GHC: An Unexpected Free Day

I woke up this morning with the other three executive members of Carleton's Women in Science and Engineering in Denver, Colorado, ready for the next leg of our trip to Keystone. After a quick breakfast and a shuttle back to the airport, we were ready to hop onto the van to Keystone. After about an hour and a half of driving and girl-talk, we pulled around the corner of one of the mountains onto Highway 6. We had arrived in paradise.

(A peek of some mountains outside the van on the way to Keystone.)

We first stopped at the Spa and Lounge to check in. Our room wasn't anywhere near there, but there was no concierge where we were staying, so we were asked to come here. This gave us our first view of the lake and surrounding hotels and activities. Unbelievable.

(The view from the lake a couple of stories up in the Spa and Lounge.)

After checking our bags and getting our keys for later, we headed to the conference centre. Three of us were going to be helping stuff swag bags at 1:00, so we figured we'd head over early and try to get that lunch they promised us.

Little did we know that the morning shift of bag stuffers would be so efficient that we were no longer needed! Oh well, one can't complain about getting an unexpected free afternoon along with one's free lunch! So after an enjoyable bite to eat outside, we walked back to the lake to see what was happening there.


Back at the lake, the blue-green water was just too tempting...

... so we used some coupons we got when we checked in and rented a paddle boat and kayaks. The geese and ducks followed us all around the lake. We spent an hour and a half floating around. When I was drifting by myself, it felt so peaceful. Just me, the water, and the mountains. Everyone should get a chance to relax like that for an hour every once in a while.


After getting a bit burned on our faces, we set off to check out our room in hopes that it was ready. We were a bit disappointed by its lack of wireless Internet, awkward layout, ugly decor, and old age. It was also surprisingly secluded, with no shuttle service even! However, we got lucky - and I don't know how we keep getting so lucky - because after Serena called for help on the wireless connection, they offered to put us in a room that actually did have it. In a better room. For no charge. Wow! The new room is everything the first room wasn't... with a great balcony view to boot!

So that's it for today, and we are thinking of heading to bed soon because we have volunteer duties early in the morning. I don't think we'll be getting out of those by any stroke of luck. But that's ok, because we should meet some great people in the process. Can't wait to see how tomorrow goes!

GHC: Travelling is Fun

The four of us executive members of Carleton's Women in Science and Engineering have arrived in Denver, Colorado, and can't wait until the Grace Hopper Celebration of Women in Computing gets started! But I have to say getting here wasn't quite as easy as it could have been...

We congregated at the Ottawa International Airport at 1pm today, meeting two full hours before our flight was supposed to leave. Of course, nothing is that simple, so as we tried to check in with our pre-printed boarding passes, we learned that our flight had been delayed and we would miss our connection in Chicago. Great. Although we booked with Air Canada, our flight was with United Airlines. We got switched to Continental and flew via Newark, New Jersey.

After running to the other end of the airport to get new tickets printed, and then running back to the new checkin desk, it was off to US Customs. It was surprisingly easy for me to get through, and once I was done, I waited in the gates area. And waited. And bought a muffin and cookie from Tim Hortons. And waited some more. Finally, two of the other three showed up. Where's the fourth? Oh, you didn't see her? Hmm...

Turns out our fourth member, who happens to be travelling with a Mexican passport, got a "random" security interrogation. Luckily, she's apparently used to it as she's flown to the US several times, but this almost caused her to miss the flight! We were so worried she'd be left behind to find her own way. She says that as she came down the escalator, she saw the boarding lady all the way on the other end of the gates area start to walk away after final call. Our fearless WISE webmaster managed to run across and get on the plane. Phew.

I was so glad to get to Newark and off the teeny little Continental express plane. Although it was only three seats wide and I got to be on the side of the aisle with one seat, I couldn't take any more of Mr. Sniffles. The guy right behind me was obviously under the weather, and couldn't seem to contain his urge to snortle, sniffle, gag, etc. Loudly and disgustingly. Nice.

Anyway....

(We stopped by a 50's style diner in the Newark airport and got a milkshake and junk food to go. I never got to eat mine, but it's ok - it was bad for me anyway! I'll be eating well the rest of this trip.)

The flight to Denver was mostly uneventful. I watched Speed Racer and chatted a bit with my seat mates. One was a really tall guy (who necessarily took up half of my seating room in addition to his own) returning home from a trip to Italy. The other was a young woman who was also returning home, but in her case from a CD release party for her friends in New York City. She was very nice and even ended up giving me a dollar bill for the headsets because they ran out of change.

So now we are here. Tomorrow, we are going to Keystone resort, and all but one of us are doing bag stuffing as part of our Hopper Volunteer duties. Our room is going to be great; it's a suite with two bedrooms and two bathrooms. We'll each get our own bed! Who says travelling isn't fun? ;)

First Paper Published

I was really excited to learn this morning that my very first paper was accepted and will be published in the December issue of ACM's Special Interest Group for Computer Science Education (SIGCSE)'s inroads bulletin. It is called "Girls, Computer Science, and Games" and is about the mini-course I ran this past spring. I was doubly happy that I got the news in time to include the contribution in my NSERC PGS-D scholarship application (a prestigous award for PhD that values research ability and potential).

Android and the Built-in Compass

It's not a big surprise that when the first Google Android-powered phone was announced today, it included news of a built-in compass. Alongside that, it's no less surprising that Street View would have a compass mode, in which it would rotate its view as you did. It's not like it's that hard to implement. Yet the results are very nice, as you can see in this video:

But like I keep saying again and again, wouldn't it just be so great to have imagery taken in real-time, while you're standing there, and augmented with more interesting things in addition to the straight-line street markers? It's high time I either get me an Android-powered phone or figure out where to do a Google internship so that I can work on this myself!

Grace Hopper and the CONNECT Project

There's a really interesting project happening for the upcoming Grace Hopper Celebration of Women in Computing, and I'm already glad I signed up. It's called CONNECT and is true to its name in that it is designed to help delegates of the conference connect with each other.

In the project's own words:

CONNECT is a research project designed to explore techie ways to help people make and maintain meaningful relationships from casual encounters. By participating you will be able to record and access connections you make at the conference. You will receive tips, motivation, and support for improving the value of connections you make.

The way they let you record your connections is to set you up with these name tags that I assume have some kind of bar code. Your tag is colour coded to show whether you are an undegrad, grad student, from the industry, and so on. When you sign up, you indicate which kind of people (from the same categories) you are interested in meeting. You can also mark down the areas of computer science you are interested in, including artificial intelligence, computer vision, algorithms, software engineering, and so on. When you meet someone you wanted to connect with, you both have a volunteer scan your name tags. A database tracks the fact that you met, and you will later get an email with the contact information of those people. Pretty cool!

If you can't wait to see who you might find interesting, you can even search the database now.

I think this is a really innovative way to facilitate networking, especially at a techie event. It almost feels like a game, making that first contact less intimidating. It also makes remembering who you met easy. Now you don't have to juggle business cards containing minimal information, wondering who you talked to and what about. With CONNECT, you get full profiles online, including a photo!

I can't wait to see who I'll meet!