The SIGGRAPH 2007 Pre-Con Report

"Digital innovators, creative researchers, award-winning producers, provocative artists, energetic executives, and adventurous engineers. The worldwide SIGGRAPH community gathers in San Diego to explore the products, systems, techniques, ideas, and inspiration that are creating the next three generations of computer graphics and interactive techniques."

Okay, so technically this isn't a comic or sci-fi/fantasy con, and I'm not going to be sitting behind any tables, signing autographs. It's technically a business trip, as I'm being shipped out to California by my current employer. Still, considering the highly geeky nature of SIGGRAPH, I just couldn't help myself. Even if the vast majority of you can't afford the rather pricy registration fees, I just have to share the experience. And who knows? Maybe there's a few Faulties out there who actually are going, and we might be able to meet up of an unofficial GPF off-site gathering?

SIGGRAPH 2007 is August 5-9, 2007, at the San Diego Convention Center in San Diego, CA (the same convention center where Comic-Con International is held).

So... What Should We Expect From This Report?

To be honest, I'm not sure yet. I wasn't even sure I should make a con report, seeing as this isn't an official GPF con appearance. However, I figured there would be enough fan interest in the event itself that sharing the experience would be worth the extra effort. While there probably won't be as in-depth coverage as we usually present for shows and cons, I do hope to have some pictures, notes, and (who knows?) some video to share. (I've just found out cameras and "recording devices" are not allowed.) I'll include more details as they become more clear.

Tentative Schedule

The official conference schedule can be found here, although I'm not entirely sure how useful it is. It breaks the conference into various parts, but doesn't list individual courses/events/panels side by side. Instead, you have to click the links for each block to see what's going on when. If you're really looking for fine detail, however, the advance program (PDF, 677kb) will probably be more useful. However, details about individual room assignments and such can only be found online for now.

At this point, it's way too early for me to commit to any of the items that are listed. However, I've gone through the schedule as it currently stands and found a number of items of interest to pencil in. You'll probably notice a number of overlapping events. Right now, I'm currently working on finding things that sound interesting and I'll worry about narrowing down my choices as time gets closer. Of course, this being a business trip, my selections may change based on the whims of my boss and my fellow attending coworkers.

So to help organize my thoughts, we're trying something new this time by adding a Google Calendar with the agenda, which will theoretically let me update the schedule in real time. (Note: Despite the fact that the calendar defaults to Eastern time (UTC-5/-4(for EST)), the times listed here are Pacific Daylight Time (UTC-7). Google Calendar undoubtedly does not have the ability to set time zones for individual events; this setting applies to the entire calendar.)

(Un-)Official GPF Gathering(s)

Because of the highly technical audience of SIGGRAPH (and the expensive registration fees, which probably limits a lot of non-corporate participation), I'm not expecting any sort of GPF get-together. There certainly won't be an official one, as nobody at this thing will probably even know what GPF is and we certainly aren't exhibiting anything. However, I might be able to swing an unofficial gathering of area Faulties if there's enough interest. If you're in the San Diego area (or willing to travel to San Diego for the day), shoot me an e-mail or drop by the forum to express your interest. If enough of you pipe up, we'll try and pull something together one of the evenings I'm available. As always, I'll be happy and willing to sign any pre-owned GPF merchandise or books that you might happen to bring with you. (Sorry, there's no way I'll be able to bring merchandise with me to sell. But there's definitely plenty of time to order things in advance and have it shipped to you now.)

Ad-Hoc Key Signing Party?

It occurred to me while I've been planning for SIGGRAPH that this might be a good opportunity to meet up with like-minded folks in the San Diego area who are interested in public-key cryptography for a good ol' fashioned key signing party. However, SIGGRAPH itself doesn't seem like much of a venue for such an event, even informally (although I haven't given up hope). Thus, consider this an appeal to any San Diego cryptography nuts who might be interested. I would volunteer to organize such an event myself if I were more familiar with the area. (Despite the fact that I've been to San Diego several times for Comic-Con, I know little of the area except for the location of the Convention Center, Balboa Park, Sea World, the airport, and various hotels.) I've added a temporary listing for myself over at BigLumber.Com for the week that I'll be there, and I know at least one other San Diego resident has expressed an interest. If someone who like to take the initiative to organize an event, even something small and relatively informal, I'll happily promote it here on the site and do what I can to help move things along.