Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!husc6!bloom-beacon!EXPO.LCS.MIT.EDU!jim
From: jim@EXPO.LCS.MIT.EDU (Jim Fulton)
Newsgroups: comp.windows.x
Subject: Re: planning for 3rd Annual X Technical Conference
Message-ID: <8807011417.AA01033@EXPO.LCS.MIT.EDU>
Date: 1 Jul 88 14:17:53 GMT
References: <10276@oberon.USC.EDU>
Sender: daemon@bloom-beacon.MIT.EDU
Organization: X Consortium, MIT Laboratory for Computer Science
Lines: 33


> Sorry to agree with the original poster, but while we sent 4 people to
> the last MIT X conference, we will send 0 people to the next one if it is
> held again in January.  Reason: the weather.

The technical presentations took place on two of the coldest days seen here in
over a decade.  The beginning of that week was actually quite pleasant.
Furthermore, there are a lot of people who think that Boston's weather is
fairly wimpy. 


> Enough conferences?  Come on, can't you find 5 days out of an entire summer?

Too many actually.  That's 5 days for you, but how many for us to arrange it?
Then when you throw in all of the multi-day meetings, providing free consulting
(XPERT, telephone, electronic mail, and visitors), SIGCHI, USENIX, SIGGRAPH,
not to mention trying to actually get some work done, you don't leave a lot of
time.  The same is true for most of the people who would be interested in 
attending this sort of conference.

Then, when you finish taking those slices out of the calendar, you then have to
compete for space with all of the summer programs that MIT runs.  Who knows, it
may be doable; but it is by no means a simple matter. 


> Simply doing it again (3rd time) in January is silly if not just plain stupid.

Being condescending to people who provide you a free service is even more so,
especially if you don't take the time to think about their constraints.


						Jim Fulton
						MIT X Consortium