HHC2010



#11

HHC was just terrific this year. This was the first time that I have been able to go since 2007.

Several very good papers and enough good door prizes to send everybody back with lots of goodies.

To all that couldn't make it, you were missed.

To all that did make it, I was really great seeing you again. I look forward to 2011.

John


#12

John,

Glad you had fun at the HHC2010. I remember HHC 2007 in San Jose and the "event" during one of your talks, when your laptop displayed a eBay auction reminder (one which I was also bidding) which also appeared on the talk's projection. We both lost the auction, I remember but the whole conference attendees had a big laugh at what happened and many suggested that what happened would be an excellent eBay TV advertisement (if not the very best one for eBay). I think Jake video taped that "event" too, so it is in the HHC2007 video archive.

Sorry I missed the HHC2010, but the weather here in the south of France is fantastic!!!!

Cheers,

Namir

Edited: 28 Sept 2010, 3:16 a.m.


#13

That e-bay event was discussed with much laughter. I do not recall what the bid was for, but I'm sure that it was something that has improved the quality of my life.

You were missed and mentioned with fondness.

John

#14

Thanks John. I had a really wonderful time at my first HHC conference. The speakers were great, the door prizes were great, and I'm seriously thinking about buying the 35s now, Just Because. It was also really nice to finally put faces with so many of the familiar names here on the forum.

A special THANK YOU to the entire HHC2010 committee for putting this thing together, and the HP for hosting us at their wonderful facility.

Dave


#15

I second Davids sentiments!
(and Davids presentation was the most lucid!)

Thanks again to the HHC committee and Hewlett Packard for hosting the conference!!

TomC


#16

First, I agree about David's presentation. I think he was really cheated by not being allowed to submit his 50g C program into the programming competition! :-)

Second, it is always good to get together in person, to view virtual people as real.

Finally, thanks to all who attended. I'm sure Richard Nelson will have a write-up of the conference available soon.

Next year, perhaps we'll all meet in my neck of the woods.


Nashville, TN for HHC 2011 ?


#17

Gene,

Yes sir!!! Sign me up for HHC2011 in Nashville!! BTW, are there any country singers who love HP calculator as much (or even more) as country music???

:-)

Namir

Edited: 28 Sept 2010, 9:05 a.m.

#18

Did Joerg Werner (the TI Datamath web curator) attend?


#19

Jörg Wörner is on the list of registered attendees with a PoA of 100%. So I guess he was there.

#20

Yes, Joerg and his son were there for the Saturday morning.


Not sure about the country singers, but I am checking into having the conference here in 2011.


Hopefully, some individuals who live within driving distance of Nashville might be able to attend.

As for excursions, there are several possibilities.

The 1896 Tennessee Centennial Parthenon. As I tell my friends in Athens, our Parthenon isn't in ruins. :-)

President Andrew Jackson's home, the Hermitage:

The Grand Ole Opry:


and a few others.


#21

You are 9 hours by car from me. I used to drive through Nashville with my son on our way to Flagstaff, AZ, Nashville was our first stop. We stayed at a Holiday Inn (off I-40 east of the city) not too far from the airport.

#22

Quote:
Not sure about the country singers, but I am checking into having the conference here in 2011.

Gene,

Nashville sounds great - pun intended - for both location and music. Any danger of you costing-up for August as well as, presumably, September so that those tied to school holiday periods can have a chance of attending?


#23

The reason for September is that at least in the past, travel costs and hotel costs were thought to be cheaper AFTER September 15 compared to before.

If someone can show the committee some analysis of airline fares, hotel costs before / after that date showing no difference, it would be open for discussion.

Please? :-)


#24

The US Dept. of Transportation has average airfare statistics publicly available here. Unfortunately they are quarterly but the 3rd quarter falls mostly over the school holiday period so that might be good enough.

The stats are given as city-to-city average fare costs so just taking the first city pair out of the report (which is Austin, TX to Houston, TX) the average one-way fares for 2009 Q1, Q2, Q3 & Q4 were $120, $117, $121 and $123.

So I would suggest that the time of year makes precious little difference.

#25

Thank you Gene and Thomas for your kind comments on my presentation. Personally, I thought I should have gotten an ad-hoc "most boring presentation award" based on the looks on people's faces. :) Since many attendees aren't C programmers, I don't blame them for being bored.

For those who weren't there, I'll explain Gene's comment about the programming contest. The contest rules said that entries would be scored by multiplying the number of bytes in the program by the runtime in seconds. As an experiment, I wrote two solutions, one in RPL and one in C code. Even though the C version was 100x larger (about 16k vs 139 bytes), it had a slightly better score on my test inputs because C runs so much faster than RPL.

Let me stress that the C code was strictly a curiosity. It was clearly not eligible based on the rules so the judges understandably didn't accept it.

Hopefully Joe will post the contest and the entries here. If he does, I'll post the C code and the timing results.

David


#26

Don't confuse boredom with struggling to understand (at least in my case.) I was very interested, just not as knowledgeable about the subject as I would like.

Knew more about it after your talk than I did before. Good talk.


#27

Thank you, John. That's very kind of you. :)

#28

Music City would be G-R-E-A-T-!!! ;)

#29

Gene, I would attend a conference in Nashville if you are able to put one together, assuming it doesn't conflict with the Rocky Mountain Audiofest which I attend.


Edited: 30 Sept 2010, 12:23 a.m.

#30

I too enjoyed my first HHC conference. Thanx to all who put a lot of work into it.

#31

Quote:
... and I'm seriously thinking about buying the 35s now, Just Because.

Dave, can you elaborate on this comment?!


Thanks!


#32

There really isn't much to elaborate on. The conference just enhanced my interest in the calculators and I don't own a 35s. I'd like to get one and tinker around with writing some programs for it, see how fast it is, etc.

The only thing that has prevented me from getting one until now is the lack of I/O capability, so all programs must be entered by hand. Maybe the 35s will be an excuse to get into cheap robotics - it would be fun to program a robot to program it. I've heard that someone has done this already.

David


#33

Quote:
see how fast it is

David, programs on the 35s run a lot slower than the same programs on the 33s, fyi. If it's speed you want, the 30b will not disappoint you.


#34

The HP 30b appears to be the fastest HP handheld ever. It performs a 2500-iteration version of the old Savage benchmark in 6.5 seconds. That's ten times faster than the HP 50G, and it produces exactly the same numerical result. It's a sturdy calculator with excellent ergonomics and mechanical characteristics...but not much program memory, though.

To return to subject...I think Nashville would be a great conference site, especially for us who are east of the Mississippi. Must there be an appropriate HP facility at at the city chosen for the conference?


Edited: 29 Sept 2010, 9:54 a.m.


#35

Quote:
Must there be an appropriate HP facility at at the city chosen for the conference?

Nope - we were simply taking advantage of the offers by HP between 2007 and 2010 to use their facilities, thus saving us easily between 1 and 2 thousand dollars that would have to be covered by the attendees. Based on 40 people, I am glad that we didn't have to charge each attendee an extra $50. to be there. (It is understood that in any case the conference fee would be very minor as compared to most of our transportation, hotel and food costs, but still...)

Jake

#36

just want to second all the sentiment and and especially the thanks to Richard, Gene, and the committee as well as Tim and Jason and HP. They did a terrific job.

It was my first US conference and it was a great pleasure to finally put faces to the many great posts here on the forum. It is indeed an awesome community!

Cheers

Peter

#37

Yes, another wonderful conference and meet.

Some incredible math/algorithim discussions as well as interesting future ideas from HP! One of the benefits of attending ;-)

Ideas galore and it would seem, lots of feedback from HP. New venue for next year? Sure, but I will be there again!

The following require many thanks and kudos:

*  The Committed members of course
Richard, Joe, Wlodek, Gene and Jake
* HP of course;
Tim, Laura and Jason
* Special thanks to Mark Ringrose for organizing NOAA and
NIST this year.

I will have some video links to the NOAA tour up some time today I hope. The globe projection room was incredible. The detail and 3d presentation that you could walk around was fascintating. I mangaged to get some good video clips of the following:

* plate tectonics spanning 600 million years
* north pole ice sheet fluctuations
* aircraft tracking on the globe
* IO, Jupiter and Mars scans

I will try to get them up today otherwise they may wait until I get back from my Tokyo trip Saturday.

Cheers and thanks to ALL for a great time and chat (listen ;-)

Geoff

Edited: 28 Sept 2010, 6:55 p.m.


#38

Geoff, can't you borrow a Jumbo and pick us all up next time? That would save on transportation costs for most of us considerably, I think. ;)


#39

Quote:
Geoff, can't you borrow a Jumbo and pick us all up next time? That would save on transportation costs for most of us considerably, I think. ;)

Hmmm... If the pilot diverts the plane, it isn't hijacking, right?

Okay, here's the plan: we all travel to some airport next year - let's say Denver - and book a seat on one of Geoff's flights. Once we're in the air, he declares an emergency - a "software glitch in BCD rotator circuitry."

He diverts the plane to Tahiti for an emergency landing.

We hold the conference there and the airline flies us all back first class to compensate us for the diversion....

:)
Dave


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