It seems like everyone is going to South by Southwest this year. We even heard about it on The Today Show this week. But we still have hope that there’s awesomeness to be found. A few of our crew will be there this year and they’re on the lookout for something special. The festival starts on Friday and runs more than a week to the following Sunday but our guys will be on the ground Sunday, March 9th through Tuesday the 11th.
Sure, we’ll take a gander at the interactive hardware areas, but preliminary research tells us these may be watered down to the lowest common denominator. What we really want to see is if a Burning-Man-like culture is beginning to coalesce around SXSW. Are you carrying around your own hacked hardware at this year’s event? Do you roll up in a custom party-mobile and spend the week trying to keep the 24-hour tailgate alive with your fold out pig roaster and awning-based entertainment system? We’d like to check that out.
[Eren], [Alek], and [Ivan] are handling coverage of the event. They’ve been killing themselves making Hackaday Projects an awesome place to share and interact. What they wanted was a bit of down time, but handing out T-shirts and Stickers in exchange for a look at your hacks doesn’t get in the way of that. Connect with them on Twitter using the hash tag #HaD_SXSW. They’ll be using it to tweet their activities but of course it works both ways. Your best bet of just crashing into these guys is to check out [Alek’s] talk on StageTwo.
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Excuse me… Excuse me… I just wanted to ask a question. What does God need with a starship?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WYW_lPlekiQ
Live here but never gone to the event. :( Work, work work….
I went to the interactive portion a few years back and was grossly disappointed. It was mostly startup hot shots in business casual outfits looking to get wasted and rub their products in your face. The speakers left me unimpressed and there was no hacker/maker mentality to it at all. Frog Design had a party that showed off a bunch of dated interactive technology, but that was the closest I saw. The best thing I got out of it was the discovery of Sublime Text.
I know a few people who were invited to speak and turned it down because SXSW wouldn’t pay. However, if they happened to score developers in the vein of the ones who turned them down, it could certainly have potential.
It’s been getting a lot of attention this year, so I’m hoping it has gotten better. We definitely need more conferences and Austin is a great place to have one.
I wouldn’t call it a Hack but my SXSW gear has grow a little each year. My biggest challenge is keeping two phones topped up from noon to 2AM for several days in a row in the terrible cellular environment. The sheer mass of people drags download speeds to below dial up and this causes the battery to drop like a rock. Currently my setup is a backpack with a goal zero nomad 7 solar panel strapped to the top and back which keeps a Guide 10 and a 15000mah external battery topped off along with a Clearwire WiMax hotspot i use to offload my data from the normal cellular network. When it gets dark I just fold the solar panel and stick it in my bag.
So now I want to see a post (and video even) of your live event survival getup… If you don’t have a site to host it on my I suggest Hackaday Projects? (There’s a poorly hidden back door to register for accounts)
Hey Mike, Silicon Hills has at least 4 Hacker/Makerspaces, and you could do worse than dropping by and getting a feel for the different dynamics/vibe.
Tonight during The Robot Group night, ATX Hackerspace hosted Inventables’ sneak peek to some cool stuff they will be showing off @SXSW (you know you or a minion should have been there – no, I won’t tell what it was). Actually I am semi wondering if at some moment we bit you and that’s why you don’t even mention us? Or someone didn’t do his homework and you don’t even know there are several ‘spaces in Austin?
@Circuitmage, same here. Up to now, SXSW was for me the time of the year when conmute really got out of hand. But this year I scored an Interactive badge in our raffle, so I am duty bound to do the best I can to run down the soles of my shoes. Even though it appears it is easy to get a comped badge, it still feels like something to realize they have a street value of over $1K
@Mike, we /do/ love Hackaday, it even got a mention (as a Good Thing) during the candidate debates for the recent XD election @ ATXHS.org
We’ll be at the SXSW Create every day, and you can always visit us. Either contact us for a special VIP tour, or drop by incognito during Open Night, which happens every Tuesday 8ish.