Monday, August 5, 2013
I'm in Irvine to attend the University of California Computing Services Conference (UCCSC) today and tomorrow. The theme is "keeping grounded while in the clouds" which I think is cringeworthy. Drove from the hotel to UCI Student Center, paid $10 for parking. Breakfast at the conference: yogurt. Opening session. Keynote: Dan Russell from Google spoke about information literacy, which he called informacy, and metaliteracy, which is being literate about being literate. He also said that academics need to teach crap detection. His presentation was called The evolution of literacy: why it never was what you thought it was and why it will become something you never thought it would be. His main point seemed to be that people need to learn how to learn rather than simply learn because we are presented with more new bodies of information and more new ways of finding useful information than ever before and that rate of change is accelerating. This talk reminded me of how people continually need to learn how to use public restrooms. We have automatically flushing toilets, automatically dispensing water and soap at sinks, automatic and manual paper towel dispensers, automatic hand driers. When these technologies fail, people must adapt. It also reminded me of how my mom when first presented with a cd jewel case was unable to open it because she didn't grip the case in exactly the right way. It also reminded me of when we were in our car miles away from home and I accidentally pressed the button on the garage door opener and my mom panicked and told me to press it again to close the door. Sessions: Choosing the best agile methods for your team, UCLA Events Online 2.0: UCLA's system for producing successful events, Data management applications with Drupal as your framework. Lunch: tuna salad on croissant, rotelle salad, and more that I can't recall now. Sessions: Web application and desktop security: the perfect storm, Vendor risks: evaluating the security of new technology. Break. Snack: trail mix. Sessions: iPad app development: from paper to efficiency at UCSF, CampusKit, Testing web interfaces. During the day I met Sal and Jeff from UCLA and met or encountered Abby, Kristan, Alvin, and Edel from UCSF. During the day I handled a few emails: Active Directory display name change for recent grad-turned-employee MC. Graduation page date publish for Cindy. Lab sites followup with Eric and Greg. Followup with Orlando about Acrobat XI Pro site license. Adobe software purchasing followup with John A. Lab sites: small styling fix. Day 1 of 2 ends. Drove to Steelhead Brewery (which it turns out was just across the street but I didn't know). Dinner at Steelhead Brewery with many others from the conference: I ate a small (bar menu) caesar salad, water. Drove to the hotel. Did some work late in the hotel room. Snack: 2 white chocolate chip cookies, trail mix.