First Day of SIGGRAPH!

We finally get started! We were able to take the HOV lane in to the convention center, so we missed the traffic.

My first class is Massive Model Visualization Techniques. It has some good info, but a little dry at parts.

After a quick lunch we see Ed Catmull, president of Walt Disney Animation and Pixar, give the keynote.

His speech was entitled Managing the Creative Environment, and it had some details about the start of Pixar, ideas vs people, management style and more. It was really good!

Here is the room for the Ed Catmull speech earlier in the day:

Closer to the start of the speech we noticed a line forming down the hallway and snaking back onto itself. It turns out that the auditorium fills up quickly and everyone gets turned away. We go to the first overflow room, but it looks like the video feed won't show him. We end up at the Geek Bar watching another remote feed projected on the wall.

There was also some odd robots at the new tech demo.

After that I checked out the bookstore and caught the end of Advances in Real-Time Rendering in 3D Graphics and Games: Part 2 to see some details on how Blizzard rendered Starcraft 2. Looks nice!

The exhibition floor isn't open until Tuesday, so we take off and bolt to the Autodesk User's Group and Party.

Technorati Tags: SIGGRAPH,Ed Catmull,robots,Blizzard,Starcraft 2

Picking up our SIGGRAPH material

The convention opened this afternoon to register, pick up the materials and check out the lay of the land. We headed over, but first had to pick up lunch...at In-N-Out burger!

So I think I had my first In-N-Out burger, and while it was pretty good, I'm not sure what the big deal is. Later tonight we find out that you need to order it "animal style" to get some extra stuff piled on the burger and fries. We'll check it out again now that we know the whole story.

This particular In-N-Out is next to LAX, and planes were constantly landing over our heads. We could see two on the horizon lining up and it was crazy hearing the planes so close to us.

We get to the convention center and browse a few conference rooms, and see The Geek Bar, which is a place to charge your batteries, check your email and watch a few live feeds from eight different presentations.

Technorati Tags: SIGGRAPH,In-N-Out Burger,LAX

First day in Hermosa Beach

After crashing for a few hours we get up with David's grandmother and head to Scotty's, a Hermosa Beach staple, for breakfast. I had the Acapulco Omelette, which is an omelette with chorizo and guacamole, sourdough toast and coffee.

I passed on the White Croaker Special.

After breakfast we walked around the beach and the closest pier.

Technorati Tags: Hermosa Beach,Scotty's,White Croaker

Headed to Los Angeles

We finally got ready and in the car. Our trip from San Francisco to Los Angeles will take about six hours! Instead of getting an early start, we hung out blogging, getting frustrated with a printer, watching the first fifteen minutes of Cloverfield and eating sushi.

FINALLY we take off, but it's like 6:00pm.

We start out through the city but after the Bay Bridge we run through a wind farm and a lot of desolate flat land.

 

We end up stopping a few times to get some drinks, jerky, etc, and end up at David's grandmother's house after 1:30am!

We spent most of the time reading about the SIGGRAPH conference schedule and I end up getting tired, delirious and inserting random words into the descriptions. I need a nap!

Technorati Tags: SIGGRAPH,San Francisco

San Francisco and The Clone Wars, episode 2

After lunch we walked through a few rooms of exhibits of concept art, maquettes and video, much of which was marked No Photos Please. There were a few photo opportunities, though.






The facilities are in the Presidio, which is a park open to the public. I took a quick panoramic shot outside the building, and a few other shots.

San Francisco and The Clone Wars, episode 1

Boom! I'm in San Francisco, taxi to the Marina and wait for Dave to get out of work. We dumped my stuff, had a few beers and then Dave showed me "the REAL San Francisco" - we went to what may be the gayest dance club in the city. I mean, DAY-UMM! The good part was he and I got really good drink service at the bar.

Saturday we went to see the premiere of The Clone Wars. We were issued a movie ticket, a "Lunchbox" ticket and a badge.






We saw the show at the Metreon, and then cabbed over to Letterman Digital Arts Center in the Presidio for the rest of the events.



There were tables set up with stacks of metal lunchboxes, as well as drinks for the over-21 crowd.




Tell you more about this lunchbox? No problem. The sticker on the front denoted vegetarian or regular, with the regular containing chicken strips, corn on the cob, potato salad, cherry tomatoes with mozzarella in pesto, and chocolate cake...all of which were good.




Luckily I was able to score an additional lunchbox so I don't return home causing a battle royale with my two boys over one lunchbox!

I also managed to catch a glimpse of George Lucas mingling with some people. It's still pretty surreal to actually see someone in person that I have only seen on TV.

Las Vegas, en route for SIGGRAPH

So I'm in my layover in Las Vegas. I like to call it "Lost Wages."

I was finally able to get on the airport wireless, a feat I could not accomplish in Austin.

So far I've played almost $6 worth on $4 in the quarter slots. Hey, big spender!



Oh yeah, I had some coffee.

Next stop is San Francisco, where we'll see a sneak preview of The Clone Wars and drive down to LA for the conference.

SIGGRAPH 2008...finally!

I'm going back to SIGGRAPH, after a loooooong absence of...six or seven years?



I have been out of the workstation and graphics markets for a while, and I'm starting to get involved once again. My main reasons for going are to take the classes and some work projects.

I've been tasked with generating usage models for various lines of businesses, basically figuring out how do users actually "use" our machines and develop some processes for either making the experience better, faster, both, etc. Almost like developing benchmarks based on actual customer usage. I'll be dabbling in everything from ultramobile to workstations.

I'm also working on a graphics benchmark that scales with graphics power, as some of our current benchmarks represent the 3D load with strictly cpu-based rendering, ie no benefit of mega-uber-graphics over integrated graphics.

This isn't just a work trip, though! I'm going early back to San Fran to meet with my friend Dave to catch some Star Wars action that I'm not sure I can mention yet (correct me if I'm wrong!), and then we'll be driving down to LA for SIGGRAPH.

This should be a great trip, great experience, and hopefully the return of my regular attendance to SIGGRAPH!

Posting with Blogger Buddy

Every once in a while I check to see if there are any interesting Vista Sidebar gadgets available. I mean, how many clock utilities do we really need?

One I just found is Blogger Buddy, which lets you post from your Sidebar without having to load your browser or editing app.







Well, this might be the first and last post from Blogger Buddy for me! Clicking on the Image button has a space to fill in the image tag, but it wants an html link, and it won't let you browse your drive for images.

No thanks. For quick text-only posts, I can see the advantage, but I prefer show and tell. Another problem I just found - I tried to select the following text and click the Italics button, and instead of bookending the text with the italics tags, it just put the opening and closing tags after the end of the text. That's useful, said nobody.

This is actually my second attempt - I think I messed up the gadget trying to move it off the Sidebar.

Also, I had to post the text of the, uh, post, with Blogger Buddy, then open IE, log in, edit my post and manually upload and add the images.

Speed Racer

Wow.

A few nights ago we caught Speed Racer at the dollar show.



Call us crazy, but we actually liked it!

I had heard that the reviews were terrible, so I went in to it not expecting it to be double-billed with The Shawshank Redemption, so perhaps our sights were lower than the average critic.




Psychedelic-trippy-more-than-exist colors? Totally. Sometimes there was just so much going on in the scene that I had no idea what was what, who was winning or if we had just gone plaid.

The acting was okay for this type of movie, and I actually laughed out loud a few times, which surprised me. Our kids definitely enjoyed the racing scenes and crazy stunts and tracks, but they got a little restless in the extended dialog scenes.

What's funny is I went through the whole thing thinking Val Kilmer played Rex Racer, but apparently it's this dude! Some people on the forums apparently also think that he looks like Val Kilmer, so I guess I'm not the only one.

I really like the car designs too.

McDonalds commercials

Man, over a month off of blogging and I come back for my 250th post with some McDonalds commercials?

Yes!

The only thing we like about McDonalds is the ice cream cones. And an air-conditioned playscape. The two things we like about McDonalds are the ice cream cones and the air-conditioned playscapes. And RedBox drops. Okay, I see where this is going. While we don't eat there, I really liked their commercial featuring Line Rider, a great game that deserves some posts of its own.

I love the "music" on the first one.



I didn't know there was another one until I searched for the first one.



Last night my boys and I are watching a little SpongeBob...do we really need a link?...and I saw another commercial that has moved up in my favorites list.



These girls can dance! It looks like the motion has been sped up slightly in a few places, or some frames have been removed reminding me of some really old-school MTV VJ techniques. I made my boys sit through the commercial about five times before relinquishing control back to SpongeBob.

Besides their technique, which I'm trying to copy to perform at work, I love their facial expressions.

Weezer: Pork and Beans

So Weezer, one of my favorite bands, is coming out with a new album next month, and you may have heard the first single, "Pork and Beans."

They've released a video chock-full of internet memes.



Here is one of many websites that start cataloging the memes.

No Rick-Rolling, though!

Edit: I almost forgot to give credit where credit is due - thanks for the heads-up Cobra!

World War Z

I recently finished an audiobook as well - World War Z by Max Brooks.



It's by the same author that wrote the Zombie Survival Guide, which I've seen and flipped through, but never read.

World War Z was my first audiobook, and I listened to it on my ~20 minute commute. It was very well...written? Read? Both. I'm not sure how the dead tree version is, but this was made up of interviews from survivors of various nationalities and professions. I immediately recognized Henry Rollins and James Woods, but there are a few more that I new but couldn't place a face with the voice. I found the multiple actors a definite plus to the experience, but I wonder if that is due to the interview style of the book. I don't have any prior audiobook knowledge to compare.

If I didn't have 40 minutes per day alone, I probably wouldn't have even tried it.

I got it from emusic.com, for which I had a coupon for some free music and an audiobook.

24: 1994 Pilot

So 24 got picked up by Fox again (duh), but it won't be until next year before we get some Bauer-licious action. What to do in the interim? Feast your eyes on this lost pilot recently unearthed from the archives.



Luckily it's posted to youtube.com and not just the Humor-Site-that-will-get-you-fired-and-in-hot-water-with-your-wife.

Thanks Shayne!

7,365,886: Method and apparatus for feeding a document to a device

That's me, babies! One of my ideas finally made it through the near-interminable wait in the US Patent Office. Big Ups to Christa, too, my mentor when I got to the printer group.

It was submitted December 2004!! Normally it can take a long time to go through the US Patent Office as the clerks try to determine if there is prior art or if it actually is patentable.



At work, if someone submits an idea, it goes to the patent committee, which is a group of senior engineers from just about every area in technology. If it passes muster through a scan over email, the inventor gets to defend it in person at a weekly patent meeting. You better have your ducks in a row. If you successfully defend it here, it goes through Legal to our patent attorneys, with whom you work to create the actual disclosure. Then it goes to the Patent Office where you may or may not hear anything for some number of years, and all of a sudden, BOOM! You are a patent holder.

While your idea is at the patent office but before it is granted patent status, it is an application. I have more waiting in the wings, so hopefully this is just the start.

You get a plaque in a meeting, a similar plaque goes up on the wall at work, and you get a free certificate that you can frame (or buy a metal plaque). There are also other benefits for this process, but that's just money and stock options - BFD, right? Yes!

I don't know if getting on through the USPTO will open any doors, but I'll let you know.

Personalized gift cards

We get occasional "On the Spot" instant bonuses at work, usually around $50, and you can pick what kind of gift you want - usually I select a Visa gift card. Once you log on and verify the code number, you have the option of adding a personalized message to the card face, which I did.



I got zero response from any vendor to whom I presented the card. My friends thought it was funny, but I guess all the merchants' sense of humor has been ground down to nothing.

I know what you're saying - "$48? I thought you said $50?!" Yes, it is a $50 gift minus a $2 processing fee for the privelige - nay, the honor! - of getting one of their cards. Lame.