chongo@amdahl.amdahl.com (Landon Curt Noll) (05/29/87)
It would be VERY VERY nice if the USENIX people would put up a board that shows who is holding public Hospitality suites, when and where! chongo <> /\oo/\ -- [views above shouldn't be viewed as Amdahl views, or as views from Amdahl, or as Amdahl views views, or as views by Mr. Amdahl, or as views from his house]
woods@hao.UUCP (05/30/87)
In article <7467@amdahl.amdahl.com> chongo@amdahl.UUCP (Landon Curt Noll) writes: >a board shows who is holding public Hospitality suites, when and where! An excellent suggestion! No reason why any of us should miss out on a chance for free food and booze! :-) --Greg -- UUCP: {hplabs, seismo, nbires, noao}!hao!woods CSNET: woods@ncar.csnet ARPA: woods%ncar@CSNET-RELAY.ARPA INTERNET: woods@hao.ucar.edu
wendyt@pyrps5 (Wendy Thrash) (06/02/89)
In addition to the posted responses to my hospitality suite question, I received a fair amount of mail. I promised to summarize for the net, so here goes. (Thanks to Rich Salz, Joe Buck, Len Tower, Greg Woods, Peter da Silva, Stavros Macrakis, and especially Dick Dunn.) A hospitality suite can get your company name recognition, and it can plant a seed in the minds of potential employees, but only if it's done well. Do it well or not at all. What does it take to do it well? In order of decreasing emphasis, - Technical people to talk to = Good food = Good drinks = Useful freebies = Interesting toys on display People who read comp.org.usenix don't want to be greeted at the door by a suit. They want to talk to technical people, and not just managers. Don't bother with slick brochures unless you have a large trashcan nearby, just fly in a couple of extra techies. Sales and HR people should be bound, gagged, and stuffed in a closet while the suite is open. (Of course, some of us techies might volunteer for that too, but that's a whole 'nother topic, more appropriate for a different newsgroup. ;-) ) Have lots of food, and make sure it's edible. Remember both the vegetarians (who'd appreciate _fresh_ fruit and vegetables and perhaps some hummus) and the meat and grease eaters (who'll eat just about anything except fresh fruit, vegetables, and hummus). Whatever you serve, make it possible to make a meal of it, and count on some folks doing that. Yes, you'll be subsidizing some poor students and some hackers whose companies wouldn't pay their way to the meeting, but those are precisely the people you have the best chance of hiring. It's the perfect way to target your audience. Serve beer. Real beer. If the readers of this group have their way, Anchor Steam stock should be a good investment. Consider good small breweries, too. Don't bother with Bud. Serve something nonalcoholic -- _real_ Coke was requested, along with fruit juices. Don't run out. If you want to serve wine, look for something decent, not Gallo Hearty Burgundy. If nobody in your organization knows enough to select a low-priced but good wine, then you probably shouldn't serve it. If you want to give away something, try to find something useful. (There was an article in this group with a list of possible useful freebies; personally, I liked the idea of a small card listing known ways of breaking Unix security, but I'm a bit perverse.) Anything useful will be around long after the shoelaces have tied their last noose. Finally, if you really want to captivate your audience, have some fast, spiffy hardware in your suite, and let them play with it. This approach is too dangerous for most companies, of course, and some of us have products that aren't all that portable, but I well recall all those parties at T*** Hall when the real hackers would ignore the drug-crazed weasel humping going on down the hall, fighting for a place at the keyboard of the then-new Sun 3 and Amiga. Best of luck to all you hospitaliters out there; with luck we may stamp out cold pizza and cheap beer in our lifetime. -Wendy
david@ms.uky.edu (David Herron -- One of the vertebrae) (06/02/89)
I agreed with most all of this posting, but something struck me as I read it. In article <72353@pyramid.pyramid.com> wendyt@pyrps5.pyramid.com (Wendy Thrash) writes: >If you want to serve wine, look for something decent, not Gallo Hearty >Burgundy. If nobody in your organization knows enough to select a low-priced >but good wine, then you probably shouldn't serve it. A good wine is important if you're serving wine, but there's something most people don't know. Most of the wines in the world have lots of sulfites left in 'em by the vintner. Sulfites are used in the brewing process at the beginning to sterilize the wine, and usually at the end to stop the fermentation. They're very convenient because otherwise you have to boil the wine before fermentation -- and not all people are comfortable with boiling wine, and stopping the fermentation is a tricky business without sulfites. Unfortunately some people, like my most recent girlfriend, are very sensitive to sulfites. We discovered this about her one night after she'd had about 3 glasses of wine, she got very serious pains in her chest, had a hard time breathing, and basically felt very very bad. So bad she started to want to go to the hospital, but fortunately it passed within 10 minutes after she lay down. She gets milder reactions with as little as 1 glass of wine, but still gets a reaction. Ever since then I've started paying attention to that Contains Sulfites notice on the bottle and avoiding those wines even though I have no reaction to them. It may not be something that stands out, but what if someone drinks wine at your H.S. without checking and gets a reaction? -- <- David Herron; an MMDF guy <david@ms.uky.edu> <- ska: David le casse\*' {rutgers,uunet}!ukma!david, david@UKMA.BITNET <- By all accounts, Cyprus (or was it Crete?) was covered with trees at one time <- -- Until they discovered Bronze
avolio@decuac.dec.com (Frederick M. Avolio) (06/02/89)
Not me, boy. *I* want Jolt wine. twice the sulfites. Twice the asthma!
dyer@spdcc.COM (Steve Dyer) (06/02/89)
In article <11817@s.ms.uky.edu> david@ms.uky.edu (David Herron -- One of the vertebrae) writes: >A good wine is important if you're serving wine, but there's something >most people don't know. Most of the wines in the world have lots of >sulfites left in 'em by the vintner. Yeah, and people allergic to peanuts should keep their hands out of the peanut bowl. If you are dangerously sensitive to sulfites, you'd have to have a death wish to drink wine regardless of what's on the label. I'm really trying to figure out what this has to do with hospitality suites. -- Steve Dyer dyer@ursa-major.spdcc.com aka {ima,harvard,rayssd,linus,m2c}!spdcc!dyer dyer@arktouros.mit.edu
rcd@ico.ISC.COM (Dick Dunn) (06/02/89)
This should really get shifted over to rec.food.drink, except that it's already been beaten to death over there (more than once). In article <11817@s.ms.uky.edu>, david@ms.uky.edu (David Herron -- One of the vertebrae) writes: > A good wine is important if you're serving wine, but there's something > most people don't know. Most of the wines in the world have lots of > sulfites left in 'em by the vintner... No, most wines have some (not lots) of sulfites...some of which are added during winemaking, but wine has some amount of sulfite present as part of the process. >...Sulfites are used in the brewing > process at the beginning to sterilize the wine... Ack! Please! Wine is not brewed! > to stop the fermentation. They're very convenient because otherwise you > have to boil the wine before fermentation... Nonsense. You don't boil wine, period. That will kill it. > Unfortunately some people, like my most recent girlfriend, are very > sensitive to sulfites... This is true; there are people who are quite sensitive. It's a rare problem, but that's small comfort to the people who are affected. How- ever, there are other places where you'll find sulfites aplenty. Wines are a problem to people with this problem, but they're not the only (nor even the most serious) problem. The reason for labeling wines is that you've got a combination of sulfites present in sufficient concentration to be a potential problem and a rabid teetotaler lobby which will do anything to scare the hell out of people who might want to take a drink. > Ever since then I've started paying attention to that > > Contains Sulfites With all due respect to the problem David mentions, almost all wines have sulfites in sufficient quantity to require the label. The "Contains Sulfites" label is being phased in. Given two wines, one with the warning and one without, the probability is >95% that the one without the warning was simply bottled/labeled long enough ago that it wasn't required to have the warning. My point is that the LACK of the "Contains Sulfites" label doesn't mean shit to a tree. If you want/need a low-sulfite wine, DO NOT assume that the lack of warning will take care of it. Check with the winery. > It may not be something that stands out, but what if someone drinks > wine at your H.S. without checking and gets a reaction? So what? What if you serve salad or tacos or some such, with lettuce, and there's a sulfite compound on the lettuce--more likely to be a problem. What is this, a scare tactic? Is anyone who runs a H.S. supposed to run a full allergy panel on everyone before serving anything? Take the liability games elsewhere, please. -- Dick Dunn UUCP: {ncar,nbires}!ico!rcd (303)449-2870 ...CAUTION: I get mean when my blood-capsaicin level gets low.
dave@csd4.milw.wisc.edu (David A Rasmussen) (06/03/89)
From article <3429@ursa-major.SPDCC.COM>, by dyer@spdcc.COM (Steve Dyer):
> have to have a death wish to drink wine regardless of what's on the label.
Speaking of labels, it would be nice if hors doeuvres, especially things that
look like something they aren't, and other food, to be identified to eliminate
complications due to allergies. I am allergic to some fish, and after asking a
caterer about something last year, I just took a bite, spit it out, and spent
the next hour with inhaler in front of the reservation desk in case I had to
go to the hospital. I didn't but... labels could have prevented this.
--
Dave Rasmussen, UW Milwaukee Computing Services Division. Uucp: uwmcsd4!dave,
Inet: dave@csd4.milw.wisc.edu, Bitnet: dave%csd4.milw.wisc.edu@INTERBIT
Bellnet: 414-229-5133. "Hey Mister, are you tall?" "Yes I'm tall but who
are all you weird little wonders?" - Tom 'Tbone' Stankus.paul@deadpup.UUCP (paul) (06/04/89)
In article <2754@csd4.milw.wisc.edu>, dave@csd4.milw.wisc.edu (David A Rasmussen) writes: > Speaking of labels, it would be nice if hors doeuvres, especially things that > look like something they aren't, and other food, to be identified to eliminate > complications due to allergies. I am allergic to some fish, and after asking a > caterer about something last year, I just took a bite, spit it out, and spent > the next hour with inhaler in front of the reservation desk in case I had to > go to the hospital. I didn't but... labels could have prevented this. My wife has a SEVERE reaction to Monosodium Glutimate. In my experience, labling the dish is not in order, so much as someone in the general vicinity having a complete ingredient list. As we know of the problem, we ask. If the information is not available, we eat elsewhere. If we get erroneous information, as the gentleman above, I tend to be sure to express great displeasure (at the very least :-). Paul J. Mech oucsace.cs.OHIOU.EDU!deadpup!paul uiucuxc!oucs!oucsace!deadpup!paul
tower@buita.bu.edu (Leonard (Len) H. Tower Jr.) (12/20/90)
In article <1990Dec14.084852.2406@looking.on.ca> brad@looking.on.ca (Brad Templeton) writes: |The Marriott (I thought USENIX swore never to return to Marriotts?) alternate |hotel is "2 blocks" away in the brochure, so I called their Bell Captain |and asked how far to the Grand K. He said 15 minutes, then 10 minutes, and |then when I suggested holding a reception in their hotel he said 1 minute! The Marriott is 3 blocks and an under five minute walk from the Grand K. The walk is along the access road of a parkway and had almost no sidewalks three years ago. It also crosses Beltline Road, a very busy 4 or 6 lane main drag. There is a traffic light. And the restuarant was never crowded at breakfast. No waits! I found it almost always quicker to walk then take the shuttle bus USENIX had running. Dallas drivers were not use to predestrians along this route. Just take extra care and you'll be fine. Here is a summary of a survey on Hospitality suites Wendy Thrash did in June 1989. About time for the vendors to be reminded of how to do a suite right! I have one comment to add. Get the largest space you can. The Sun hospitality suite the 2nd night of the Anaheim USENIX was the first that wasn't elbow-to-elbow SRO that I have been to at a USENIX. Being able to freely move around and not be bumped randomly was a distinct pleasure. A one or two room hotel suite just does not cut it. Here's hoping that at least IBM and DEC will follow Sun's lead ... enjoy -len From wendyt@pyrps5 Fri Jun 2 21:39:36 1989 Path: bu-cs!bloom-beacon!apple!oliveb!pyramid!wendyt From: wendyt@pyrps5 (Wendy Thrash) Newsgroups: comp.org.usenix Subject: Hospitality suites (summary) Date: 1 Jun 89 18:58:22 GMT Date-Received: 1 Jun 89 20:23:51 GMT Sender: daemon@pyramid.pyramid.com Reply-To: wendyt@pyrps5.pyramid.com (Wendy Thrash) Organization: Pyramid Technology Corp., Mountain View, CA In addition to the posted responses to my hospitality suite question, I received a fair amount of mail. I promised to summarize for the net, so here goes. (Thanks to Rich Salz, Joe Buck, Len Tower, Greg Woods, Peter da Silva, Stavros Macrakis, and especially Dick Dunn.) A hospitality suite can get your company name recognition, and it can plant a seed in the minds of potential employees, but only if it's done well. Do it well or not at all. What does it take to do it well? In order of decreasing emphasis, - Technical people to talk to = Good food = Good drinks = Useful freebies = Interesting toys on display People who read comp.org.usenix don't want to be greeted at the door by a suit. They want to talk to technical people, and not just managers. Don't bother with slick brochures unless you have a large trashcan nearby, just fly in a couple of extra techies. Sales and HR people should be bound, gagged, and stuffed in a closet while the suite is open. (Of course, some of us techies might volunteer for that too, but that's a whole 'nother topic, more appropriate for a different newsgroup. ;-) ) Have lots of food, and make sure it's edible. Remember both the vegetarians (who'd appreciate _fresh_ fruit and vegetables and perhaps some hummus) and the meat and grease eaters (who'll eat just about anything except fresh fruit, vegetables, and hummus). Whatever you serve, make it possible to make a meal of it, and count on some folks doing that. Yes, you'll be subsidizing some poor students and some hackers whose companies wouldn't pay their way to the meeting, but those are precisely the people you have the best chance of hiring. It's the perfect way to target your audience. Serve beer. Real beer. If the readers of this group have their way, Anchor Steam stock should be a good investment. Consider good small breweries, too. Don't bother with Bud. Serve something nonalcoholic -- _real_ Coke was requested, along with fruit juices. Don't run out. If you want to serve wine, look for something decent, not Gallo Hearty Burgundy. If nobody in your organization knows enough to select a low-priced but good wine, then you probably shouldn't serve it. If you want to give away something, try to find something useful. (There was an article in this group with a list of possible useful freebies; personally, I liked the idea of a small card listing known ways of breaking Unix security, but I'm a bit perverse.) Anything useful will be around long after the shoelaces have tied their last noose. Finally, if you really want to captivate your audience, have some fast, spiffy hardware in your suite, and let them play with it. This approach is too dangerous for most companies, of course, and some of us have products that aren't all that portable, but I well recall all those parties at T*** Hall when the real hackers would ignore the drug-crazed weasel humping going on down the hall, fighting for a place at the keyboard of the then-new Sun 3 and Amiga. Best of luck to all you hospitaliters out there; with luck we may stamp out cold pizza and cheap beer in our lifetime. -Wendy