Received 04/08/2008 08:13

Conference rant

This rant has been a long time coming, and those of you that know me have probably heard it all before, but considering I'm at yet another conference that appears to be having the same problem I feel it's time to revisit old wounds.

Nearly all conferences these days have a stipulation that your paper will only get published if you actually attend the conference itself. The past few conferences I've been to have made this well known in the documentation, but have obviously failed to see it through. Looking at the printed publications list for my session today I see around 15 papers printed. Of those, 7 are actually on the agenda today for people that have said they will turn up. Of those, 5 of us actually turned up and presented, and that was one of the better turnouts ! This mornings session had 3 out of 9. For someone who has flown from the other side of the world to attend the conference with hopes of actually hearing some interesting presentations this really s&#t's me off.

I propose that conferences should hold off printing official publications until after the conference is complete - and then mail them out to the people who actually attended, only including those papers which were presented or papers where the presenter couldn't at the last minute make it. We need to remove this idea that you basically just "pay" the registration fee to get your paper printed as it really ruins the reputation of the conference. Who is going to bother turning up to a conference if you know that only 1/4 of the papers will get presented and every session will just end up finishing early ?

Perhaps I'm bitter because others who are geographically "down-the- road" have just paid money to get published where I've travelled a bloody long way following the requirements of the conference documentation. Infact, thats probably it. Doesn't stop me getting annoyed about it though :-)

Received 04/08/2008 03:15

No Internet at the conference !!

OMG, I can't believe it. The organisers of the conference haven't organised any Internet access for the attendees. This means that only access to the net I have is if I run back up to our room. The only access is through the hotels 'conference wireless', which costs US a day !! This is seriously going to be a pain in the butt and probably the result of many a trips running back-and-forward between the conference and my room to send/receive messages.

Received 04/08/2008 03:13

Transferring through LAX

Thought I would backtrack a little and post about our transfer through LAX

I'll admit, I wasn't looking forward to it. Before flying out I had been reading lots of LifeHacker [1] posts about how horrible TSA are of late and the kind of delays you can hit. Turns out, it wasn't that bad ! In fact, it probably was easier than when we went through Heathrow last year.

We were all-but-last off the plane and hit the back end of the queue to pass immigration. For those planning the trip I would recommend you bring either a book or an iPod as the line can be long. We waited around 30 minutes. Two fingerprints, a digital photo and the removal of all my rights later we collected our bags and joined the end of the Custom's line - which was as simple as just handing them for declaration form and moving straight through

Transferring our bags then onto our US Airways domestic flight was a breeze, and no bags meant that we could use the self-service check-in option which after walking from one end of LAX to the other to change terminals went without a hitch. Of course, with all the prior reading I should have noticed the dreaded "SSSS" written on our boarding passes. This is the flag to the TSA security crew at the scanners that you need to be "investigated". This meant that Sarah and I got dragged off to a little side area and had all our bags dug through, explosive tested and a pat down for weapons, etc. Who knows what triggered the flag - probably just the fact that we were non-U.S. flying domestic. Really, it wasn't that bad and only slowed us down by about 10 minutes. Faster than getting selected for bomb testing at Newcastle airport !

So, all in all - can't complain.

[1] LifeHacker - http://www.lifehacker.com