2008 Events |
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Past events are listed below in reverse-chronological order. For the most recent events, see the home page.
2008/10/18 20:00-23:59: The Great Waltz at the University of Texas at Austin in the Union Ballroom; $20 for general public or $15 for U.T. students, with $5 off for purchases by 10/17.
2008/09/27 & 2008/10/04,11,18 13:00-15:00: dancing lessons to prepare for the Great Waltz; $5 each at the University of Texas at Austin in the Anna Hiss Gym (AHG) room 136 except 10/18 in the Union Ballroom.
2008/10/16: The Innotech Conference is held at the Austin Convention Center. Registration rates start at $35.
2008/10/14-16: The Texas Wireless Summit is held at the Hilton Austin Hotel. After 2008/09/01, "general public" registration costs $400.
2007/10/12: Syncopated celebrates entering its fifth year as a Texas corporation
2008/10/11: Syncopated increases accessibility of its Web site to users of text-based and small-screen browsers. The articles collection is now available via the library link; for company information, see the about link.
2008/10/09: The I.E.E.E. Central Texas Consultants Network meets. This month, Chris Baker presents Data Backup: Easier and Cheaper than You Think.
2008/10/03-05: The SiliCon annual science fiction and fantasy media convention is held at the Double Tree Hotel (2050 Gateway Place, San Jose, Ca 95110).
2008/10/01 10:30-20:00: Free Electronics Design & Manufacturing Symposium and Vendor Show sponsored by the Central Texas Electronics Association, the Surface Mount Technology Association, and the International Microelectronics & Packaging Society held at the Norris Conference Center at Northcross Mall, 2525 West Anderson Lane, Austin, TX. A door64.com Networking Night follows.
2008/05/29-2008/09: Richard Garriott, the 46-year-old local computer game mogul (known to many as Lord British) and son of Skylab astronaut Owen Garriott, is currently training in Russia's Star City to fly this September in a Soyuz rocket as a private astronaut, paying $30MM for the flight and 10-day stay aboard the International Space Station. (The Independent: Passed/Failed)
Through June 20, Richard Garriott offers two competitions: one for primary schoolchildren to design an experiment which he will carry out during his 10 days in space, and one for secondary schoolchildren to describe the development of space tourism.
For more details and updates, see RichardInSpace.com.
2008/09/30 18:00-23:55: Free GeekAustin 8th Anniversary Party (co-hosted by RefreshAustin and Austin Electronic Music Grid) at Union Park, 612 W Sixth St. Austin, Texas 78701.
2007/09/26: At age 83, famed screen actor Paul Newman died of complications arising from lung cancer in his longtime home in Westport, Connecticut. (wiki:Paul_Newman)
2007/09/26-28: The annual Austin City Limits Music Festival was held in Zilker Park. (wiki:Austin_City_Limits_Festival)
2007/09/19: Talk Like a Pirate Day: "the only day of the year when you can talk like a pirate and not be entirely insane"; Avast ye, mateys!
2008/09/15-17: The sixth annual Austin Game Developers Conference (its second year run by C.M.P. United Business Media, host of the original annual Game Developers Conference) is held at the Austin Convention Center.
After attending the first two, Syncopated identified the Austin Game Conference as a significant source of poorly-targeted unsolicited commercial e.mail (often referred to as Spam), and has not participated in the conference since.
2008/08/07: Forbes Magazine ranks Austin as America's drunkest city. (America's Hard-Drinking Cities)
2008/07/16 17:30-21:00: Door64 hosts for its LinkedIn group High Tech. Austin a high technology happy hour sponsored by the Green Technology Alliance.
2008/06/23 11:00-14:00: Monster.com sponsors its June 2008 Austin job fair at the Embassy Suites Austin - North (5901 North IH-35, Austin, TX 78723).
2008/06/19: Syncopated founder John Carlsen celebrates the 10-year anniversary of creating his first independent Web site – and more than 20 years of on-line publishing.
2008/06/17-22: Month Python's Spamalot touring performances come to the Majestic Theatre (224 East Houston Street, San Antonio, Texas 78205).
2008/06/14: The semi-monthly Saturday Gaskell Ball is held in Oakland, California.
2008/06/12 17:30-19:30: OnRamp Access hosts a happy hour for local high-technology industries at the northern Iron Cactus (10001 Stonelake Boulevard, Austin, Texas 78759); reserve space.
2008/06/12: The I.E.E.E. Central Texas Consultants Network meets monthly.
2008/06/06-08: Eddie Izzard performs three nights at Austin's Paramount Theater.
2007/06/06: Project Transitions – a local charitable provider of support for people living with H.I.V. and AIDS – hosts its 13th annual Texas Swing event at Saengerrunde Hall and Scholz Beir Garten.
2007/06/04: The Applied Micro Circuits Corporation and Door64 host a mixer for computer hardware developers in Austin.
2008/05/30-06/01: The oldest continually-running annual convention based on Japanese animation ("anime") in North America, A-Kon is held at the Adam's Mark Hotel in Dallas, Texas.
2008/05/23-26: BayCon is held at the Hyatt Hotel in Santa Clara, California.
2008/05/22: The I.E.E.E. Central Texas Consultants Network meets monthly; professional engineer and senior information technology specialist John R. Purvis III presents Disaster Relief: Plan Before It Happens.
2007/05/21 18:00-: GeekAustin and Refresh Austin host a WordPress festival at Union Park (612 West Sixth Street, Austin TX 78701).
2008/05/21: The I.E.E.E. Central Texas Society Computer Society meets.
2008/05/20 10:00-14:00: CareerBuilder hosts a job fair at the Norris Conference Center (at 2525 West Anderson Lane Austin, TX 78757, behind Northcross Mall; enter from Burnet by Sonic). No technology-related employers are expected.
2008/05/17 11:00-17:00: The 31st annual O. Henry Pun-Off competition is held in Austin.
2008/05/14 18:00-22:00: NetParty happy hour event at Pangaea (409 Colorado Street, Austin TX 78701); free admission with advance reservation or $25 at the door.
2008/05/14 09:00-15:00: The City of Austin, Goodwill Industries of Central Texas, and the Austin American-Statesman sponsor Austin's "largest, most inclusive hiring event of the year" at the Palmer Events Center. This job fair is open to the public and free of charge, including parking.
2008/05/13 11:00-14:00: Monster.com sponsors its May 2008 San José job fair at the Techmart Network Meeting Center (5201 Great America Parkway Santa Clara, CA 95054).
2008/05/13: The ninth major version of the free, open-source Linux-based Fedora operating system is publicly released.
2008/05/12: The United States Postal Service today increases postage rates; postcard and first-class envelope rates increase by $0.01, still far below our observed long-term rate of general price inflation.
2008/05/10 07:00-19:00: Austin municipal election
2008/05/08 18:00-21:00: The Greater Austin Chamber of Commerce hosts its second annual Brain Party exclusively for central Texas engineers at The Domain building 5 (11410 Century Oaks Terrace, Austin, TX). The event is free of charge but attendees must register on-line or at the event.
2008/05/07 19:00-21:00: Austin Community College hosts a seminar titled Introduction to Mac Game Development at its Highland campus (5930 Middle Fiskville Road, Austin, TX).
2008/05/04: Austin's Texas Rollergirls play.
2008/05/04: Happy Star Wars Day: May the fourth be with you...
2008/05/02-04: The annual Central Texas Airshow is held in Temple.
2008/04/30 18:30-20:30: The I.E.E.E. Central Texas Society Computer Society meets; Dr. Alistair Cockburn, one of the founders of the Agile Software Development movement presents Effective Software Development in the 21st Century: The New Face of Software Engineering at National Instruments (11500 North MoPac, building C, room 1S13, Austin, Texas 78759).
2007/04/29 18:30-21:30: GeekAustin and Agile Austin host a happy hour event at Union Park (612 West Sixth Street, Austin TX).
2007/04/29 18:00-21:00: The Texas Motion Picture Alliance hosts the Texas Got Game mixer at Action Figure Studios (3000 East Cesar Chavez, Austin TX) to promote a state industry incentive program.
2007/04/26-27: This year's annual Austin Ballroom Festival is held Saturday in the University of Texas at Austin's Texas Union ballroom and Sunday at Dance International. For tickets to Saturdays events, see Texas Union Informal Classes.
2007/04/26: Eeyore's Birthday Party is held annually (since 1963) in Austin's Pease Park.
2008/04/24: Arby's parent Triarc acquires Wendy's. Triarc's billionaire chief executive Nelson Peltz had gained control of three seats on the Wendy's board in 2002 and expressed interest in purchasing Wendy's in 2007. (See story on U.S.A. Today.)
2008/04/23: At Dulles Airport in Washington, D.C., United States Marshals arrest 79-year-old Swami Prakashanand Saraswati, who in 1990 founded Barsana Dham, the Austin area's first Hindu temple (and one of the largest in the nation, on 200 acres in Hays County near Dripping Springs), where he is known to his followers as Shree Swamiji. Following an investigation that began in August 2007 by the Hays County Sheriff's Office and the District Attorney's Office, Saraswati was indicted on 20 counts of indecency or sexual contact with a child, for which he will be transported back to Hays County.(See story on News 8 Austin.) (See story on Austin American-Statesman.)
2008/04/22 19:00-: The Austin Web Developer Meetup Group (site useless without registration) meets at The Ginger Man (304 West 4th Street, Austin, TX 78701).
2008/04/19: new articles posted On Wiring Modular Telephone Connectors and On Comparing Silicon Valley and Austin, Texas
2008/04/19 18:30-21:00: Dance International and and the H.E.B. Central Market at 38th and Lamar host their annual salsa celebration and amateur competition (no lifts, please), with cash prizes and social dancing to the music of Cien Fuegos and the beats of D.J. Fabian. Dance International seeks helpers for before and during the event; if interested, call (512)32-DANCE (323-2623).
2008/04/19: Austin's Texas Ballroom dance club hosts its Austin Open ballroom dance competition.
2008/04/19: The semi-monthly Saturday Gaskell Ball is held in Oakland, California.
2008/04/17 18:00-20:00: V.C.F.O. sponsors this month's Austin Tech Happy Hour at Hi-Lo, 301 West Sixth Street (at Lavaca), Austin, Texas 78701.
2008/03/29&04/12 20:30-22:00: Austin's Dance International and Starbuck's Coffee's Arboretum location (near Ann Taylor and Saks Fifth Avenue) host two evenings of dance. Each begins with a short dance lesson (salsa on 03/29, ballroom on 04/12) from 20:30 to 21:00 followed by social dancing to 22:00.
2008/04/10 21:00-: A party at Jo's (242 West Second St., Austin, TX) follows Dorkbot.
2008/04/10 19:00-21:00: Dorkbot is held at the Austin Children's Museum (201 Colorado St., Austin, TX).
2008/04/10: The I.E.E.E. Central Texas Consultants Network monthly meeting ($5 minimum charge). Wayne Caswell presents Beyond the PC: 30:30 Vision(s) of Computing.
2008/04/06: Austin's Texas Rollergirls play.
2008/04/05: Actor and outspoken peoples' rights supporter Charlton Heston dies at age 84. (wiki:Charlton_Heston)
2008/04/03-05: The Mathematical Association of America's Texas section 2008 annual meeting is held this year at Tarleton State University in Stephenville, Texas.
2008/04/02 18:30-: The I.E.E.E. C.T.S. "Solid-State Circuits"/"Circuits and Systems" joint chapter hosts a lecture about – followed by a tour of – the new TACC Ranger computer at the University of Texas at Austin's J.J. Pickle Research Campus' Research Office Complex building 196 seminar room 1.603.
At less than two months old (having become fully-operational on 2008/02/04), the TACC Ranger is the world's fastest "open science" high-performance computer (h.p.c.) or "supercomputer", capable of computing up to 504 teraflops, more than five times its nearest rival and nearly ten times the third-fastest, TACC's Lonestar III. The $30MM Ranger consumes up to 3 megawatts of electric power and has a four-year operating budget of $29MM.
Ranger is a massively-parallel system comprised of 62,976 microprocessor cores. Four cores are on each of Austin-based A.M.D.'s quad-core K10 "Barcelona" Opteron microprocessors, four of which are on each Sun Microsystems Constellation diskless blade. Blades are connected via Infiniband interfaces, and each dozen blades is ganged with two (redundant) power supply units. Four gangs are mounted in each compute rack, and one storage-and-management rack is allocated to each group of roughly 16 compute racks.
Regulating power to each blade's four quad-core microprocessors and their banks of memory are eight point-of-load voltage-regulation modules made by Artesyn Technologies. Acquired by Emerson Electric in 2006, Artesyn was formerly Zytec, a spinoff from the first supercomputer maker, Minnesota-based Control Data Corporation. (See A Family Tree of Key Computer Technologies Since 1960.)
In 2001, while working for Austin-based Newisys (later acquired by Sanmina), Syncopated founder John Carlsen introduced Artesyn to the pre-release A.M.D. K8 Opteron. For Newisys, Mr. Carlsen designed a computer power supply subsystem that enabled digital control of many point-of-load voltage regulators, including those he sought from Artesyn to power the Opteron. In 2007, Artesyn was sued by Power-One, which claimed infringement of its U.S. Patent 7,000,125 (applied for on 2002/12/21) for a similar system. Mr. Carlsen dismisses Power-One's claims as obvious and clearly subsequent to his own prior art.
2008/03/31: John Carlsen's new article, A Family Tree of Key Computer Technologies Since 1960, summarizes the histories and technological derivations of most significant electronic semiconductor-based computing machines to date.
2008/03/27 17:30-21:00: Door64 hosts for its LinkedIn group High Tech. Austin a high technology happy hour sponsored by HT Staffing and Intrinsity at J Black's Feel Good Lounge (710 West Sixth Street Suite B Austin, Texas 78701).
2008/03/25 19:00-: The Austin Web Developer Meetup Group (site useless without registration) meets at The Ginger Man (304 West 4th Street, Austin, TX 78701).
2008/02/14-03/23: Austin's Zachary Scott Theatre (with an unfortunately loud Web site) presents Speeding Motorcycle, a live "rock opera" based on the music and drawings of local cult figure Daniel Johnston.
2008/03/20: Syncopated provided the first major revision in years to the I.E.E.E. Central Texas Consultants Network's Web site, returning it to the parent organization's domain, giving it similar style and maximizing its accessibility through W3C-compliant design.
Syncopated expects to provide ongoing support.
2008/03/18 19:00-: The Austin C/C++ Meetup Group (site useless without registration) meets at BB Rover's Cafe & Pub (12636 Research Boulevard, Austin, TX 78750).
2008/03/07-16: Austin's annual South by Southwest (SxSW) conference and festival for music, film and interactive media
2008/02/29-03/15: Austin's Star of Texas Fair and Rodeo is at the fairgrounds (7311 Decker Lane, Austin, TX 78724).
2008/03/07-09: The annual Dallas-area science fiction convention All-Con is held in Addison, Texas.
2008/03/07: Tribeza sponsors the sold-out Austin Under 40 Awards at the Austin Music Hall.
2008/03/04-07: The Austin Common Standards Revision Group (CSRG) – the part of The Open Group responsible for the core of the Single Unix Specification and others – meets in San Francisco, California.
2008/03/04: See the Texas Secretary of State Elections Division.
Have you registered to vote in Travis County? Has your registration been "caged"? Find out at Travis County Voter Verification.
See also On Elections and Voting and Presidential Candidates' Web Site Types.
2008/03/03 18:00-: Free Entrepreneur Town Hall Meeting at UT's IC2 Institute (2815 San Gabriel Street, Austin, TX 78705)
2008/03/02: Austin's Texas Rollergirls begin their season.
2008/03/02 10:00-17:00: Austin's annual Zilker Park Kite Festival is held in Zilker Park.
2008/02/28 18:00-20:00: Tribeza presents complimentary cocktails, hors d'ouevres and music on the second floor of the Neiman Marcus at Simon Malls' The Domain (11410 Century Oaks Terrace, Austin, TX 78758).
2008/02/22-24: The annual Dallas-area science fiction convention ConDFW is held in Richardson, Texas.
2008/02/23: The semi-monthly Saturday Gaskell Ball is held in Oakland, California, to be followed by dances on 2008/04/19, 2008/06/14, 2008/08/16, 2008/10/25, 2008/12/20.
2008/02/20-23: The Austin Energy Regional Science Festival – the largest of the 20 science fairs in Texas – is held at the Palmer Events Center (900 Barton Springs Road Austin, Texas 78704).
Texas science education needs your help more than ever; see Texas Education Shuns Evolution, Violates Constitution.
2008/02/17-23: The National Engineers Week Foundation annually promotes understanding of and interest in engineering and technology careers among young students.
2008/02/22 21:00-22:00: Presidential candidate Barak Obama hosts a campaign rally at the south gate of the Texas state capital complex.
2008/02/21: Presidential candidates Hillary Clinton and Barak Obama debate at the Univeristy of Texas at Austin.
2008/02/20 19:43-11:09: A total lunar eclipse occurs, with maximum eclipse – and maximum beauty – anticipated at 21:26 central standard time. For more details, see the NASA total lunar eclipse article.
2008/02/18-22: The original annual Game Developers Conference is held at the Moscone Center in San Francisco, California.
2008/01/22-05/30: Syncopated sponsors a new annual competition and free award for Austin-area developers and hosts of W3C-compliant Web sites. The first annual award is tentatively scheduled to be given in late June 2008.
See the contest details and current nominees.
2008/02/14: A former graduate student shot 22 people at Northern Illinois University in DeKalb, killing four women and two men, including himself. (wiki:2008 Northern Illinois University shooting)
In response to last year's Massacre at Virginia Tech (on 2007/04/16) the Gun Owners of America – the second-largest gun rights lobbying group in the United States – reiterated its position that the prohibition of weapons on most campuses should be repealed. (G.O.A. press release) It's Web site was unavailable after today's shooting.
2008/02/12 19:00-21:00: GeekAustin and Dorkbot-Austin jointly host a happy hour at J Black's Feel Good Lounge (710 West Sixth Street Suite B Austin, Texas 78701), featuring video artist Paul Baker and a "robot mashup" by David Nunez.
2008/02/12 18:00-: This month, local I.E.E.E. chapters Technology Management Council, Women in Engineering (Austin Chapter), Education Society and Central Texas Consultants Network hold a joint meeting, in which futurist Verne Wheelwright presents the topic Personal Futuring at National Instruments building C room 1S1 (11500 North MoPac Expressway, Austin, TX 78759). Download the workbook.
2008/02/11 15:30-16:30: As part of the U.T.-Austin Computer Architecture Seminar Series, Mateo Valero of the Technical University of Catalonia in Barcelona, Spain presents Supercomputing for the Future, Supercomputing from the Past in the Avaya Auditorium: ACES building (on the southeast corner of 24th and Speedway) room 2.302.
2008/02/08-10: Ikkicon – a Japanese animation ("anime") and pop culture convention – is held at the Hilton Doubletree Hotel (6505 IH-35 North Austin, Texas 78752-4346).
2008/02/07 17:00-19:00: High-technology happy hour hosted by OnRamp Access and Tek Systems at Iron Cactus north (10001 Stonelake, Austin, Texas); reserve space.
2008/02/07: To make news stories more accessible as the number of listed upcoming events continues to increase, Syncopated introduces a two-column format to its home page and welcomes comments via its contact page.
2008/02/04: SigmaTel – an Austin-based semiconductor company specializing in audio and telecommunication integrated circuits largely built around sigma-delta modulation technology – announced today that it will be acquired by Freescale Semiconductor, also based in Austin.
On 2006/08/01, SigmaTel had sold its personal computer audio products group to Integrated Device Technology (IDT) of San Jose, California. Circa 2000, SigmaTel had settled a long-running patent-infringement lawsuit with Austin rival Cirrus Logic, which ultimately acquired equity in SigmaTel.
2008/02/02: Austin's annual Brazilian-style mardi gras is held at the Palmer Events Center; see Carnaval Brasileiro Austin.
2008/01/01-31: The Computer History Museum for the second time calls for public nominations for its annual Fellow Awards honoring those whose "contributions have had a direct influence on computing history, and ultimately, they have changed the way we live our lives".
2008/01/24 17:30-: Door64.com hosts a high-technology happy hour with and at Cirrus Logic (2901 Via Fortuna, Austin, Texas 78746).
2008/01/18: Interviewed by Jay Leno on the Tonight Show, Presidential candidate Mitt Romney said, "Bill Gates making a lot of money, that doesn't make anybody poorer. Actually the better he does, probably the better everybody does." (LA Times:Mitt Romney on Leno transcript).
Perhaps Mr. Romney doesn't understand even basic economics, nor Microsoft's abusive monopolistic trade practices, nor the widespread economic distress caused by the proliferation of its poor-quality products. Or perhaps he does: his Presidential campaign Web site server is in the minority of Republicans' running Linux and Apache.
2008/01/15: Design News magazine today reports Design Flaw Identified in Minnesota Bridge Collapse stating, "National Transportation Safety Board officials today announced serious flaws in the size of several gusset plates used in the main truss of the I-35W bridge" over the Mississippi River in Minnesota.
The bridge collapsed on 2007/08/01, killing 13 and injuring 145. For more information about the collapse and possible contributing factors, see the abstract Mississippi River Bridge Collapses.
2008/01/15: MacWorld magazine hosts its annual exposition featuring Apple and related products in San Francisco, California.
At the exposition, Apple announced several new products, including the very thin MacBook Air notebook computer.
In 2005, Syncopated disqualified Apple as a potential supplier.
2008/01/10: One of the earliest computer bulletin board systems to support multi-line chat, TREx ("The Relational Exchange") has been in operation and donation-supported since January 10, 1987. Congratulations TREx!.
Users may now access TREx via Internet telnet protocol.
2008/01/07-10: The annual international Consumer Electronics Show is held in Las Vegas, Nevada.
2008/01/08 19:00-21:00: GeekAustin and Refresh Austin jointly host a happy hour at J Black's Feel Good Lounge (710 West Sixth Street Suite B Austin, Texas 78701).
2008/01/02: For shoreline maintenance, debris cleanup and to help control fast-growing hydrilla and other nuisance aquatic plants the Texas Lower Colorado River Authority begins an eight-week slow draw down, similar to last year's draw down of Lake Austin.
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