[LUGSB] Meeting this Friday - call for topics

[John Zabroski]

To the casual observer, I am extremely extraverted and comfortable talking about anything.  To the casual observer, I've always been that way.  That is not true.  When I was a kid, I was very shy and anti-social.  My parents thought I was deaf because I would never talk to them or respond to them.  They actually brought me to a doctor to make sure I didn't have Down's Syndrome or some other disability.  In fact, I had three friends my whole life until I was 13 years old.

It takes experience to get to the point where you are comfortable saying anything, including "I don't know" and "I don't have an answer right now, but if you give me your e-mail address I can send you information."  If you are a computer science major, you have to learn to say "I don't know."  You are studying an evolving field, where much of the information is ephemeral at best.  For instance, I can say certain things, like "Pointers are hard!"  However, I can't fully explain to you the "science" of pointers.  Computer Science as a field of research isn't mature enough for me to provide you with a sufficient explanation.  And pointers are a significant concept in Computer Science, because they are how we express and share resources.  Yet, I can't really tell you how to best use them in all aspects of Computer Science, because I don't have that answer.  In fact, no one does.  It's an open area of research.  Therefore, some advanced questions about pointers deserve an "I
 don't know" answer. The simple answers, like explaining proper pointer semantics, are capable of being explained.

Also, don't be afraid to say dumb things, because this is a bright group of people who can correct you and make you smarter.  You will benefit from it.  Jeff Sipek is one of my best friends, and is an active participant in my life, and he can tell you countless stories about how many dumb things I say.  And how many times he's corrected me and made me smarter for it.

Kimberly Albrecht <kim at fsl.cs.sunysb.edu> wrote: I completely know the feeling of not feeling like I know enough about a subject to talk about it.  But, the point of this meeting is to really try and make it easy for anyone to get up there and talk about something.  It doesn't have to be anything too in depth, and it'll be a topic of your choice.  I'm hoping to have a lot of speakers talking about a wide variety of things, on all levels of experience.  Really, I'm looking for even the n00best of n00bs to be able to get up there and talk about something they like for 5 minutes or so.   

Be brave, young marshmallows.  It's all supposed to just be fun.  :)

- Kim

On 3/6/07, Diane Napolitano < dmnapolitano at gmail.com> wrote:On 3/6/07,  JT <chozar at gmail.com> wrote:  I am not a Linux/Unix guru nor a masters student like some people in
LUGSB, so I really do not have extensive enough knowledge to give a
real talk on anything significant, although I could probably briefly
go over some things that I do know. 

But taking that into consideration, I would be willing to cram as much
knowledge into my head about something I don't know, and give a talk
about what I have learned.  One thing that I have wanted to know more 
about for a while now (among many) is NTP, brought more into light now
due to DST changes.  I am sure that I could have 5 - 10 minutes worth
to talk about on friday, providing I am given leniency in my talk when 
I say something completely incorrect and mislead people.  Kind of not
the best week for me to do this, but I'll be there with something to
say about NTP and UNIX time in general.
 <snip> 

You know, I hate to sound like a hippie liberal female here, but I do have to say that JT has touched on a good point.  I for one, and clearly I'm not alone, am confident in my knowledge, but not confident enough to be sure I could hold my own in front of a crowd of 20 people who I'm trying to impress while someone from the audience is engaging me in debate.  Think back to how many times you've been on a forum and been "instructed" to RTFM for a question whose answer you thought was unobtainable.  Now imagine doing that in person. 

Plus you're not exactly addressing the most sociable bunch here.  I mean come on, I come to every meeting and still only talk to the same five people (and barely at that, since they kinda intimidate me) :)  It's hard to get up in front of a group of people and talk about, gee I don't know, *BSD, when you know there's a guy in the audience who has been hacking it since he was six ;) 

I know this is the type of environment we're trying to work against here, but, well...I imagine it's a concern of many on this list, not just myself and JT.

- Diane


 
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