PLUG West Side Meeting: July 23, 2008, 19:00 - 22:00

[Mike Schwartz]

On Wed, Feb 27, 2008 at 10:54 AM, der.hans <PLUGd at lufthans.com> wrote:
> Am 27. Feb, 2008 schwätzte Mike Schwartz so:
>
>> The "presentation" (if any) is TBD but I for one plan to attend:
>>   http://plug.phoenix.az.us/node/370
>> In the past I would forget when these things were
>> (apparently now they are the 4th Wed. of every mo.),
>> so I used to appreciate it when someone posted a reminder here.
>> Actually [...snip...]
>
> That's fine if you post the reminder like you just did :).
>
> [...] the presentation tonight will be [...snip...]
>
> ciao,
>
> der.hans
> [...]

The web site
    http://plug.phoenix.az.us/node/365
still says
<< "Presentations This Month     [...]   TBD" >>
but in the past, I often guessed wrong (both directions)
when trying to estimate whether a meeting was going to be
interesting or not, so I have given up, and now I just attend
"if I can".
("YMMV" - semper)
    My experience is mainly based on "non" PLUG meetings,
e.g., meetings of the (erstwhile) Phoenix Chapter ACM, or
the AzTeC Free-Net, or the SPIN group
(see http://www.sei.cmu.edu/collaborating/spins/)
or [this one still exists:] the IEEE Computer Society.
    Not only did some of the touted super duper presentations
about some cool sounding "hi tech" stuff sometimes, um,
disappoint me (like when they turned out to be too focused
on a specific product, or product "line", from one company);
but also, when there was a topic that "sounded" like it was
going to be a snoozer, sometimes it would surprise me,
or else
sometimes it would still be worth going, just for the "side"
conversations before or after the meeting, or during [breaks].
    So now I do not even try to estimate how great it is going
to be.  I just try to show up, if I can.
     Trivia:  why was it (the final 3 digits of the URL)
"370" in Feb., but it's a smaller number ["365"] now?
No penalty for guessing wrong (if funny enough) . . .
especially since I do not know the answer.
-- 
Mike Schwartz
Glendale AZ
schwartz at acm.org