMworld 2010 call for papers out there I’ve been thinking about judging submissions to conferences. I’ve been fortunate enough to have helped judge papers for a couple of conferences, and it’s been pretty educational for me. I’ve seen a lot of good submissions, but also a lot of rough ones, too. I’ve kept some notes about what I’m thinking when I judge a presentation and I thought maybe it would be helpful to others. 1. If your presentation is just whipped together please say so, up front. Ideally you’d have spent some quality time with your presentation and submitted it in an excellent, finished state, but we all know how deadlines sneak up on us. It’s just that …

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links for 2010-03-25

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Ada Lovelace Day hero: Cindy Cohn – Boing Boing "Today, every purchase you make online, every ATM you use, every private email you send or receive — everything you do that has some element of privacy! — is legal because of Cindy's ability to convey nuanced technical arguments to nontechnical lawmakers." It's amazing how the right person can make such a difference. Cindy Cohn rocks. Law Enforcement Appliance Subverts SSL | Threat Level | Wired.com This is not good. Basically, it comes down to: anybody can get an SSL certificate that says anything, and then you can use that for a man-in-the-middle attack. So… nothing on the Internet is secure anymore.

links for 2010-03-24

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Google LatLong: It's time to bike I know this is old news, but this statement summarizes what I like the most about the new bike directions feature: "Our biking directions are based on a physical model of the amount of power your body has to exert given the slope of the road you’re biking on. Assuming typical values for mass and for wind resistance, we compute the effort you’ll require and the speed you’ll achieve while going uphill. We take this speed into account when determining the time estimate for your journey, and we also try hard to avoid routes that will require an unreasonable degree of exertion." Indeed, Google Maps shows 17 minutes from home to work on bicycle, …

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Never Send Error Email in a Loop

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Some of my favorite system outages are denial-of-service attacks brought on by coders who code as if nothing will ever go wrong. For instance, take the following section of pseudocode: foreach $email (@giant_list_of_customer_email_addrs) { @customer_info = get_database_info_for_customer($email); if (!defined(@customer_info)) { send_error_email_to_admins($email); } else { send_customer_email(@customer_info); undef(@customer_info); } } When get_database_info_for_customer() fails (such as when the database is down for maintenance), someone will get an email for every failure. This is merely annoying when @giant_list_of_customer_email_addrs is 50 people, but when it’s 200,000 people it’s a big problem. First, you get hundreds of copies of sendmail running (or whatever the mailer function uses — with a lazy coder like this it’ll usually be something that isn’t efficient at all). Second, your local …

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I Love the FCC Test App

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AT&T: The Nation’s Fastest 3G Network: This is out of the Twin Cities, MN, and the best of three tests. If I’m at home in Madison, WI I don’t get 3G with my half bar of service. The day the iPhone is available on another network, legitimately, I’m gone.

Well Played, Google

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Undoubtably you’ve seen the news about Google ending their censoring in mainland China: Users visiting Google.cn are now being redirected to Google.com.hk, where we are offering uncensored search in simplified Chinese, specifically designed for users in mainland China and delivered via our servers in Hong Kong. Users in Hong Kong will continue to receive their existing uncensored, traditional Chinese service, also from Google.com.hk. Personally, I love this solution, as it’s an elegant exploitation of the politics of China. 1. Remember that Hong Kong was turned over to China in 1997. According to Wikipedia, “The Basic Law [of Hong Kong] stipulates that Hong Kong shall enjoy a ‘high degree of autonomy’ in all matters except foreign relations and military defence.” This …

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Immortals

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It’s an interesting thing, this life. You’re born, you live, you die. And along the way there are certain epochs, milestones, that mark the journey. Early on you don’t remember these things, like learning to walk, or, just as crucial, going to the bathroom on your own. Sometimes you do remember them, like your first kiss, or holding your own offspring for the first time. Sometimes the events are obvious milestones, sometimes it takes years before you realize they were signs along the road. Sometimes these milestones are like the forbidden fruit in the garden of Eden, though. As much as you know they’re a part of life you’d like to put them back, take a do-over, and go back …

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links for 2010-02-14

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112 Eatery Just made an awesome sandwich: breakfast sausage patty fried until it's golden brown, slice of cheese, and a little bit of Sriracha sauce on a whole wheat English muffin. Hat tip to 112 Eatery in Minneapolis, though — they have a bacon, egg, and harissa sandwich that's awesome, and if I had bacon or [good] eggs on hand I might have tried for that. The spicy thing is the knockout punch, though. If you're in Minneapolis I recommend that place. Was there with a bunch of friends the first time and we ordered just about one of everything and split them all. MMMM.

links for 2010-02-13

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John's Deal of the Day: Deal of the Day – 2/13/10 "EA is giving away Command & Conquer games to celebrate the release of Command & Conquer 4. You can download any or all of these three games…" I played C&C a long time ago, downloading them right now to relive my youth! 🙂

links for 2010-02-12

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Prius owners blame wild rides on cruise control – CNN.com I think CNN interviewed a bunch of people who have no idea how their car works. For instance: "The car came to a stop on the shoulder of the road. An overwhelming battery smell wafted through the inside of the car, he said." That'd be a brake smell… Or: "When the car stopped, the two front brakes 'had a red glow to them,' he said." Yeah, stop rapidly any time and your brakes may glow. Friction causes heat. Or: "He frantically pushed the power button. It didn't respond." If you'd read your manual you'd find out that you need to push and HOLD it for three seconds, and that's intentional …

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