OT: LUGs dying out

[Matt Graham]

On Monday 23 July 2007 15:28, after a long battle with technology, Shawn 
Badger wrote:
> Based on what the article was saying it looks like PLUG is doing very
> well and has stuck to what works. Most of the LUGs they talked to
> have become more of a [Stammtisch?] type meeting and left it at
> that. I personally like the presentations that are given at the
> meetings.

Presentations are good.  You just have to find someone to give them.  
Not everybody can gin up a talk that will interest over 50% of the 
users, even given a week or 2 to prepare.  Presentations were held 
at ... about 1/3 of the GLLUG meetings.  Then again, Lansing's a lot 
smaller than Phoenix, and there were only about 8-15 people at each 
meeting.  

Attendance figures for GLLUG may have been boosted by the pizza fund 
that paid for cheap pizza at most meetings.  And the summer "Brats, 
Beer, and BBQ" meetings held at people's houses or at the public parks 
(minus the beer).

> They don't always pertain to something I am interested in, 
> but I have learned about alot of applications that I otherwise didn't
> know about or how do something in that app.

Yep.  Usually, one individual user only knows about 60% or less of the 
features of an app.  For emacs, it's more like 30% [-:   And the 
subsets don't overlap *that* much beyond the basics.  So you can often 
learn things from other users.  (Like they say, every different user of 
a beta product discovers a different set of bugs.)

-- 
...a 12 kV pulse capacitor a buddy of mine has.  Charging it to 4,000
V is enough to vaporize a small peach.  The air smells of a rather
pleasant combination of ozone and peach after that. --M.Erickson, ASR
There is no Darkness in Eternity/But only Light too dim for us to see