It’s a new look, mostly inspired by Edward Tufte. The old look, with its ruled elements that drove down the data-ink ratio - or should that be the data-pixel ratio? - is still available as an alternate stylesheet. I shouldn’t dwell on the pain necessary to get this so-called two-column fluid layout all working reasonably with CSS, and particularly with Internet Explorer. I’m just glad I program renderers, not web browsers.
SIGGRAPH happened at the beginning of the month. It was a reasonable diversion this year, mainly because it took place in Boston instead of the city on the Hellmouth that is Los Angeles. Traffic was notably bad. Actually, it was worst than bad: it was random. No reasonable guess could be made as to whether a taxi or the shuttle bus would beat out walking to the convention centre on any given morning. As for the new bracelets that got us onto the shuttle buses, they were touted by a coworker as our way of showing support for Floyd Landis, and not say some scheme to deprive student SIGGRAPH attendees not staying at the conference hotels the luxury of travelling by coach.
The technical content was more of the usual. Everyone is doing fur, and doing it the same way (except for Blue Sky). Fulfilled my annual geometry tolerance by learning about geodesics and physically impossible soap bubbles. Finally caught a Denis Zorin course. Missed the must-see 3D laser plasma display in the Emerging Technologies section - instead I vacuumed ghost shadows. The usual. As for the show floor, the surprise this year was the lack of demand for posters. It took us almost an hour each morning to get rid of three thousand tubes, and that just isn’t the norm. The real chaos manifested when this year’s model of teapot was given away, but I’m not really sure people knew what it was they were lining up for.
Non conference activities: I met up with Gloria, who is doing very well in Boston. She’s the friend I’ve known the longest - we had the same piano teacher before we ended up attending the same high school. I’ve always been slightly envious of how much she’s managed to do in life: learn multiple instruments (and learn them well); spend lots of time working and travelling abroad; go dragon boating, etc. We all had a nice dinner in the Italian district of North End and reminisced about old times. When we got away from the conference on other days, we took the Old Town Trolley Tour around Boston. I managed to lure everyone on to the U.S.S Constitution (I am reading the Aubrey-Maturin series, after all) and geeked out at the rigging. Alas, we were too late to go below decks. On our last trolley go-around, it was our tour driver’s last day, so we ended up being trolleyed off the beaten path.
SIGGRAPH is in San Diego next year. I’m looking forward to Legoland.