Here’s the next-to-last installment of this essay. Remember, most of this was originally written before the decision to launch LOPSA as a stand-alone entity. However, I believe that it all remains relevent as LOPSA plans its first full year of independent operation. !! Different goals of USENIX and (old)SAGE USENIX and (old)SAGE are, as are…
So I have this idea to make a quilt out of my old SAGE and LISA Tee Shirts and Raffle it at the next LISA as a benefit for LOPSA. I have a bunch of shirts and some ideas on how to approach this. My Shirts don’t go back too far though. My first LISA…
Like many of us here, I have been reading “Time Management for System Administrators” by Thomas Limoncelli. A lot of what is in the book is common sense, things that you look at and go, “Oh! Hey, right on!” or “Why did I not think of that in that way before?”. Then I got to…
If you don’t like talking to people, especially in person, or to strangers who are not even remotely technical, then get out now. Sometimes, I feel like I’ve been consulting since the womb. In practicality, every FTE position I’ve had, I’ve really just been a consultant who happened to have health insurance, and worthless stock…
We are social animals, much like the systems many of us run. A Unix system not connected to the Internet doesn’t remain healthy for long; it craves communication with others for it to be useful. I had dinner with a friend who made the observation that people want to be part of a community but…
Well, I’m back. It was an incredibly hectic week at LISA, and I’m still digging out at work from being gone for the week. I hope to finally get all the pieces of this essay done in the next 2 weeks. There have been lots of developments in the USENIX, SAGE and LOPSA relationships. I…
As promised, here are my notes on the [[anti] SPAM guru session held Thursday Decmber 7 from 9AM to 10:30AM. This document is member editable in wiki format. Add stuff as needed. Put offsite hyper links in square brackets. Put onsite hyperlinks in square brackets. Any link starting with http: is automatically hyperlinked; in square…
A different kind of tagging! If you’re getting home from LISA and have some of those spiral-bound paper tutorial notes, it’ll be easier to find them on your bookshelf and refer to them in the future if you “tag” them. I write the title and year and sometimes the author on both sides of one…
Where else can you go and have celebrities take pictures of you? Ok, so as a member of the LOPSA board and past author, some of you may consider me a minor celebrity. I don’t! But whatever, it is still quite impressive to be standing around talking and have people like Æleen Frisch and Mark…
I have previously attended two LISA in the very distant past; 1996 and 1997 (I think….) in Chicago and Monterey (feel free to comment if I missed my years). I remember from those times spending a lot of time talking to very technical people, a lot of time drinking with very technical people, and having…