Sunday in Lone Star

I’m sitting here in the Convention Center typing.
I haven’t had time to write up much. When I got back to the hotel last night I was too tired to boot up the computer. Shocked I know, for me to betoo tired to get on the net. My broken toe is starting to take it’s toll. It’s been understanding with all the walking, but by the end of the evening last night, I found myself starting to limp a bit. I popped a few Advil and feel fine today.
I’ve got about 10 minutes until the first session, so there’s no time to write up everything. I’ll just tell you about the Kick game. Yesterday morning they had a Kickball game that I went too. Many people knew each other from previous years. I bumped into a guy that knew my brother, Matt, from Northwestern. Strange coincidence.
Kickball is basically softball, but instead of using a bat on a softball, you kick a large rubber ball. It was great fun.

Since I was unfamiliar with the game and have a broken toe, I didn’t play and joined the cheerleader section. I met and talked with a number of cool people. BTW, the predominant name for SXSW attendees is Jessica & Michael. I have met 3 Jessicas and 4 other Michaels.
The converstation ranged all over. I spoke with Christine from Big Pink Cookie about the problems with blogging about work when your co-workers read your blog. Nice to know I’m not alone in the dilema.
After the kickball game, I went to lunch at IHOP. I had the Cheddar Turkey Melt. Mmmm.
5 minutes to session, gotta go.

Night 1

I listened to Richard Stallman talk about copyright last night. It wasn’t the usual Free Software talk, it was all about the place of Copyright in our society.
He made a few interesting points like comparing software code to cooking recipes. What would cooks think if they could not use or modify a recipe? Imagine a law against changing a recipe, or trying to figure out a recipe from tasting a prepared dish, or even disallowing you to give a copy of a recipe to a friend.
Sounds silly right? Currently, this is the case with computer software.
He also makes the valid point that all creative works cannot be treated the same way. A recipe is different that a novel and should be treated differently. Current copyright law makes all creative works behave the same way.
I don’t agree with every conclusion that he draws, but he does make valid points that are hard to simply refute. The main arguement against many of his ideas is that they will ‘break’ existing business models. This is a difficult arguement to logically defend, but it is very easy to defend it with money and politicians.
Somethings got to give between P2P networks, DRM, Trustworthy/Treacherous Computing, and the DMCA. It’s all getting caught up into a hairball and I think business is going to choke on it.
I think the question is “Will the old content creation giants be able to adapt before the marketplace adapts around them.” Xerox had the personal computer and decided it would hurt copier sales and killed plans to move forward. Will Disney & Time Warner sell people what they want before they can easily get it for free?
After Stallman’s speech I went to the Linux Top Gun at a night club. Basically several hacker groups try to hack each other. I drank a couple glasses of scotch, sniffed the ethernet packets flyign by and watched the strange interaction between those the there for the hacking event and the Film/Music people also in th ebar wondering what all the laptops were for.
Time for kickball.

Press baby…

I’m sitting the press room at SXSW sucking off free internet access. There’s a couple other people here chatting about things.
One of the guys is David Weinberger who just wrote World of Ends page. Quite interesting. I revealed that I work for Disney and that sparked a few discussion.
Time to get a bit to eat before Stallman.

Lone Star State

I’m currently in the lobby of SXSW in Austin, Texas.
After a bit of travel, I have arrived. For the flights I decided to not wear my contacts, since I would probably not be able to sleep with them on and my eyes would be worn out way too early. I wore my glasses. I don’t wear my glasses in public much, mainly because I can’t see well with them on. At home, I can watch TV, but I can’t read words on the screen from even the couch.
Now I was traveling with this vision. You take for granted that you can read the signs and monitors at the airport. To read everything, I had to either squint up at it for a bit or ask some one to read it to me. Now, I’m an outgoing guy, and I don’t mind talking to strangers, btu I could see what went through people’s mind when I asked for help. They thought either I was really blind or I was slow and illiterate. In either case, I felt very strange. Not at all like the hardy traveler I picture myself.
On to Texas, a couple thoughts.
1) It’s a much wider sky. Logically I know that the sky looks bigger because there are fewer buildings and trees, but it sure *feels* like a bigger sky.
2) Frontage Roads – These roads are designed to let the locals know who is from out of town since they see us making plenty of U-turns and pulling over to look at maps.
3) Construction – Austin is one big construction zone. Cranes, dust, red cones, and hard hats are everywhere….
OK, time to leav cyberspace and jack back into the real world. Later.

30 hours

About 30 hours until I leave for SXSW. I have plenty to do, but unfortunately my energy level is low.
Rather than write more or do anything productive, I’m going to bed. Rest is good.
Good night. More content in the coming days…