brian@ucsd.Edu (Brian Kantor) (01/28/91)
Not a bad conference, with several interesting papers and a couple of lively panel discussions, as well as the usual highly-informative hallway discussions and BOFs, but important things first: the hospitality suite ratings. I only went to the suites in the Kempinski (home of the concrete-slab mattress) hotel. Of those, I remember these: 1. IBM research. Fantastic; the munchies were the same as all the other suites, but there were lots more of them, and they were always hot. A good selection of beers, but it wasn't until the third day that someone finally realized that Corona is supposed to be served with LIME, not lemon. Unfortunately, there were no dark beers. The toys were nice and varied nightly. Good machines with interesting demos; technical people were always there and seemed to know what they were talking about, and there were no suits to jump into your wallet. Fantastic desserts after the Usenix conference reception (which didn't have any) and a good place to get free beers instead of buying them at the reception. The dessert inspection tool (pen flashlight) was quite handy to avoid dairy-based confections. It's amazing what you can put through a luggage-tag laminating machine. 2. Pencom. Nice ice cream and beers, build your own sundaes. I guess they aren't really selling technical things so there weren't any questions of that kind to ask, but at least they didn't try to snuggle up into your pockets as soon as you walked in. The screwdriver with the auto-retracting phillips end is still their mainstay trinket, and they had a few laughing golf-balls. This time I didn't have the urge to count my fingers after shaking hands with the reps; they're learning to mellow out a bit. Maybe they'd be ok to work for after all. 3. O'Reilly and Associates. Had a book signing for the new awk and perl books; crowded as hell but good munchies and beer. You could buy books from them there; I heard they weren't selling on the Uniforum showfloor. 4. Cray research. Minor munchies; ok if you're into fruit, grease and salt. Beers were ok, they ran out of "desk-top crays" [apparently a ceramic coaster] early on, but had lots of nifty balsa airplanes that were superb for bombing sorties against the sales-droids at the infomart. Again, not much in the way of technical people to ask questions of, but it seemed like a nice place to apply for a job, which might well have been the reason why they had the suite. Whoever changed the sign outside their suite to read "Control Data" wins the golden cudgel award for subtlety. I regret to say that the trade show was pretty much of a zero for me this time - didn't see anything of great interest. I heard it called "uniborum" several times. There didn't seem to be any really revolutionary new things there, but there were a lot of "me too" products being demonstrated by booth-boyz and booth-bimbos who really didn't know much about the product or company. The sales-droids all seemed to emit an aura of desperation; times must be harder than I thought. Whoever it was with the rap-singer booth-show seemed to be scaring more people away than attracting them. Besides the sales literature on some interesting products and a few neat demos, the major trinkets were good chocolate from Amdahl and some nifty stash-bottles from CITA, perfect for hanging your carkeys in when you're swimming or jogging. There were some more substantial toys if you went to a bunch of booths and got stamps in some order - then you got a nerf football or the like. Someone was giving away a Miata; I wonder who got it? Summary: technoids 3, salesdroids 0. The technical conference was worth it and the trade show wasn't. Your mileage may vary. Especially if you won the Miata. - Brian
david@indetech.com (David Kuder x2003) (01/28/91)
In article <26879@ucsd.Edu> brian@ucsd.Edu (Brian Kantor) writes: >or the like. Someone was giving away a Miata; I wonder who got it? The someone was Uniplex trying to entice the masses to buy an integrated office thingy suffering from all the proper TLAs. The winner was NCR's marketing director who spent the whole show just across the aisle in the NCR booth. P.S. I resent being called "booth boyz". I'd wear a t-shirt and jeans over the suit anyday. -- David A. Kuder Looking for enough time to get past patchlevel 1 415 438-2003 david@indetech.com {uunet,sun,sharkey,pacbell}!indetech!david
de5@ornl.gov (Dave Sill) (01/29/91)
In article <26879@ucsd.Edu>, brian@ucsd.Edu (Brian Kantor) writes: >Not a bad conference, with several interesting papers and a couple of >lively panel discussions, as well as the usual highly-informative >hallway discussions and BOFs, but important things first: the >hospitality suite ratings. So how does one find out about hospitality suites and get invited to them? -- Dave Sill (de5@ornl.gov) It will be a great day when our schools have Martin Marietta Energy Systems all the money they need and the Air Force Workstation Support has to hold a bake sale to buy a new bomber.
amanda@visix.com (Amanda Walker) (01/29/91)
In article <1991Jan28.005533.2951@iwarp.intel.com>, merlyn@iwarp.intel.com (Randal L. Schwartz) writes: > My take on Uniforum: I've never heard so many buzzwords in one room. > Wow. (Doesn't anyone sell anything that isn't a "transparently > multiscalable object-oriented SysV-compatible architecture" any more? :-) Hey, you forgot "Open," which must have been an official prerequisite for getting booth space. I epsecially liked the vendors that claimed exclusives on whatever type of "open system" they were selling. Kind of missed the point, I'd say... -- Amanda Walker Visix Software Inc.
jeffs@soul.esd.sgi.com (Jeff Smith) (01/29/91)
In article <26879@ucsd.Edu>, brian@ucsd.Edu (Brian Kantor) writes: |> 1. IBM research. Fantastic; .... It was actually commercial IBM (IBM Austin, home of the RS/6000). In the past (like W90) Reasearch had done it. Personally I didn't make it, but I did manage to get most of the goodies 2nd hand :-). jeffs
shaver@convex.com (Dave Shaver) (01/29/91)
Randal L. Schwartz writes: >My take on Uniforum: I've never heard so many buzzwords in one room. My favorite buzz-o-rama was the IBM booth where their "GUI allows for customized ICONS." WOW! You mean I get to *pick* my OWN icons! :-) /\ Dave Shaver \\ CONVEX Computer Corporation, Richardson, TX \/ Internet: shaver@convex.com UUCP: uunet!convex!shaver
steve@ibmpa.awdpa.ibm.com (Steve DeJarnett) (01/29/91)
In article <26879@ucsd.Edu> brian@ucsd.Edu (Brian Kantor) writes: >1. IBM research. Fantastic; Well, thanks. Glad you enjoyed it. We enjoyed putting it on (even if we are just catching up on our sleep again). The only thing to note is that this one was by IBM AWD (the RS/6000 people). Last winter's was IBM Research. Now, the suite did seem to attract a lot of the research folk, but, then, it seemed to attract a lot of people, in general. >Unfortunately, there were no dark beers. So noted. We only specified "imported beers only" to the hotel, which they took to mean the Heineken, Corona, and the other one (whose name escapes me at the moment). I know we've already mentioned that to the suite organizer, but we'll make sure we're more explicit when we specify "imported beers" next time. Steve Steve DeJarnett Internet: steve@ibmpa.awdpa.ibm.com IBM AWD Palo Alto UUCP: uunet!ibmpa.awdpa.ibm.com!steve (415) 855-3510 IBM VNET: dejarnet at ausvmq These opinions are my own. I doubt IBM wants them.......
jjhnsn@slcs.slb.com (James Lee Johnson) (01/29/91)
In article <1991Jan28.214313.29284@ibmpa.awdpa.ibm.com> steve@ibmpa.awdpa.ibm.com (Steve DeJarnett) writes: >In article <26879@ucsd.Edu> brian@ucsd.Edu (Brian Kantor) writes: >>1. IBM research. Fantastic; > ... >>Unfortunately, there were no dark beers. > > So noted. We only specified "imported beers only" to the hotel, which >they took to mean the Heineken, Corona, and the other one (whose name escapes >me at the moment). I know we've already mentioned that to the suite organizer, >but we'll make sure we're more explicit when we specify "imported beers" next >time. I suspect people would have enjoyed trying Shiner Bock, a good Texas beer. Unfortunately, I'm not sure you can get Shiner beer in Dallas :-) jj -- "I like black boxes; I hate black magic." James Lee Johnson Schlumberger Lab for Computer Science Austin, Texas Internet: jjhnsn@slcs.slb.com SINet: slcs::johnson UUCP: cs.utexas.edu!slcs.slb.com!jjhnsn
scs@lokkur.dexter.mi.us (Steve Simmons) (01/29/91)
steve@ibmpa.awdpa.ibm.com (Steve DeJarnett) writes: >In article <26879@ucsd.Edu> brian@ucsd.Edu (Brian Kantor) writes: >>Unfortunately, there were no dark beers. > So noted. We only specified "imported beers only" to the hotel, which >they took to mean the Heineken, Corona, and the other one (whose name escapes >me at the moment). It was `BitBerger'. Who could ask for a more appropriate beer for USENIX? -- "SO be it! The fate of the UNIVERSE is in your hands!" "Talk about job-related stress."
henry@garp.mit.edu (Henry Mensch) (01/30/91)
steve@ibmpa.awdpa.ibm.com (Steve DeJarnett) writes: |> >Unfortunately, there were no dark beers. |> |> So noted. We only specified "imported beers only" to the hotel ... the whole thing is the hotel's fault ... for an outfit owned by lufthansa german airlines, it is a crime that they only had one beer you might want to drink (this was also the case at the bar and in the restaurants). -- # Henry Mensch / <henry@garp.mit.edu> / E40-379 MIT, Cambridge, MA # <hmensch@uk.ac.nsfnet-relay> / <henry@tts.lth.se> / <mensch@munnari.oz.au> # via X.400: S=mensch; OU=informatik; P=tu-muenchen; A=dbp; C=de
rob@hanalei.berkeley.edu (Rob Robertson) (01/31/91)
In article <5051@media-lab.MEDIA.MIT.EDU> henry@garp.mit.edu (Henry Mensch) writes:
the whole thing is the hotel's fault ... for an outfit owned by lufthansa
german airlines, it is a crime that they only had one beer you might want to
drink (this was also the case at the bar and in the restaurants).
hey man, what do you expect from a fly by night outfit...
* goan *
rob
pat@grebyn.com (Pat Bahn) (01/31/91)
In article <1991Jan28.171959.9679@cs.utk.edu> de5@ornl.gov writes: > >So how does one find out about hospitality suites and get invited to >them? If you have to ask, YOU ARE ABSOLUTELY NOT ALLOWED TO GO!!!!!!!! :-) BTW Spider systems at the 89 interop had a invite only hospitality suite with a sales droid barring the way. So yours truly and two guys from martin BS'd him into letting us in. I told him we were here to survey products for the SDINET and that absolutely spider wouldn't be on it. Worked like a champ. Unfortunately I had to spend all the rest of the night getting their president of my case. He wanted to talk saales and I wanted to drink........ -- ============================================================================= Pat @ grebyn.com | There is a fine line between art and insanity. 301-948-8142 | Pat Bahn =============================================================================
dyker@cs.colorado.edu (Barbara Dyker) (02/01/91)
>| 3. O'Reilly and Associates. Had a book signing for the new awk and perl >| books; crowded as hell but good munchies and beer. You could buy books >| from them there; I heard they weren't selling on the Uniforum showfloor. > No selling allowed in Uniforum. Huh? I know Prentice Hall sells books at InterOp and I saw them at Uniforum assuming they would be happy to sell me a book (and bill me for 1 cent rounding error later as they did before). I can understand a rule not allowing selling of computer products, but books? Noone takes money, but you can't say there was no "selling". ...Barb dyker@cs.colorado.edu
merlyn@iwarp.intel.com (Randal L. Schwartz) (02/01/91)
In article <1991Jan31.220216.5438@csn.org>, dyker@cs (Barbara Dyker) writes: | Huh? I know Prentice Hall sells books at InterOp and I saw them at | Uniforum assuming they would be happy to sell me a book (and bill me | for 1 cent rounding error later as they did before). | | I can understand a rule not allowing selling of computer products, | but books? Noone takes money, but you can't say there was no "selling". Just passin' on what they told me. *I'd* have been perfectly pleased if they could have sold some Perl books at the O'R&A Uniforum booth, but I was told "no selling". In fact, they were sending people over to the little bookstore just down the hallway if they expressed interest, or taking orders via an order sheet. But no money exchanged hands. Maybe P-H thinks they're big enough that they can get away with it? Just another Perl book hacker, -- /=Randal L. Schwartz, Stonehenge Consulting Services (503)777-0095 ==========\ | on contract to Intel's iWarp project, Beaverton, Oregon, USA, Sol III | | merlyn@iwarp.intel.com ...!any-MX-mailer-like-uunet!iwarp.intel.com!merlyn | \=Cute Quote: "Intel: putting the 'backward' in 'backward compatible'..."====/
njs@scifi.uucp (Nicholas J. Simicich;?) (02/01/91)
For IBM Research, we specified beer lists in advance, and went out to get the ones that the hotel couldn't get for us after negotiating corkage. We went for particular brands. I was sorry to miss this Usenix. -- Nick Simicich - uunet!bywater!scifi!njs - njs@ibm.com SSI #AOWI 3958, HSA 318
brad@looking.on.ca (Brad Templeton) (02/04/91)
Well, for unknown reasons the Marriott was willing to let me cater my own suite during USENIX. Thus I kept everybody happy for a pittance compared to hotel catering charges with a keg and bottles of different beers, a bathtub of ice and various munchies. The problem was the 9 minute walk to the alternate hotel, of course. It occurs to me that it might be worth encouraging USENIX to look for hotels that are more amenable to this sort of thing. Almost *any* hotel is amenable if it makes the difference in getting a convention. (Admittedly some hotels have sworn off SF conventions, which are major consumers of non-catered suite space.) Based on what IBM pays to host their suite, it could offer USENIX a multi-thousand dollar bribe to pick a hotel that allows self-catered suites, and still save money! Usenix folk are interested in neat new technology, nice toys, and interesting and tasty things to eat and drink. They have little concern for fancy service, bartenders in tuxedos and armies of waiters. -- Brad Templeton, ClariNet Communications Corp. -- Waterloo, Ontario 519/884-7473
libes@cme.nist.gov (Don Libes) (02/05/91)
In article <26879@ucsd.Edu> brian@ucsd.Edu (Brian Kantor) writes: >Not a bad conference, with several interesting papers and a couple of >lively panel discussions, as well as the usual highly-informative >hallway discussions and BOFs, but important things first: the >hospitality suite ratings. Now that we've seen 20 messages describing the window contest, book selling, lack of dark beer, and hospitality suite analysis comparable to the best of CNN Gulf War reporting, I'd be interested to read about the technical aspects. Would anyone care to summarize some of the best talks and papers? Bear in mind, most readers don't have the proceedings yet. Someone already asked if they are on-line, but I saw no answer. Perhaps individuals could post where their papers are. Perhaps we could start pushing the technical aspects of these conferences a little harder. How about naming a "Best Paper" in each conference? Maybe in 3 months (to give everyone time to receive and read the proceedings) we can survey for this honor? Don Libes libes@cme.nist.gov ...!uunet!cme-durer!libes
ed@mtxinu.COM (Ed Gould) (02/05/91)
Brad Templeton: >Well, for unknown reasons the Marriott was willing to let me cater my >own suite during USENIX. ... >Usenix folk are interested in neat new technology, nice toys, and >interesting and tasty things to eat and drink. They have little >concern for fancy service, bartenders in tuxedos and armies of waiters. This is all true, but just doesn't make it onto the list of important criteria for choosing a site for a USENIX Conference. The primary considerations are space availability and cost. The multi-thousand dollar "bribe" that Brad suggested IBM might be willing to pay to self-cater their suite just doesn't go very far towards defraying the $10,000 - $25,000 it takes to rent a meting room large enough to hold our sessions for a week. Or the further expense for rooms for tutorials, BOFs, the terminal room, parallel sessions, etc. If the hotel has sufficient facilities on site, then the meeting rooms are typically included in the package: If we book enough sleeping rooms, the rest of the space comes for free. If the hotel doesn't have the space, then we have to rent it elsewhere. On the whole, Judy DesHarnais, our Conference Coordinator, does a wonderful job of balancing our needs and desires against the not always sympathetic positions of the people who manage the facilities. (speaking for myself) -- Ed Gould mt Xinu, 2560 Ninth St., Berkeley, CA 94710 USA ed@mtxinu.COM +1 415 644 0146 "I'll fight them as a woman, not a lady. I'll fight them as an engineer."
terri_watson@cis.ohio-state.edu (02/05/91)
Well, I won't really summarize any papers, but I might encourage some discussion on the kernel panel session. I found it interesting and slightly entertaining. The main theme was micro vs. monolithic kernel design <or the lack thereof :>. what should be in the kernel? is it better to have "everything you ever wanted + the kitchen sink" in there to minimize context switching etc, or would you rather move it into user space for "clean structure" and "modularity" but pay a penalty for messages etc, or what about separate components that can be tested in user space, but moved into kernel space for increased efficiency? obviously, not all the pros & cons are listed above, but this is a sample of the talk(/discussion/argument/<meta-del> -- argument? did _I_ say that?). other phrases included importance of "glue" between the boxes -- how do you connect the components together? large kernels: are "large" kernels inherently bad? or is it just that they weren't designed properly? could they be designed properly? can they be made to work on new architectures with parallelism & distributed environs effectively? micro kernels: do you have to pay a severe penalty for message passing? are they easier to debug? more flexible? one argument is that such kernels are more effective in providing mechanism, not policy how many primitives should be in the kernel? One point that was made near the end of the discussion was that some of the conflict seemed to arise from the style of computing that the user preferred, single machine/board based, or more distributed. Should a user want to share "his" machines resources with others? (Personally, I would say emphatically YES in the general case, but apparently some there were not of the same opinion. For those of us with no money to buy many machines of our own, the thought of stealing idle cycles from hundreds of other machines is immensely appealing. <grin>) Terri Watson The Ohio State University elf@cis.ohio-state.edu
henry@zoo.toronto.edu (Henry Spencer) (02/05/91)
In article <ELF.91Feb4151419@giza.cis.ohio-state.edu> terri_watson@cis.ohio-state.edu writes: >micro kernels: >do you have to pay a severe penalty for message passing? are they >easier to debug? more flexible? one argument is that such kernels >are more effective in providing mechanism, not policy And is it really appropriate to call 60,000 lines of source a "micro" kernel? (Mach.) -- "Maybe we should tell the truth?" | Henry Spencer at U of Toronto Zoology "Surely we aren't that desperate yet." | henry@zoo.toronto.edu utzoo!henry
brad@looking.on.ca (Brad Templeton) (02/05/91)
Oh, I agree, clearly the conference's needs for space and facilities are paramount. What I really wanted to say was that hotels can be far more flexible than they pretend to be, and that USENIX might consider that. USENIX is the technical meeting place for the unix community, but it is/has become a social activity as well. -- Brad Templeton, ClariNet Communications Corp. -- Waterloo, Ontario 519/884-7473
pst@jessica.Stanford.EDU (Paul Traina) (02/05/91)
In article <1991Feb4.223144.14566@zoo.toronto.edu> henry@zoo.toronto.edu (Henry Spencer) writes:
And is it really appropriate to call 60,000 lines of source a "micro" kernel?
(Mach.)
You're right Henry, UNIX kernels are too slow and bloated.
I could have done the whole thing in...oh, I dunno, maybe...AWK!?!
...yeah...AWK, that's it, that's the ticket!
/vmunix_awk
Paul
p.s. :-)
sonya@canstar.UUCP (Sonya D. Neufer) (02/06/91)
In article <1991Feb05.075920.7712@looking.on.ca> brad@looking.on.ca (Brad Templeton) writes: >What I really wanted to say was that hotels can be far more flexible than >they pretend to be, and that USENIX might consider that. What specific ways might USENIX better consider how hotels are willing to be more flexible?? Don't forget to include the unseen factors in your suggestion. For Example, I have heard the suggestion that the USENIX "get-together" should be held outside the conference hotel. If this is done, then the hotel sees their income decrease and they will charge more for other items, such as meeting room space. As well, getting over 1,100 people to another location is not my idea of scheduling fun, much less cost reduction. I am sure USENIX would give full consideration to well thought out specific suggestions. Sonya
rjg@umnstat.uucp (Robert J. Granvin) (02/06/91)
>Usenix folk are interested in neat new technology, nice toys, and >interesting and tasty things to eat and drink. They have little >concern for fancy service, bartenders in tuxedos and armies of waiters. Just as a personal comment, for anyone who is taking score, I like neat new technology, but I also appreciate good service at good facilities, and am willing to pay for it. If I'm passing through a city on my way to somewhere else, and just a place to crash, a Motel 6 ot a cardboard box will do just fine. If I'm going to exist someplace for a while, I'm happy to pay extra (although sometimes grudgingly :-) for better quality and superior service. But that's just me (comfort alert! :-). Robert J. Granvin E/Mail: rjg@umnstat.stat.umn.edu User Services Specialist AT&T: +1 612 625 9224 School of Statistics University of Minnesota