[EuroPython] Computers off during sessions.

[Harald Massa]

Marc-Andre,

> You have a wrong view on things here: this is not
> about increasing *your personal* experience, but instead that of
> *your fellow talk attendees* who get annoyed by the click-addy-clack
> of your notebook keyboard 

I am not really sure if it is possible to talk about "wrong" and "correct"
views on things. 

Quiete possible the experience of *my fellow talk attendees* is a sum of the
experience of every single talk attendee; at least in all the usual
"utility"-discussions the common utility is calculated as the sum of the
individual utilites.

And you are very correct: some might be annoyed by the sound of keyboards.
Others may be annoyed about the sound of a pen scraping accross the paper;
or the sound of someone sleeping. 

I assume that Europython is a conference about software and business and
interaction; not about quiet listening to Operas or work of culture. 

And I really want to ask if we have a community that can't stand the usage
of computers during talks. Will people be forced to use tablet-pcs? I am
sure Microsoft and Toshiba would really enjoy that boost.

> This may be hard to understand for some people, but in general
> I think we strive to make EuroPython a better experience for
> *everybody*, not just the geek camp and thus listen to requests
> like Mikael's.

I am quite positive about listening to every request. At the same time not
only the people annoyed about keyboard-klicks should be allowed to speak up,
but also the people who really improve there experience by using notebooks. 

If the sum of negative utility of attendees who get annoyed by
keyboard-klicking is greater than the positive utility of attendees who are
able to improve there experience by using computers, I am all positive to
restrict myself.

But if the cummulated negative utility of "annoyed people" is smaller than
the positive utility, I would really not recommend to do a decision which
lowers the total utility of the conference. 

>(I'm not even talking about the
> speakers playing the Windows or KDE anthem).
My impression is that we all agree on that; speakers should be off as well
as mobile phones should be off.

> The same applies to things like delays due to beamer problems
You are right; beamer problems suck. But I am quite sure, that nobody really
wants to have them. Nonetheless, I have attended presentation with much much
bigger budgets and much much more technicans which had equal worse beamer
problems.

Harald Armin Massa