Starting on Thursday....

[Schuyler]

Re: Starting on Thursday....

A small divertissement:

1. It is the second row of a linotype keyboard; etaoin being the first alpha six keys, shrdlu being the second. Look up typesetting if this is an unfamiliar concept. These keys are set up in descending order of frequency of occurrence in the english language (i.e. e is most common, and then t, and then a, etc). This is where the actual sequence originates.
   

Oh, I know it well. I had quoted the prior poster, who used the entire etaoin shrdlu, wasn't trying to imply that the shrdlu block was first.

I didn't know about the AI or the peanuts thing, though (which surprised me, because I've always loved peanuts) which are neat. I had no idea it had any significance in the digital world at all. I love when things like that have crossover.

There are a ton of examples of etaoin shrdlu ending up in print accidentally / as an inside joke. If you screwed up a line of type, it wasn't easy to go back and correct it, so instead the linotype operators would just run their finger down the keys in order to get to the end of the line, so they could reset. Of course sometimes this accidentally slipped into print sometimes & was often used pseudonymously as a reference to the same.

Anyway...we're diverging wildly from the actual subject now, sorry to perpetuate it, I was just enjoying the discussion.

[DaKahuna]

Re: Starting on Thursday....

no matter what happens, I'll continue to show up on Wednesday.

[Rewt Daemon]

Re: Starting on Thursday....

Thank you. I really am not a nice person. :-)

Lies, all lies. valkyrie IS in fact a VERY nice person and not just on the forums

To make my post actually on topic:

I voted YES on the poll but would like to correct that now that I understand the distinction being made between official defcon and the rest: NO.
An official 101 was awesome. I attended and made the most of it. While I will probably never need to make use of next years' (or any future years') 101 I feel it has value to those attending their first defcon, this should not be sacrificed if at all possible. Whether it needs to be head on the Thursday or not is another issue.

That being said the Goons ARE overworked and there should be a solution looked into for in that. I certainly plan to offer some time to any MB type system for next year as that may take some of the extra pressure off those of you that make the con worth attending and allow you to do the things we all want to see happen but only you can make happen.

The unofficial events that happen on Thursday are things that should continue to happen. I for one plan to get out to the defcon shoot next year as well: sounds like you guys had fun. But the really big distinction here is that the guys making sure it was safe and fun were not doing so at Goons, but merely (sic) as responsible participants in the events. And that makes all the difference...

My $ 0.02 worth at least.