Arrived early. Was hosted for free at Chien Tan Overseas Youth Activity Center.
Some more arrivals trickle in.
Reading the sign in passing.
Pretty cool buildings I thought.
Some volunteers preparing in the main hall.
Main gathering area and WIKIBALL!
They came from all around the world.
As you can see, it's an actual, very fragile, puzzle. It moved at the slightest touch when I decided to see if it was for real.
Lots of laptop love and a schedule of events.
Some good resolution here. Can read all the text at full zoom.
Some articles announcing the conference. Love how girls in bikinis are front page news. Haha.
This is an automatic crop and skew-corrected zoom of the last image. Pretty cool mode, probably cursed by magazine publishers everywhere.
Outside again, touring the grounds.
Out back there's a cool pond and a good view of the Grand Hotel.
Loved the skywalk balcony and lack of safety railings. Would never see that in lawsuit-happy US.
Lone laptop user in the hall.
There were girls too. What, did you think this was LinuxWorld?
Reminded me of my roommates instant messaging each other from two steps away, both in the same dorm room.
Refreshments served. Macro time!
"Hello, I'm Salty." "And I'm Sweet." "Let me introduce those ones on the right. Meet So Gooood."
My first talk.
Let's look up "Ecosystem" on Wikipedia to find information for a PowerPoint presentation instead of listening to the talk. Why? These people were seriously weirder than me.
The talk was a bit more pedestrian than I'd hoped for. Discussed open-sourced vs. closed-source software development.
Volunteers greeting a late entrant.
Laptops drew more eyeballs than anything else.
Post-talk discussion.
OMG! OLPC!
Participants pore over the otherworldly interface. I found it _extremely_ alien, coming from a Windows world, but I only tried it for two minutes. Seriously, the browser has no address bar. WTF!? Renaud, in the back, had transferred his work to an OLPC laptop by the end of the day and had a better view of it than me. Physically, it is compact in size, but not in weight. It has a very sturdy heft to it. The screen is tiny, but the resolution is high, making for normal screen real estate. The keyboard is a bumpy rubber mat, making it dust- and waterproof (great idea for kids), but if you're looking for great tactile feedback as you type, look elsewhere. Anyway good luck to them. When OLPC kicks off big time, this will be the most popular laptop model _in the world_. And it runs Linux. By tons of kids in the third world without any previous mode of interaction with the outside and who maybe never had so much as a light bulb in their home.
This is me, taking a picture.
Someone amused to see their image show up on the screen as she walks past. The camera is on the right, which is not the most natural placement if you're trying to look straight (or take a picture of yourself taking a picture!).
People in the common area after the first talk.
Spoiling our appetites on delicious Taiwanese delicacies.
Heading out early to the main hall.
Stage hands.
Readying the video camera. The video coverage seemed really complete. With still photos though, it felt like I was the only one who brought a camera.
Joi Ito, chairman of Creative Commons, speaking on "The Sharing Economy".
Watching a funny video mash-up of Bush's statements, the sort of thing the White House tried to suppress by making copyright claims.
Another videographer in the back.
Daily speech schedule, lunch pass and hipster PDA.
A Nokia 770 Linux internet tablet I believe. Does Opera and Skype among other things. Very cool, but a Nintendo DS can do most of those things, and play games.
Lunch is ready. Please proceed to the exits in an orderly fashion...
...and CHAOS!
Just kidding.
Going back over the skywalk for lunch.
Descending down the staircase.
Registration.
Discussion.
It's Wikipe-tan! in the Japanese tradition of "moe" anthropomorphization of non-human objects or concepts. In order to elicit a protective or loving response from the audience, Wikipe-tan manifests herself in the image of a cute young girl--in her case, a maid.
My first arm-length shot of myself.
Renaud did not move from that spot all day long.
Free computer kiosk. Used one briefly to download my camera's user manual and look up how to find Low Light mode.
Lunch is served.
Full house for seating. Lots of random meetings taking place.
My second table during lunch. Three Taiwanese volunteers, an Isreali, two Indonesians, and one Indonesian-Dutchman on right.
The Grand Hotel from the skywalk.
Testing out the 7.1x optical zoom. I love it.
Podcasting station.
Hard at work podcasting and uploading video for those who couldn't make it to Taiwan.
Some informal "Lightning Talks" in the lobby area.
"Lightning Talk" listeners.
Was lucky to catch the moving of the Wikiball.
Getting down low.
Will it fit? Just barely.
I ran around these guys the whole way, snapping pictures.
Leading the way to the next building.
Only a few more stairs.
Up on the stage.
Into its pedestal.
The Asian sign of picture-taking.
Some volunteers chatting, unaware of my super-zoom lens.
Volunteers in the back room. So many. This isn't half of them.
Finally, found someone else taking pictures.
A picture of me and Christine, taking a picture.
