Gallery of the Uncommon

Sausage Mining

In late November, INESC TEC publicised internally a seminar on Data Mining. Soon several people showed interest in participating, and one of them contacted directly INESC TEC’s Communication Service (SCOM) to ask about the costs of attending the event. SCOM contacted the organisers which, because attendance was free, replied in jest:

“500€ and some smoked sausages, and that is the end of that.”

All jokes aside, the message went through. The participant knew that receiving knowledge in data mining I exchange for money made no sense in those circumstances. However, getting that knowledge in exchange for some smoked sausages was quite reasonable. And so in the first day of the seminar the unthinkable happened: the participant brought some sausages for the organisers.

As usual, BIP was there to document the event and honestly we think it’s a wonderful idea. However, we did not witness the “transaction”, which we think is an awful act of censorship.