Siggraph 2015 Notes

I just missed Joey Ito's Keynote speech.  The MIT Media Lab space at Siggraph, as always, has excellent graphic design.  I guess I would call it that MIT Press look.

It disappoints me that we do not have a message board.  Yes, it was unwieldy and imperfect but it was often of use and now there is nothing to replace it.

Hotel Figueroa is no longer owned by Uno, the entertaining German who had bought it 20 plus years ago. It does not appear as though the Sunday Art Party poolside at the Hotel Figueroa is still in action.

At the dWi reunion party, perhaps half the people were unemployed, it seemed.

Sighted at Siggraph: Joan Collins, Mary Whitton, Michael Naimark, Jimbo Hillin, Joey Ito, Scott Fisher, two volunteers from Va. Commonwealth University, Marty Schindler, Rick Sayre, Ed Catmull, Pat Hanrahan, David Morin, David Naegel, Craig Reynolds, Kevin Bjorke, Ed Kramer, Scott Owen, Tom Duff, Henry Fuchs, Turner Whitted (now at Nvidia), Paul Debevec, Barton Gawboy, Jay Sloat, Kurt Fleisher.

Coons award winner Henry Fuchs.

Art achievement award went to Lillian Schwartz which is great, but I felt that Siggraph should have put more energy into explaining who Lillian is and how she came to be where and what she was.  The thing that Lillian provided was addressed, I felt, to those already in the arts community who knew who she was and what the backstory was.  I think.

A brief moment of cynicism about Siggraph papers from the point of view of two very jaded adults who have worked in the glamourous entertainment industry.   A friend and I were discussing what sort of papers one saw at Siggraph, broken down by category: A. papers about techniques that we have been doing for years, B. papers about good ideas that are implemented in a way that is straightforward and obvious, C. Papers about problems or ideas where the author did not seem to understand that the problem had been solved for years, or did not know something about prior work that is very important.  D. Papers about some idea that was really interesting and unexpected, however it was implemented, E. Papers about an idea that was well known (or a problem that was well known) but was solved in a way that was unexpected or really clever.   Obviously what you want is more of categories D and E.

I had a crisis at home and had to leave Siggraph Monday evening through Tuesday unfortunately when most of the interesting parties were.