Strange Loop 2012 Unsessions

This wiki page is for suggestions for Strange Loop 2012 "Unsessions". We work hard at Strange Loop to put on a great program but sometimes there are topics that just don't make it to the schedule. During the conference we'll have several rooms reserved for sessions planned by YOU.

• When: Monday Sept 24th, 6-10 pm (in 30 min slots)
• Where: Union Station Marriott, the conference hotel, rooms TBA
• Equipment: A projector and mic will be available in each of the provided rooms. You supply the brainssss.

Please add topics below and note your interest. We plan to schedule rooms and times by interest, so sessions without as much interest may not fit!

NOTE: Schedule is now available

## R

• Hosted by: St. Louis R User Group (Joshua Ulrich)
• Description: We propose two 30-minute presentations from three big names in the R community. Drew Conway and John Myles White will present on measuring political ideology using text and network analysis in R. Jeffrey Ryan will present on handling big data with standard R semantics using the mmap and indexing packages.
• Time: 60 minutes
• Interest: @davekincaid @stevendborrelli @michaelbarton @trickykegstands @sherbondy @casron @lynaghk @pmbauer @fivebats @ryanbriones @krasul @sabman @johnmyleswhite @lemnica @itsthomson @lsdr tomwheeler RyanTMoore @avi_gator @mikelikesbikes @kaarchie @nainostrebor @mfollett @pillarist @noelweichbrodt @silentbicycle @codeslinger @egarson @spankyq @fzk @christopherbare @bennettandrews @bjeanes @IT_Voyager @tommyvulgar

## J

• Hosted by: Tracy Harms (@kaleidic)
• Description: I will introduce the J programming language through simple patterns of syntax that are fundamental and pervasive. This will both illuminate function-level array programming for those who just want to peek at the paradigm, and aid those who wish to explore this language further.
• Time: 30 minutes
• Interest: @mfeathers @briantrice @fogus @trptcolin @hby @puffnfresh @jimduey @shajra @quoll @pqmodn @airolson @psnively @gereedy @andreypopp @karlinfox @silentbicycle @reiddraper @frankvilhelmsen @codeslinger @burke @feyeleanor @stevej

## MongoDB

• Hosted by: MongoDB St. Louis User's Group - Geoffrey Gallaway (@geoffeg)
• Description: MongoDB: The Database People Love and Love to Hate. I'll give a brief introduction to MongoDB including some example uses cases and then go over a few of the new features of MongoDB 2.2 including data-center awareness, TTL-based capped collections and the new aggregation framework. I'll then open up the floor to discussion and questions (hopefully I can answer some of them).
• Time: 60 minutes
• Interest: @geoffeg @heyduck @Volti_Subito

## Hadoop

• Hosted by: The St. Louis Hadoop User's Group
• Description: We'll have exciting talks from two people from Cloudera who are committers for Hadoop-related Apache projects.

Kathleen Ting, Customer Operations Engineer at Cloudera and committer for Apache Sqoop, will present Seven Deadly Misconfigurations:

Misconfigurations and bugs break the most clusters. Attend this session and leave with the know-how to get your configuration right the first time. In some support contexts, a handful of common issues account for a large fraction of issues. That is not the case for Hadoop, where even the most common specific issues account for no more than 2% of support cases. Hadoop errors show up far from where you configured, making it hard to know what log files to analyze. It pays to be proactive.

Jonathan Hsieh, Software Engineer at Cloudera and committer for the Apache HBase, Sqoop and Flume projects, will present an introduction to Apache HBase:

Apache HBase is a scalable distributed datastore built on top of Apache Hadoop. This low-latency system enables consistent random read/write operations in the Hadoop stack. It is used for analysis and serves live traffic for services such as eBay's search and Facebook's Messages service. This session will provide a high-level introduction about when and how to deploy and build services with HBase. I'll describe the data access interfaces and describe some of the new and upcoming features.

• Time: 60 minutes (two presentations at 30 minutes each)
• Interest: @kate_ting @jmhsieh @trickykegstands @nwbvt tomwheeler @nainostrebor @sleberknight @rgimmy @pariah1 @egarson BryanVenable MattCallaway @garystiehr DavidButtrick JohnnieFoster CliffGilmore GuruDharmatejaMedasani PaulBoal ErichHochmuth SomeoneNamedTim @spankyq @RayRoestenburg @sabman @Volti_Subito @bodil

## Mentoring Software Apprentices

• Hosted by: 8th Light / Doug Bradbury
• Description: Everyone is looking for seasoned programmer to add to their organization. There is another option: Grow your own. Let's talk about how to start an apprenticeship program within your organization. By drawing on centuries of learning in craft and trade, we’ll explore how you can build a program to teach programers in one of the oldest and best proven methods of education.
• Time: 60 minutes
• Interest: list of people: @dougbradbury @casron @mwindler @briantrice @BrianDukes @michaelbridge @j_fultz @silentbicycle @airolson @redline6561 @cemerick @wilig @defndaines @kaleidic @marioaquino @davekincaid @pillarist @noelweichbrodt @karlinfox @corey_latislaw @paytonrules @heathborders @spankyq @christopherbare @curtclifton @ericthorsen

## ~~Geospatial Databases~~ CANCELED

Ping host to talk geo-indices over drinks

• Hosted by: @sabman
• Description: A survey of what databases support geospatial data and queries. Their interesting features and a comparison of their spatial-query and spatial-indexing functionality.
• Time: 60min
• Interest: @krasul @ryanbriones @mfollett @pillarist @noelweichbrodt @corey_latislaw @cwestin63 @bennettandrews @bjeanes @ericthorsen

## core.logic: A Tutorial Reconstruction

• Hosted by: @swannodette
• Description: Dan Friedman and Will Byrd will be giving their jaw-dropping presentation on relational interpreters at Strange Loop this year. But how exactly does the miniKanren system work? This talk will give a very detailed break down of core.logic's implementation of miniKanren. The talk only assumes you are familiar with two concepts - interfaces & closures. Bring questions :)
• Time: 60min
• Interest: @mrb @puredanger @michaelsbradley @redline6561 @briantrice @semperos @bodil @fogus @hakanraberg @silentbicycle @bryangilbert @airolson @kjetilv @pmbauer @fivebats @stevej @hby @Bruce_Adams @nwbvt @ryanbriones @sherbondy @objcmdo @aidanfeldman @zeeshanlakhani @warn4n @trptcolin @mikelikesbikes @wilig @defndaines @quoll @foogoof @BizarroMatt @jeffska @davekincaid @andreypopp @maximoburrito @reiddraper @casron @abedra @egarson @marcsaegesser @donkeyhotty @christopherbare @metajack @aniero @bjeanes @craigandera @ibdknox @ericthorsen

## Akka

• Hosted by: @typesafe
• Description: A BOF session with Jonas Bonér, Nilanjan Raychauduri and Jamie Allen from Typesafe. Learn from the creator of the library as well as prominent users in the community.
• Time: 60 minutes
• Interest: @jboner @nraychauduri @jamie_allen @mpilquist @fogus @psnively @bryangilbert @puredanger @fivebats @ryanbriones @st96d045 @warn4n @deanwampler @defndaines @shajra @kaarchie @nainostrebor @tomdz @quoll @marioaquino hank@123mail.org @jeffska @edward_ribeiro @maximoburrito @hindsholm @reiddraper @frankvilhelmsen @cwestin63 @egarson @RayRoestenburg @marcsaegesser @metajack @bhudgeons @samstokes

## Region-Based Storage Management for Parallelism

• Hosted by: @sttaft
• Description: A global garbage-collected heap is not an ideal way to manage storage in the presence of heavy parallelism. Region-based storage management (cf. "Cyclone", "ParaSail") provides an attractive alternative, with better locality of reference, trivial automatic reclamation, and less thread interference. This session will discuss techniques for using region-based storage management in the context of a parallel language, in lieu of, or in addition to global garbage collection.
• Time: 60 minutes
• Interest: @redline6561 @codeslinger @jamie_allen @gereedy @andreypopp @silentbicycle @reiddraper @cwestin63 @heathborders @spankyq @feyeleanor @stevej

## Go in the Strange Loop - Lightning Talks and Hack Session

• Hosted by: Interested Gophers
• Description: An opportunity for Go programmers and interested parties to discuss, collaborate, and share.
• Time: 60 minutes
• Interest: @mrb_bk @codeslinger @aidanfeldman @enneff @bmizerany @jamie_allen @kaarchie @charlesriley1 @jeffska @edward_ribeiro @dmiller2718 @burke @heathborders @feyeleanor @bodil @curtclifton @bjeanes @IT_Voyager @benemills

## Software Entrepreneur BOF

• Hosted by: @cemerick
• Description: An informal gathering of founders, partners, and owners of software businesses / startups, and any that are considering starting a new one. No planned agenda: just a chance to meet and chat with other business-minded hackers, seek / offer advice, and generally talk about the challenges and rewards of technical entrepreneurship.
• Time: 60 minutes
• Interest: @wilig @lynaghk hank@123mail.org @corey_latislaw @michaelbarton @ibdknox @ericthorsen @benemills

## Rock climbing

• Hosted by: @lynaghk
• Description: There's a rock climbing gym Upper Limits, behind Union Station, 5 min walk from the conference hotel. Keming Labs will sponsor admission + shoes for the first ten folks. No experience necessary.
• Time: 2 hours, meet Sunday at 3:30 p.m. in the Union Station hotel lobby.
• Interest: @psnively @tommyvulgar (monday evening preferred) @nainostrebor @cemerick @quoll (Sunday, but flexible) @Bruce_Adams @pmbauer (Sunday) @deanwampler @SHERBONDY @stenvoon (let's climb every day) @BizarroMatt @warn4n @gbrettmiller @corey_latislaw @frankvilhelmsen @TonyAbell @egarson (anytime!) @allthings_jc @wilig @bryanp @sl4m

## Coq

• Hosted by: @psnively
• Description: Folks curious about formal logic, formal proof, mathematics, certified software development, software that's "correct by construction," the "Curry-Howard Isomorphism," and lots of other really weird terminology and want to explore the Coq proof assistant are invited to join those of like mind at Strange Loop 2012!
• Time: 1 hour or however long folks are willing to stick around.
• Interest: @psnively @fogus @shajra @kaleidic @redline6561 @quoll @pqmodn @gereedy @puffnfresh @airolson @pillarist @paf31 @andreypopp @silentbicycle @reiddraper @egarson @burke @marcsaegesser @donkeyhotty @stevej @metajack @fivebats @mrijn

## API Fanatics

• Hosted by: David Biesack @davidbiesack
• Description: Birds of a Feather session for folks wrapped up in the plumage of public APIs (HTTP APIs, REST APIs, etc.). Discuss languages, libraries, and frameworks for implementing robust, scalable APIs; other tech related to APIs (API gateways, OAuth, JSON, ...), and that darned optional code-on-demand constraint in a world of heterogeneous clients
• Time: 30 minutes
• Interest: @davidbiesack @heathborders @spankyq @christopherbare @bhudgeons @jeffska @craigandera

## [When Hackers Teach Kids](https://github.com/strangeloop/strangeloop2012/wiki/Strange-Loop-Unsession-on-Hacking-Education)

• Hosted by: Noel Weichbrodt @noelweichbrodt
• Description: Hack your kid's education. Write your own math curriculum. Create the Young Ladies Illustrated Primer. Pair programming in Squeak, Logo, & Pie. Birds of a Feather session for those hackers who are: teaching their kids after school; homeschooling; mentoring someone else's kids; interested in blowing up the current education system. Swap resources, share lesson plans & curriculum, espouse philosophies, & lend an sympathetic ear to the struggle & triumphs.
• Time: 60 minutes
• Interest: @puredanger @cache22 @heathborders @casron @kaarchie @warn4n @donkeyhotty @feyeleanor @michaelbridge @christopherbare @bhudgeons @allthings_jc @quoll

## Visit St. Louis Go Club?

• Hosted by: @warn4n
• Description: I was thinking since Rich Hickey taught Go (the board game) at last year's conference it would be fun for those of us who play the game to get together and play. I will bring my board and stones to St. Louis with me. I was wondering if anybody who is staying over Tuesday night would like to drop in on the St. Louis Go Club meeting (I found it by internet search, and confirmed by email that it is still active.) http://www.usgo.org/where-play-go?state=MO#listing Mei Hua Chinese Restaurant 9626 Olive Blvd Olivette, MO 63132 Looks like it's about 12 miles from downtown but maybe those of us with cars could carpool or we could figure out some public transportation
• Time: go club is 6:30-9:30pm Tuesday night but I would be interested in a casual game any time Sat night through Tues night
• Interest: @warn4n @maximoburrito @drewolson

## Similarity Databases: An essential tool for next generation apps. * **Hosted by:** Arnoldo Muller @amuller * **Description:** A short introduction to similarity search and distance function development. Similarity search databases are NoSQL 2.0. They are a powerful abstraction that enable the creation of novel applications. We will introduce a simple use case: checkero (https://github.com/amuller/checkero) a source code similarity search script written in Clojure and designed to detect cheating in a programming class. * **Time:** 30min * **Interest:** @amuller @archgrants @lynaghk @jimduey @fivebats @bryangilbert @bennettandrews @cemerick @bjeanes hank@123mail.org @andreypopp ## DNS - our friendly programmable network interconnect * **Hosted by:** Eleanor McHugh * **Description:** A short dumpster dive of DNS beyond the limits of RFC1035 from a TLD survivor. I'll mostly be focusing on the power of regexen in the DNS tree, but for those destined for the naughty step I'll share some thoughts on tunnelling traffic through the DNS protocol. You'll never look at DNS the same way again. * **Time:** 30 minutes * **Interest:** @feyeleanor @bhudgeons @Bruce_Adams @joshskidmore @bryangilbert @bjeanes @rentzsch @craigandera @andreypopp @sl4m @redline6561 ## Magic the Gathering - Everyone's favorite ridiculous trading card game * **Hosted by:** Brit Butler [@redline6561](http://twitter.com/redline6561) * **Description:** As with programming, the best way to learn is by doing. To that end, I'll give a 5-10 minute introduction to the game for those unfamiliar after which folks will pair up and play with 8 pre-made decks I'll bring. I will remain on hand to deliver/explain rulings and answer any questions. Those already experienced with the game and just looking to play are of course welcome. :) * **Time:** 30 minutes (or more) @ 7:30? * **Interest:** @redline6561 @fogus @metajack @samstokes ## Datomic Q&A / Hackfest

• Hosted by: @stuarthalloway
• Description: The Datomic team will be on hand to answer any questions you have. Bring your laptop, and your questions!
• Time: 60 minutes (or more)
• Interest: @bkirkbri @fogus @metajack @quoll @craigandera @tommyvulgar @hby @frankvilhelmsen @bodil @warn4n @andreypopp @sherbondy @ericthorsen

title

• Hosted by: group or organizer
• Description:
• Time: ?? minutes
• Interest: list of people, twitter ids, etc