Evan Coyne Maloney has a nice summary of the various technologies available for travelling web junkies. I'm still hoping that my new bitchin' T-Mobile phone will solve this problem for me without my having to lug the PowerBook around everywhere I go: I should at least be able to check my mail with it, and I should have some web access using it directly (as a matter of fact, the phone does have bluetooth, so I should be able to use it to tap in through my computer in the manner Even describes).

But I'm just not willing to shell out the kind of money Evan's talking about, and I don't travel nearly as much as he does. For instance, I didn't even try to use the internet while I was on the plane during my last trip, because I was going "gypsy-style," trying to keep my expenses down as much as possible. Of course, when I got to the Newark airport and discovered that my connecting flight to Hartford had been delayed by three hours, I broke down and paid the 6.95 the Port Authority charges for web access from NY/New Jersey airports. Happily. (Do most airports offer this pay-for-use WiFi deal?)

And it's nice to know that most Holiday Inns offer free WiFi; it's just the cheaper motels I favor when I travelling sans husband that don't. I also know that more and more public squares and parks are now featuring free hot spots. And while Siggraph was going on, the L.A. Convention Center was one big free hot spot: it was lovely, though if they hadn't done that I think there might have been blood running in the streets.

But that Bluetooth option: now that Even's mentioned it, I might try that in order to live-blog the Liberty Film Festival this October. (The Beverly Center may offer cutting-edge design, but it doesn't have WiFi, as the convention center does. Last year I was cut off, and had to do nightly summaries from home. Very primitive.)

Posted by: Attila at 10:33 AM | No Comments | Add Comment
Post contains 346 words, total size 2 kb.

Insty has an interesting post up on the various stripes of anti-technology activists/sympathizers—on the left and right.

He even discusses a PBS Special that defends GM food. Utterly amazing; I'll have to watch that soon.

Posted by: Attila at 01:15 PM | No Comments | Add Comment
Post contains 43 words, total size 1 kb.

After Professor Fractal is done presenting his paper, and we've both called our spouses, we link up with Scanmaster and go out for a bite to eat. In Scanmaster's Prius I show the good professor "my Precious," my compact PowerBook. And then my "little Precious," the Motorola cell phone with e-mail capability and a qwerty keyboard.

"I have zero CPUs on me, and you have two," he remarks. "So who's the geek?"

"I don't want to talk about that right now," I reply.

Later, I exult to Scanmaster that I had finally utilized the WiFi at the Convention Center, and "live-blogged" from Siggraph itself.

"What's 'live-blogging?" he responds. "I swear, you use all these obscure technical terms. I can't keep up with you."

Posted by: Attila at 10:14 AM | No Comments | Add Comment
Post contains 137 words, total size 1 kb.

We must always bear in mind that not all the adventures chronicled in Po Bronson's Nudist on the Late Shift were undertaken in Silicon Valley itself: the computer business has been big all over the West Coast, with plenty of action in Los Angeles and the Bay Area. As a matter of fact, rumor has it that the title anecdote about the workaholic nudist actually occurred in Burbank.

The nudist himself was sent a copy of the book along with a pen and a self-addressed stamped envelope by a colleague who wanted to vicariously experience someone else's fifteen minutes of fame.

Posted by: Attila at 11:07 PM | No Comments | Add Comment
Post contains 111 words, total size 1 kb.

The first time I went to Siggraph, it was being held in Anaheim. I drove down from West Los Angeles a couple of nights. My roommate at the time was part of a small computer graphics company that had its party at the Disneyland Hotel. The world of computer imagery was still, in many ways, a primitive art form in the mid-80s: as I recall the best minds in the business were still working on how to make plants look real, rather than like little explosions of color. Simulating human skin was still impossible, and there was still a distinctive "look" to any work that included "CGI" (Computer-Generated Images).

A few years later Terminator 2 would be made; the quantity and quality of computer images would spike.

Two years ago, I returned to Siggraph. It was in San Diego that year, and despite my being what they call "an English major's English major" I was talked into attending again. I found myself marvelling over and over about the kinds of technologies that were becoming "hot." Siggraph is not only about visual art: it explores that place where art and technology meet, no matter the sense that is being engaged. As I write this I have on my desk two little objects that were created by 3-D scanners/"printers." One of them is a tube containing little ball bearings, all of which were created inside the tube. The other is a little box with a lid that screws on: the threads are perfect. The object was made in two pieces, and they match exactly.

These little objects are passe now, two years later. Now the cutting edge is to be found in little devices that can be inserted into one's inner ear to disrupt equalibrium and make a person dizzy when he or she is not moving at all. Or machines that simulate the act of drinking through a straw, though one isn't consuming anything. Or virtual-reality hangliding.

My usual tourguide is Scanmaster, who knows everybody in the business. He's the go-to guy for scanning fine artwork, and the scanner he uses is one he had to invent. Last night, at the Aztec club, he introduced me to the legendary Jim Blinn, and I was nearly speechless.

"What am I on the lookout for this year?" I asked before we set out. I always want to know what the hardest effects are: last year it was hair that moves realistically, a la Violet's mane in The Incredibles, and that eternal bane of the special effects world: water. And fabric. Fabric was the hardest thing to do well at that time. Think of the long flowing robes worn by the dementers in Prisoner of Azkaban. That was plain old showing off.

This year, Scanmaster explains that the vogue is beautiful, stylized portrayal of technology of the kind we saw in Star Wars: Episode III. Now that a lot of the technical problems involved in creating fabric are considered fixable, we'll be seeing more and more exotic treatments of fabric in some of the less "photo-realistic" movies: neon fabrics. Fabrics that catch light in ways that appear nearly impossible.

And eye candy, as always: not just the buxom women we've been seeing since this technology moved beyond cubes outlined in green against a black screen, but more and more computer-generated images meant to be appreciated as high art in and of themselves, rather than imitating some other medium. Landscapes based on fantasy worlds; abstract art. Machines that use magnetic fields to create patterns in a shallow sandbox by means of a small metal ball.

This is a pursuit of beauty itself. The people around me who are often dismissed as "geeks" are really artists masquerading as engineers, underappreciated painters in pixels. And it's glorious to behold.

Posted by: Attila at 10:44 PM | No Comments | Add Comment
Post contains 650 words, total size 4 kb.

Finally. Never mind that I've only got ten minutes until I meet my friend Professor Fractal for a quick bite to eat before I go home and blog this for real from the desk in my dining room at home: like the engineers I'm surrounded by, I'm willing to savor the victory of a technological achievement. Because these little watermarks always hold out the promise of better things in the future.

It turns out the propoganda on the GE "Carousel of Progress" at Disneyland was correct. Who knew?

More—much more—on this later.

Posted by: Attila at 05:17 PM | No Comments | Add Comment
Post contains 104 words, total size 1 kb.