Wednesday, August 29, 2007

Experimental Repeatability Requirements for SIGMOD 2008

This is a very interesting change for SIGMOD 2008. Starting this year, there is a requirement for authors to submit data sets and code for replicating the experiments. For details, see:

http://www.sigmod08.org/sigmod_research.shtml

I will be very interested to see how much of a burden this will be, how many times people will cite the use of proprietary software, and so on. I expect some small problems for this year but hopefully we will get used quickly to this mode of operation and start working on a paper with reproducibility of experiments in mind.

In any case, this is a very interesting development and I expect many conferences to follow.

Monday, August 13, 2007

Only in Greece...

I was having a drink with some friends in Greece, listening to some light music at a summer bar. Suddenly, the music stops and the DJ announces: "The police is checking drivers for blood alcohol content and they are waiting next to the hotel Xenia. The customers are advised to take the alternate route...".

A few minutes later, a new announcement informed the customers for the location of a second block from the police, advising customers to either take a taxi, or use the breathanalyzer that is available in the bar in the restroom (yes, there was a coin-operated breathanalyzer in the restroom!), so that they can "drive home safely."

If only all this creativity was used for something useful...