SIGDOC, first evening

[cellio]

Tonight at the opening reception I spent some time talking with Bob Newman. In doing the "so what does your company do?" thing, I told him about CoMotion and CPOF and he seemed very interested. He sees what we do as "design of communication" -- not all communication involves words, after all, and the principles that apply to organizing data are sometimes the same ones that apply to organizing documentation. This is a good point. (Unbeknownest to me, the "DOC" in "SIGDOC" actually changed from "documentation" to "design of communication" a couple years back, in part to attract a broader audience.)

It turns out that Bob is the chair of next year's conference, and the theme is "documenting and designing for pervasive information". He would like to see a paper submission from us. Now maybe he says that to all the writers, but it's worth thinking about. (And the conference doesn't conflict with the high holy days next year either, so I could theoretically go.)

After the reception a couple guys from SAS in Raleigh and I headed out for dinner. One of them had been to Memphis before, so we let him guide us to Beale Street. It's hard to tell from just tonight's data points, but my tentative conclusion is that vegetarians are just SOL in this town, or at least on Beale Street. (I haven't looked into the hotel restaurant yet.)

The hotel is pretty spiffy, especially for the price ($95 plus tax). I have a two-room suite with microwave and fridge, though there are no dishes so I assume the microwave is intended for frozen dinners or something. There's a TV in each room (which is two more than I need but there's plenty of space so I don't care), and free network access (wired) in the room. The one downside is that my room is just off the lobby and it's noisy in the outer room, but the noise doesn't seem to carry into the bedroom so I don't care all that much.

This laptop is much worse than the one I borrowed this summer in one respect: legibility. More specifically, I can't find any controls, physical or digital, that affect contrast and brightness, and the defaults are harsh (to me). Dell laptop running XP Professional, in case anyone's got ideas. (The "native" resolution is also high for such a small screen, so I've got fonts cranked up both at the OS level and in my apps. But still, the brightness makes it hard to use.)

Comments

[rectangularcat]

I think you're close to the place I adopted my cat Bela from.

I can't offer much suggestions. Pig seems to be the city dish alas. I am sure I could find something if I were there but I can't seem to come up with anything... Haven't been back since 2001!