Newsletter #1: September 11
Newsletter #2: October 1
Newsletter #3: October 4
Newsletter #4: October 8
Newsletter #5: October 12DSP and SPEd Workshoppers (is this a word?)
It is only five weeks until the Workshops begin in Texas hill country. If you have been watching the Texas weather reports, you have noticed the 100F (about 40C) temperatures. I can guarantee that the weather will be much better in mid-October. As the time gets closer, I'll provide workshop weather forecasts.
Many out-of-town attendees wonder about getting to Waldemar. Don't even think of getting a cab or trying to get there by bus. One of Waldemar's strong points is that it is out of the way, quiet, and very beautiful. The only real way to get there is by car. Anyone renting a car and willing to bring extra people should send me e-mail describing carrying capacity and city, date and time of arrival. We will help coordinate travel to the Workshop. For those anxious about getting to the workshops, the Organizing Committee will get you there.
One of the plenary speakers is Jim Tour, Chow Professor of Chemistry at Rice University. Why would someone from chemistry be speaking to signal processing people? Jim is one of the leaders in developing molecular electronics. See the June Scientific American article he co-wrote on the subject. He is also an engaging speaker, and we feel you will be intrigued with and enjoy what he has to say.
We have had several questions about the workshops' organization.
Except for the plenary talks, all presentations at the workshop take the form of poster presentations. Each speaker tacks their presentation on a poster board measuring about 4'x8' (1.2m x 2.4m). What you put up should be more than the proceedings paper. It should help you present to your audience your ideas and their application. People will gather around poster presentations of their interest and your "presentation" will be highly interactive: Expect lots of interruptions with questions and comments. All posters in a session are presented at the same time, allowing the audience to go to the presentations they find especially interesting. Because of this fluidity, the workshops can have parallel sessions: Just more posters are presented at the same time. Because it is a workshop, you will have ample opportunity to talk over issues as the workshops unfold.
Look at the workshop web site to see the list of those offering rides. Right now, not many have offered; if you can give people rides, it would really help. Waldemar is about 1.5 hours from San Antonio (the closest airport) and cabs/busses are out of the question. If you need a ride, contact one of those leaving about the time you arrive.
We are putting the "proceedings" together. It will be entirely electronic and will be part of the workshops' web sites. We'll announce before the Workshop begins when it is ready.
The weather has cooled down a little. We will provide a weather projection just before the workshop.
The weather is going to cool way down this weekend. Hopefully that will hod for us; a more accurate weather report next week (I have a meteorologist friend).
The Posters await you. Thanks to Geoff for finding huge poster boards: 4'x8' (1.2m x 2.4m)!! All you have to bring is material to pin on the board; we have the tacks, the boards, and the space!! Everything is big in Texas!
Geoff and I don't think people realize just how remote Waldemar is. The closest town of any size is Kerrville, which has a population of about 17,000 and is located about 30 miles away! Go to www.mapquest.com, click on Maps, type in Hunt, TX to get an idea of how isolated we will be!!
There is very limited Internet access. No e-mail!! (I could talk a lot about how bandwidth is very hard to come by in rural areas. Let's solve that problem over a few Texas beers!!) Only one phone line is available in the poster room, so you should download web-based demos onto your laptop. We will provide power for laptops and electronic demos at the posters.
There are no phones in the rooms. Cell phones may not work at Waldemar. Contact numbers for Waldemar: 830-238-4821 and 1-800-567-5112.
Dinner Sunday night ends at 7:30PM. If you will arrive after that time, pick up food as you drive through Kerrville. Do remember that this is a Sunday night and very little other than fast food and grocery stores will be open.
Look at the workshop web site's Waldemar Survival Guide for driving instructions. As for those needing a ride, see the ride bulletin board on the web site. Could use more drivers....
The Workshop proceedings is entirely electronic, and is located on the Workshop web site. We have almost completed bringing everything up; take a look at the Preliminary Program link. We will be working with authors that have papers that don't look good on the screen (All print OK). We know how to fix such problems.
Despite having an electronic proceedings, all authors will need to sign an IEEE copyright form at the Workshop.
It is getting close to the Workshop. The weather has broken away from its hot dry mold: It is gently raining and the temperature is in the 40s(F). The general prediction is for a warming trend; I'm sending a detailed weather report from an expert toward the middle of the week.
If you don't have a ride yet, be sure to contact the people offering rides. More who can offer rides are always appreciated. In particular, anyone arriving around 4PM in Austin that can offer a ride?
One of the plenary speakers for the SPEd Workshop is Geoffrey Orsak, one of the co-chairs of the DSP Workshop. Geoff has created the Infinity Project, a concerted effort to develop an information technology curriculum for high school students. DSP is the key component of the course that has been developed. Hearing about Infinity should be more than interesting.
We have created a link on the Workshop Web Page that goes to all the Workshop newsletters. I have just updated the address list for the newsletter; if this is your first newsletter, be sure and check what is in the previous ones.
Dress at the workshop is casual; anybody who is dressed up (coat & tie/heels) will definitely be out of place. Bring walking shoes!! Waldemar is located on a hillside that abuts a branch of the Guadalupe River. You will be walking up and down hills a lot!!
In planning the workshop schedule, we allocated lots of free time for wandering around hill country. I intend to ride my bicycle. Others may want to trek out to local parks. More on this at the Workshop.
We are putting the finishing details on the Workshop. The weather looks to be great! We plan to hold a lot of the formal talks and the forum outside to make them less formal and more interactive. The beautiful scenery (some of the best in Texas) and the quiet will be conducive to thinking and forming new ideas.
There are indications of a very weak cold front passage (Pacific air, not Canadian like last weekend's front) by late Sunday or early Monday. There shouldn't be much associated with the front in the way of rain on Sunday. It looks like weak high pressure will dominate the hill country Monday/Tuesday. Morning low temperatures will be in the 60 degree (15C) range, with highs around 80 (27C) or so. NE to E winds on Monday becoming ESE-SE by Tuesday, but not very strong. Hard to say about the sunshine. Some morning clouds may be typical of this pattern, giving way to some sunshine by late morning.
Computer models indicate a very weak disturbance passing on Wednesday, which could cause generally cloudy weather and a few showers - though most rain should fall to the east across east Texas [not where we are; we're in central Texas]. Warm southeast wind on Thursday/Friday with lows in the low 60s (15C) and highs in the low 80s (27+C).
John Treichler will lead a forum Tuesday night on the futures of DSP (the obvious and the not-so-obvious). John is perhaps the ONLY person to have attended EVERY DSP workshop. Those who know John realize this will be provocative and informative. "Forum" is to stilted; how about "marginally stable chaos"? Expect this to be far more exciting than the Presidential debates now occurring in the US.
I am downloading the entire conference proceedings onto my laptop so that you can look at papers at the Workshop. No real connection to the Web will be available (unless you like paying long distance charges for slow-modem transfer rates).