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Open source

Penguicon 2008

By apotheon May 5, 2008, 1:41 AM PDT

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Penguicon 2008

The Lobby

The Lobby

Before registration began, the Hilton lobby filled quickly with gadget-toting geeks waiting for the festivities to start.

Penguicon 2008

Schedule Wall

Schedule Wall

A section of hallway in the convention hotel was covered with pages showing the event schedule for Penguicon. There were times when the hallway was almost impassible for a few minutes, as people tried to decide where they were going next.

Penguicon 2008

Alternatives to Silicon

Alternatives to Silicon

A panel discussion called Alternatives to Silicon, led by eminent geek Thomas “cmdlin” Gideon and Aaron Diaz, artist of the speculative webcomic Dresden Codak. A discussion of cutting-edge and future information technologies, it quickly dissolved into matters of quantum tunneling and similar esoterica.

Penguicon 2008

PostgreSQL + D&D = ?

PostgreSQL + D&D = ?

I couldn’t resist attending a presentation called Into the Dayta-b’hase: A First-level Introductory Adventure, on building a PostgreSQL database for managing D&D characters. Seen here is Catherine Devlin, the presenter, marveling at the rapid level advancement of one of her example characters.

Penguicon 2008

PostgreSQL 8.3 and Beyond

PostgreSQL 8.3 and Beyond

A day after the D&D character database demonstration, Aaron Thul gave a presentation describing the new features of PostgreSQL 8.3 and plans for 8.4, including native support for clusters.

Penguicon 2008

Playtesting with Andy Looney

Playtesting with Andy Looney

Fluxx creator Andy Looney recruited convention attendees to help him playtest a new card game design.

Penguicon 2008

Eberron with Keith Baker

Eberron with Keith Baker

Eberron creator and Penguicon Gaming Guest of Honor Keith Baker ponders behind a DM’s screen.He ran a D&D game for convention attendees set in the Eberron setting as he envisioned it, in this photo. Players were chosen via an Eberron Quiz Show.

Penguicon 2008

Drums and Dancing

Drums and Dancing

For a change of pace, there was a drums-and-dancing festival in the halls of the convention hotel, complete with homemade didgeridoo.

Penguicon 2008

Forensics and Knoppix

Forensics and Knoppix

Kyle Rankin, the author of several of O’Reilly Media’s Hacks series of books, gave the Introduction to Forensics and Remastering Knoppix Without Remastering presentations.

Penguicon 2008

The Illustrated Man

The Illustrated Man

One convention attendee got his head illustrated by webcomic artists in the dealer’s room. Shown here are Megan Rose Gedris (creator of I Was Kidnapped By Lesbian Pirates From Outer Space) and Jennie Breeden (of The Devil’s Panties fame) putting ink to scalp. He was later seen being decorated by xkcd‘s Randall Munroe and Dresden Codak‘s Aaron Diaz. Aaron’s contribution was a caricature of the Higgs boson, aka “the God Particle”.

Penguicon 2008

Tea, Biscuits, Death Metal, and Linux

Tea, Biscuits, Death Metal, and Linux

Sporting a “tea, biscuits, and death metal” t-shirt, Ubuntu Community Manager and Penguicon Tech Guest of Honor Jono Bacon gave the Standing On The Shoulders Of Giants: The Coming Of The Linux Desktop presentation.

Penguicon 2008

Tesla Coil Concert

Tesla Coil Concert

The nighttime Musical Tesla Coil concerts — Penguicon’s Hack of Honor this year — were really a sight to behold. Steve Ward created a pair of solid state Tesla coils that can be programmatically controlled to modulate the spark frequency they generate, so that the sound produced can be matched to musical notes. Check out the Penguicon Tesla coil concert video captured during a rendition of Popcorn by Lisa Joy, who provided photography assistance for me at the convention.

Penguicon 2008

Junkyard Wars

Junkyard Wars

At Junkyard Wars, convention attendees competed against each other to build a working system from a pile of component parts more quickly than anyone else. Among the challenges: making sure the parts you picked out of the pile actually work.

Penguicon 2008

Knife Fighting

Knife Fighting

Among the other oddities of Penguicon, the Aegis Academy of Swordsmanship gave convention attendees free crash courses in knife fighting.

Penguicon 2008

Why to Vandalize a Network

Why to Vandalize a Network

Northern Michigan University Professor and network administrator Randy Appleton took a moment in his Linux Computer Security: Fighting Off the Hackers presentation to ponder why anyone would penetrate and vandalize someone’s network.

Penguicon 2008

The Search for the Perfect Window Manager

The Search for the Perfect Window Manager

Giles Orr presented a survey of window managers, touching on their features, origins, quirks, and performance characteristics, in History, Oddities, and the Search for the Perfect Window Manager. He maintains The Window Manager Report, an in-depth listing and analysis of common (and uncommon) window managers for the X Window System.

Penguicon 2008

Worldbuilding in a Bottle

Worldbuilding in a Bottle

Authors Elizabeth Bear, Catherynne Valente, Tamora Pierce, and Cherie Priest headed the panel discussion Worldbuilding in a Bottle along with Sarah Monette (not pictured). The subject matter, as described in the Penguicon event program, was “The overlooked skill of city building in Urban Fantasy.” Tamora Pierce was an Author Guest of Honor at this year’s Penguicon.

Penguicon 2008

Paint and Take

Paint and Take

The Paint and Take miniatures painting events were organized by Linda and Dean Martelle, who provided expert advice from novice miniature painters. Reaper Games provided the free miniatures and paints.

Penguicon 2008

Build a Better Mousetrap

Build a Better Mousetrap

The hotel lobby later became the site of a sort of open-source, community-driven mousetrap construction project. This was the state of the thing early Saturday morning; by Saturday evening, it had been torn down and was being rebuilt in a completely different style.

Penguicon 2008

Working for NASA

Working for NASA

Fluxx creator Andy Looney and xkcd creator and Penguicon Webcomics Guest of Honor Randall Munroe held a panel where they discussed their experiences working for NASA before striking off on their own as a game designer and a cartoonist, respectively.

Penguicon 2008

Open Source and Copyright

Open Source and Copyright

The Current Status of Open Source Copyright Issues panel discussion was led by Peter Salus, Cathy Raymond, and surprise guest panelist Eric S. Raymond — Cathy’s husband.

Penguicon 2008

Bayesian Reasoning

Bayesian Reasoning

In his Intro to Bayesian Reasoning, Eliezer Rudkowski uses common errors in the way physicians determine whether a mastectomy is warranted to demonstrate how to calculate probabilities from complex data sets.

Penguicon 2008

Math and Elections

Math and Elections

In the Math and Elections panel discussion, Randall Munroe, Eric S. Raymond, and Garrett Kajmowicz discussed the statistical merits and flaws of existing and proposed voting processes in the United States. Nobody mentioned the Condorcet criterion explicitly, but the tendency of the current single-vote system to produce suboptimal results was discussed. Factors like the effects of the electoral college, traditional political leanings of geographical regions, and even the breeding practices of differing political demographics on the outcome of elections were also covered.

Penguicon 2008

Tron Guy

Tron Guy

Have you heard of Jay Maynard, the TRON Guy? Well, he was at Penguicon, in all his TRON-costumed glory.

Penguicon 2008

Orvan Ox

Orvan Ox

TRON Guy wasn’t the only costumed figure roaming the halls of the Penguicon convention hotel. Often confused for the GNU mascot, Orvan Ox actually does deliveries for ACME Delivery, and has no direct connection with the GNU project.

Penguicon 2008

Beastie

Beastie

A round-table discussion about mascot costume design and construction featured Beastie, the BSD Unix mascot. This costume was the work of Limey Zrnich and his wife Amy Zelyn, with Kylia Zrnich under the daemon’s fuzzy skin.

Penguicon 2008

Star Trek Tux and Beastie

Star Trek Tux and Beastie

Beastie made another appearance for the Penguicon Closing Ceremonies alongside Linux mascot Tux, who happened to be doing some Star Trek cosplay at the time.

Penguicon 2008

Sailing the High Seas of Penguicon

Sailing the High Seas of Penguicon

Imagine the surprise when a pirate ship sailed through the halls of the convention hotel, complete with a bawdy sea shanty sung by its “crew”.

Penguicon 2008

Leaving the Con

Leaving the Con

Speaking of sailing, a man was sighted sailing a car through an empty parking lot on Sunday afternoon with the convention’s overflow hotel in the background.

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By apotheon
\ I'm an IT consultant, developer, and writer. I hold both MS and CompTIA certs and am a graduate of two IT industry trade schools. I was at one time the datacenter technician for the Wikimedia Foundation, probably the \"coolest\" job I've ever had
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