Reviewing things:

Those weird things next to the star next to talk titles in my notes are ratings, in as untraditional of a way as I can manage. I dislike the word ‘ratings’. I want to rate talks, but A-F is bad because some talks are good but I find to be full of review, or presented in a way I enjoy less; I don’t want to create a pseudo-objective ranking; I want to record my opinion for my own later reference. The same objection applies for 1-5. I believe that assigning numbers is disingenuous unless there is an actual ranking system, possibly with checkboxes. There is more than one axis upon which I wish to rate, but recording multiple numbers/letters is more work and harder to remember- and there is always the question of whether 1 or 5 is the “best” rating.

My rating-notes are basically an expression of how much effort I would tell my prior self to go to in order to see it. It is a very personalized-to-me rating. (The [LT] is for “lightning talk”.) This is a combination of content depth, presenter style, and how I feel about the topic matter.

I tend to like fast-paced talks that go into the “why” of the topic, tell me new-to-me things, and also into the “how”. I tend to like talks with code on the screen, but usually not live coding demos (because it is slower than a good pre-recorded gif or slide sequence, and more likely to go wrong)

Rough order:

  • step (i.e. I could probably find this on the internet and be equally happy)
  • stroll
  • walk
  • bike
  • hike
  • swim
  • plane (this is the best thing ever and I would fly somewhere to hear it)