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ChicagoBoyz Miami Meetup – Tentative Agenda

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Selected from various alternatives provided by, and after discussion with, Jonathan. I mention South Beach as a starting point because I expect to lodge in that area. I do not, however, plan to rent a car, so I will be either ridesharing or riding along with fellow attendees and contributing for fuel expenses.

Your next step, if interested, is to indicate in comments that you expect to attend, and provide an e-mail address in, shall we say, non-scrapable format, like “jane/john dot doe at provider dot com.”

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KC Meetup After-Action Review

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I have thanked the attendees privately via e-mail but wanted to post some thoughts here. Leading off with a plus/delta exercise, because this situation needs a quality tool …

+

Δ
  • highly enthusiastic and convivial attendees
  • excellent weather
  • fun events
    • Friday night in the Crossroads
    • Saturday morning brunch, also in the Crossroads
    • WWI museum
    • legendary KC BBQ, dined al fresco due to good weather
    • Sunday morning brunch at Union Station
    • Truman Library
  • good discussion during “symposium”
  • my circadian rhythm, as affected by my work schedule
  • at least three attendees had to cancel only a day or two before the meetup weekend
  • communication gaps may have prevented at least two more from attending
  • low number of formal presentations during “symposium”
  • no video of “symposium”
  • parking challenges
  • one relatively expensive meal

Lessons-learned database entries:

  1. Reaching back a bit to the Denver meetup in late April, a twice-a-year, spring/fall rhythm seems like a good idea.
  2. The overall structure of a Friday night kickoff get-together, then ~4 activities on Saturday (including 2 meals), then a brunch and one more optional activity on Sunday, seems about right.
  3. There is pretty much no such thing as too much communication.
  4. Lead time should be at least a couple of months, and 3 4 months is better.
  5. The expectation of structured presentations/discussion should be clearly set, and prospective attendees should be encouraged to have something to deliver in the 20 40 minute range.

I am uncertain about future locations. I want to think that central US, generally longitudes 85 ° 105 ° W, is preferable. We’ve done Denver and KC; the next two obvious possibilities are Chicago and D/FW.

Admittedly, if I could get away with it, I’d just keep having them in KC. It’s very centrally located and (mostly) cheap, and I’m confident I can get us free/extremely cheap conference-room space even if attendance grows well into double digits.

Anyway, feedback/suggestions welcome.

 

Newspeak

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In addition to the other corruptions of our major national establishment and institutions, I think that I am most annoyed by the corruption of language. Certain euphemistic terms have come to be kind of newspeak in the Orwellian sense. In themselves such expressions are bland, anodyne and seemingly harmless, but what they mean in reality is horrific. Reproductive health care; that sounds so much better than ‘abortion’. Gender-affirming health care instead of ‘amputating breasts and male genitalia, surgically removing vaginas and massively administering puberty-altering drugs’. ‘Diversity, equity and inclusion’; there’s another harmless-sounding term, which actually means conformity, hamstringing the talented, and exclusion of the designated disfavored categories of people. ‘Disinformation’ is a much more elegant term for information that may discomfit the progressive ruling class or counter the established narrative, and ‘systemic racism’ means that minority criminal offenders are automatically excused, no matter how violent or vicious the crime they are charged with.
So, what other examples of corruption of the language can you suggest? What other newspeak terms have, as the expression has it, gotten your goat in a big way. Add in the comments.

REMINDER: ChicagoBoyz KC Meetup, 10/7-9

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Original post here; minor schedule changes reflected in the version below. I will be sending an e-mail to known likely attendees shortly after this post appears and will follow up as needed with any additional prospectives.

When Friday 7 Sunday 9 October; details below
Where Kansas City; Missouri side and generally downtown-ish; details below
lodging should be in or generally near ZIP code 64108
Who ChicagoBoyz contributors, fans, and general associates; if you have not already done so, provide an e-mail in comments, using such discreet conventions as “john [UNDERSCORE] doe [AT] provider [DOT] com”, unless you know that I already have a good e-mail for you, in which case just indicate that you hope to attend
Why primary objective is fun
secondary objective is exchange of interesting ideas

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