Polymath

Augmented Reality Figure

A Japanese toy company is selling an interactive AR based figure. [[Gizmodo story]] Given that the doll is virtual and appears only on the computer screen, I wonder what exactly you get for $125. Is it just a box full of fiduciary markers?

SIGGRAPH2008_contains_adult_content

Well, actually, the signs warn about Adult Content but I'm not sure why. There aren't any bare nipples or related [sexual] items in the art gallery as far as I have seen.

The art gallery and emerging technology components of SIGGRAPH have been restructured into three parts: New Tech[nology] Demos, which are scattered across the convention center; a "Slow Art" collection organized into four sub-categories: Erosion, Hybrids, Rhythms, and Traversal; and a Design and Computation collection.

SIGGRAPH2008_but_first_a_look_back

I finished my MFA in 1998. That summer I had some VRML work accepted for the VRML roundup at SIGGRAPH 98, which was being held in Orlando, Florida. I didn't receive the notification until less than a week before the conference, but I somehow found myself a plane ticket and someone with a hotel room to share, and I packed my lab coat and went to Florida. These were the days before blogs, so I don't have a written record of the conference, but it was big, it was big and loud and there was an art gallery right in the middle of the exhibition floor. I flubbed my VRML presentation and flew home the next morning.

Thanks Time Warner Cable!

For three years I have been able to login to my webhost over ssh without a problem.

Now that Time Warner Cable has swooped in and bought Comcast, I can no longer connect to my server.

Earlier this week I couldn't send SMTP mail. Hopefully the current problem is just a temporary glitch.

(Time Warner Cable technical support doesn't seem to understand the concept of an "internet connection" as anything more than a web browser and email.)

ISEA 2006 -- Jour quatre

Things are winding up -- or winding down, depending on how you look at it. There is going to be a summary later this afternoon, and then I think a summary of the summary after that.

The wife and child and I are off, however, for the journey back home.

ISEA 2006 -- Edge Conditions

Written on the wall:

Cutting edge, bleeding edge, leading edge. These are all familiar catch-phrases that suggest we are glimpsing the future of contemporary art, today. Edge Conditions, however, is most emphatically not about the "next new thing." It presents works of art in a different context, at the intersection of creativity, choice, and what might be called "technology" but what is arguably the world we live in, whether it is devices such as pencils and chisels, or ubiquitous aspects of modern life such as electronics, phones, or computers and the Internet, technology is simply a set of tools that is more less familiar at any given time.

ISEA 2006 -- $.25 a minute

I found a F-dEx/K-nk-s where I can access the internet for 25 cents a minute. I can also use M-cros-ft Office. Even at today's prices, that is more expensive than gasoline (unless you are going a steady 60mph in an SUV with 12mpg).

Late in the afternoon I spent about an hour at the San Jose Museum of Art. On the ground floor is a retrospecive of light-based works by Jennifer Steinkamp. It had been a few years since I last saw one of her installations, so it was nice to see some of the work I had missed. However with so many pieces it is hard to spend time contemplating each one individually.

ISEA 2006 -- Information design

There are some serious problems with information design here. Part of the problem is that the ISEA program is localized for a specific audience, alongside the larger and more public aspect of the ZeroOne San Jose festival.

ISEA 2006 -- Second Class Citizen

[Save early, save often]

It is around seven pm, and although there are still some ongoing events I am pretty much done with day one of ISEA.

Without a laptop and a WiFi connection II am pretty much a second class citizen here. There are a number of projects which require either an internet connection, a mobile phone, or a bluetooth device to fully engage the work.

podcasting with Movable Type

I've been fooling around with using Movable Type to generate a podcast feed. (Are people still using pre-3.0 versions of MT? I am.) First I took an RSS 2.0 template (here's one). Then I added some "enclosure" bits. But an enclosure wants to provide a "length" field (the file size), so I hacked up a quick MT plugin:

PIGGRASH 2005 part 3

I have developed a theory about the exhibition floor at SIGGRAPH: The quality of exhibition booths is inversely proportional to the density of book publisher booths. Because the number of publishers stays relatively constant from year to year (publishing is a slowly growing industry), a lower density means more non-publisher booths overall. For example, last year the publisher density was higher, because the overall exhibition was smaller.

SIGGARPH2005 part 2

Tuesday night there was a presentation by Side Effects Software (makers of Houdini) at Union Station. Free t-shirts were promised, followed by a party with free drinks til late. Getting to the party involved waiting 45 minutes in line with a thousand people, while they check IDs. Once inside, there were four bars serving the drinks, each with 30 or 40 people waiting in line to get drinks (for themselves and three of their friends). At this point I hear someone proclaim: "This is the best party I've been to in a long time." Oh, did I mention there were some tacky go-go dancers off to the side of the main room? So if mobs are your thing, you would have enjoyed the party.

SIGPARGH2005 day 1

The internet ghetto is located in the far right corner of the registration area. Some 30 desktops sit on standing height podiums, with no chairs. The desktops are on the floor, such that if you were to move your feet too close to the power switch, you might accidentally kick the machine and hit the power switch, losing whatever you had been working on. Now I have to rewrite this.

So I'm sitting on the floor with my pda and folding keyboard. My laptop died earlier this spring. My pda is wireless-less, so I'll have to upload this later this evening.

SIGGIRAFFE 2005

The giraffe is back in town. I held a mock debate with myself to decide if I should go, but given the locality and the rarefied opportunity it presents I'll at least pick up an "exhibits plus" pass.

There was a rumor that the Facade characters will be around, if so they should contact me for ONE FREE DRINK.

Looking for an aggregated conference blog, there has to be to one out there somewhere.

Note to self: business cards

SELECT * FROM MySQL.Conference LIMIT 12,6

record 12

Wednesday afternoon and I'm taking the MySQL Core Certification exam. This exam is recommended for people who have one month of experience working with MySQL. There is also a "Professional" exam, for those with six months of experience. There is a bit of chatter that the Core exam is more difficult than the Professional (and being Core certified is a prerequisite for Professional).

I had to sign a Non Disclosure Agreement to take the exam. As part of the terms and conditions:

I will not copy, disclose, publish or transmit to any person or entity any details of any Certification Exam, or information pertaining to it, in any form or by any means.

Standard NDA stuff, and meaningless. I can't disclose information pertaining to the exam in any form or by any means? So I shouldn't reveal to anyone that I have ever taken the certification exam, or that I have even heard of it.

My exam number was MY001003B0073890.

SELECT * FROM MySQL.Conference LIMIT 6,6

record 7

Scattered on the walls of the Santa Clara Westin Great America are a number of prints and paintings. Electronic signs indicate that these works are for sale. But for some reason the signature on the works is hidden by the frame. It is generic art. There are four very colorful monoprints in the hallway which goes between the convention area and the hotel proper. By one of the convention Ballrooms, there is what appears to be a large (perhaps 22" x 30") copper plate bearing the image of a flower. The image was flat bit, and the plate has been inked, and the plate mounted and framed. At least that is what it looks like to me.

SELECT * FROM MySQL.Conference LIMIT 6

record 0

I am quartered in a Holiday Inn somewhere in Santa Clara, California, attending a conference about MySQL, the database technology. There's something of a long story as to how I came to be here, which would involve of details about my current work situation, my new job, new company, and so on. Better to jump right in. Come play along.

There are people blogging about the conference. There is an aggregator of blogs here. Go take a peek, if you are interested in things like database clustering, or new features in MySQL 5. There are photo galleries as well.

SIGGRAPH 2004 recap

Well, SIGGRAPH is done and gone and I should record my thoughts for posterity.

Five days of trekking to the convention center was one day too many, a feeling I get almost every year. I always sense that I've missed something, so I end up at the show just one more time to make sure I got it all in.

i. Exhibition

The exhibition was contained in halls H and J of the ginormous [gigantic/enormous] exhibition hall. A big convention, but small for SIGGRAPH. Digging out an old program from SIGGRAPH 2001, also at the Los Angeles Convention Center, the exhibition occupied the entire exhibition hall, halls G, H, J, and K, with registration in a downstairs hall (a carpeted parking garage) and the Electronic Theater held offsite at the Shrine Auditorium.

This year, the exhibition floor, the registration area, and the electronic theater were all contained in the exhibition hall.

There is some serious shrinkage going on with SIGGRAPH. The exhibition is now dominated by 3D tools for the entertainment industry, whereas previously this industry was one of many dominant forces. Kind of like the sole remaining superpower... hey, I think I've found my metaphor.

sitting on the floor at SIGGRAPH

So I'm sitting on the floor near the Emerging Technologies booth at SIGGRAPH, wirelessly connected to the web. Getting wireless working takes a little perseverance, there are plenty of hotspots set up but something, perhaps sunspots or people with Intel laptops or cars with loud stereos, tend to send network connections askew. The most amazing thing about wireless technology is that people are willing to put up with such low reliability with these things -- rather than admit that wired connections are simply a better way to live.

Siggiraffe

It looks like it is time for my biennial pilgrimage to the Los Angeles Convention Center, where the tigers and zebras of SIGGRAPH 2004 will be frolicking all week. The conference proper started yesterday, the art gallery opens today, and the exhibiiton begins on Tuesday.