SELEM!!!

[platinum]

Good Job Jonathan!
And something else I think I saw your brother on the news!
A school band in China

That you did. His band toured around China before the Olympics. I just heard about the KGW News piece a few hours ago. I should check it out huh? :-)

[Stuka]

No I wasn't.



I really wish people would not look at it that way. LaserBoy just might be everything you want it to be.

James.

Dude -

You need to go back and re-read what I posted. It was very complimentary, and in no way bashed your software or your efforts.

Having said that, I doubt if many of us that have invested considerable $$ into products such as the Pangolin LD suite are going to drop that and switch over to Laserboy, but you're still generating one cool piece of software!

[James Lehman]

Dude -

You need to go back and re-read what I posted. It was very complimentary, and in no way bashed your software or your efforts.

Having said that, I doubt if many of us that have invested considerable $$ into products such as the Pangolin LD suite are going to drop that and switch over to Laserboy, but you're still generating one cool piece of software!

I guess you and others don't understand me at all. I don't expect anyone to drop anything. I don't see what you wrote as a bash. It just seems to me to come from no knowledge of what LaserBoy is.

I know I use a lot of sarcasm, upside-down and backwards metaphors and I guess my thoughts are often far too encrypted in my written words.

I would like for every PL member to understand that LaserBoy is my gift to all of you. I want nothing more than to feel the pride of giving a gift that is well received and genuinely appreciated.

My greatest joy would be that it becomes part of your wetware. That is to say, it is not software or hardware. It is a part of your own knowledge and ability to express yourself. It is your own accurate and detailed understanding of the artistry of computer controlled laser projection, that you got from working with LaserBoy. That is not a product. It should have a value greater than any amount of money. That's why it's free.

You might have noticed that I made no effort to chase after the mic. I would find it much more personally rewarding to have had the mic handed to me. I have no desire to spend one second of my time wasting any of yours.

Almost everyone there spent a great deal of time and money getting there and getting home. I felt that every second of that experience with all of you, in the flesh, was precious. That time should have been spent on only those things that would be greatly facilitated by our being together in the same place with our equipment.

Having to sit for several hours listening to someone read a webpage out loud was not an appropriate use of that time.

Assuming that anyone of us that attended SELEM is more or less important or deserving of respect than anyone else is a huge mistake and a loss for us all.

Being asked to stop my presentation and hand the mic to Bill Benner for yet another presentation that would have been much more valuable as printed text was more than inconsiderate. It went way past arrogant and rude and landed squarely as a devastating insult to me.

I had been anticipating this event for months and working very hard to prepare for it. Why was I the only person asked to give up the mic?

James.

[buffo]

That time should have been spent on only those things that would be greatly facilitated by our being together in the same place with our equipment.

James;

I understand that the presentations took time away from us that could have been used to run more laser shows. However, if you'll recall, we had a poll about the presentations, and the majority expressed a preference for having 4-5 presentations per day. Given that each one was supposed to be about an hour, that would mean that nearly half the day would be taken up by presentations. This was duely noted, and deemed an acceptable trade-off at the time. Perhaps now we will re-think that...

Assuming that anyone of us that attended SELEM is more or less important or deserving of respect than anyone else is a huge mistake and a loss for us all.

I agree that everyone deserves the same level of respect.

But I dissagree that everyone has the same importance. My time is *not* as valuable as Patrick Murphy's, for example. First, I'm vastly more accesible, and second, I don't have the knowledge or experience that he does.

I think you're confusing respect with value (or importance). People can respect a person and still disagree with them, or place less value on their opinion. That doesn't have to be an insult; it's more of a matter of taste or personal preference. Put another way, if you gave 50 people a choice between free tickets to see The Rolling Stones in concert, or free tickets to see Luciano Pavarotti (yeah, I know he's dead) perform, you'll find that different people place different value on those two concerts.

Being asked to stop my presentation and hand the mic to Bill Benner for yet another presentation that would have been much more valuable as printed text was more than inconsiderate. It went way past arrogant and rude and landed squarely as a devastating insult to me.

I'm sorry you feel that way, James. It was not intended as an insult at all. We had planned the presentations to be roughly an hour long. True, we could be flexible with the length of the presentations to some extent, but time was not unlimited.

Your presentation got off to a very slow start, and I believe the first 30 minutes or so of your presentation could have been shortened to a brief 5 minute summary. By the time you had gotten into the meat of Laserboy, time was getting very short, and we were still waiting for Bill's presentation on projector wiring and grounding. (A topic that applied to *everyone* there, not matter what software they were using.)

It seemed as though you were unprepared for your presentation, despite your statement that you had been preparing for months. You got lost in your own software a couple times, which seemed very odd to me. (After all, you wrote the software, and you use it more than anyone, yet you still tripped over some of the menu items.) You also got bogged down in lots of details very early on; but those details meant nothing to the audience because they didn't have a clue as to what LaserBoy could do. I still have only the slightest understanding of the software.

I think it would have been better if you had started out with a few quick examples of what LaserBoy could do, and *then* delved into the details. That way you could expand or shorten the presentation as time and crowd interest dictated. If things were getting tight, you could have wrapped it up and still left your audience with some basic knowledge. On the other hand, if you had hooked the audience, you would have a starting point for futher discussion - even if it was on a one-on-one basis.

Contrast that to Bill's presentations, or Patrick's, and you'll see the difference I'm talking about. They weren't just "reading off a web page", they were using the powerpoint slides as an outline. They were *thoroughly* familiar with not only the material they wanted to present, but the *order* in which they wanted to present it. There was a natural progression to the presentation. They also anticipated questions along the way.

Perhaps this is a bit unfair, because Bill and Patrick speak to the public a lot more than most of us do. But the elements of a good speech are the same. The difference is that Bill and Patrick are so used to it that they probably don't need as much preparation time as the rest of us.

I have no desire to spend one second of my time wasting any of yours.

Do you mean that, James? Because it's starting to sound more like you wanted people to like LaserBoy no matter what. For example, see the following quotes:

My greatest joy would be that it becomes part of your wetware. <snip>
I want nothing more than to feel the pride of giving a gift that is well received and genuinely appreciated.

Ok, but what if the gift is *not* well received? What if people don't use your software? What if they look at it and say, "yeah, it's neat, but I don't have the time to learn it." Or worse, they *do* take the time to learn it, and then they decide it's not for them. Are you still joyful? Do you still feel the pride you are searching for?

I'm not trying to hurt you James, I'm trying to explain why some people might not be as receptive to your software. Even under the best of circumstances, not everyone is going to start using LaserBoy. The best you can do is to show the basics of the software, give them a taste of it's power, and see if they come back for more.

The best way to get people to start playing around with LaserBoy is to show them that it can do something that their current solution can't. For example, Dr Laser has been using LaserBoy to create original ILDA animations from other files, and he has been one of your biggest supporters as a result. I had hoped that you would be able to demonstrate some of those abilities to the group early on, so that you could pique our curiosity.

If you'll recall, I specifically mentioned to you that it would be best to start your presentation by showing how LaserBoy can be used to convert other file formats to ILDA. You breezed through that in a flash (much later in your presentation), and only had one example. The color masking feature was another cool idea, but you didn't even demonstrate that. Instead you got bogged down with pallete information, menu items, view toggling, etc. Sure, those items will be important eventually (once you're using the software regularly), but if you know you've got limited time, you hit the highlights first. (Remember, we were supposed to be out of the auditorium by 6 PM. As it was we ran *way* over, especially including the clean-up time.)

Why was I the only person asked to give up the mic?

Several people asked if we could hurry things up. Just 20 minutes into your presentation I had multiple calls to move on to the next topic, but I held off. Then I was reminded that Bill had a plane to catch. Still I waited, but after 50 minutes it was clear that you had much more material than we had time for. It was a choice of cancelling Bill Benner's presentation on projector wiring or cutting your presentation short. I did try to remind you (twice) that we were running out of time (and I believe Marc said something to you as well), but it didn't help much.

I made the decision to pull the plug, James. I'm sorry that you were hurt by it. I knew it would be hard. (Put yourself in my shoes... Would you like to make that call?) But I think I made the right choice. I did not do this to hurt you, or to embarrass you, or to denigrate your software. I did it because I felt that it was in the best interest of the group as a whole.

For the record, Bill had to shorten his presentation as well. He only had 15 minutes to talk about projector wiring. Then he left to catch his plane. Also, on Saturday Patrick Murphy had a lot more material to talk about regarding the early days of Pangolin (when it ran on the Amiga hardware), but again - in the interest of saving time - that presentation was cut short. (And I had a feeling that I was one of the few people at SELEM that was really interested in the early Amiga history. But just because I'm an Amiga geek doesn't mean that everyone has to listen to an hour long presentation of Pangolin on the Amiga...)

I made several changes to the schedule as the event progressed in the interest of keeping as many people happay as possible. Sometimes that meant that certain people didn't get to do everything they wanted to. For example, David Zurcher spent nearly $1500 on a set of custom Pink Floyd graphics shows that were done by Mike Dunn. These are *incredible* shows, but the whole set runs for nearly an hour. We just didn't have time to squeeze that in, so no one got to watch those shows. I have a feeling that David was more than a little let down that he didn't get to share that with the group.

Likewise, Mike (MechEng3) had information on some optics he found that will allow you to tame the otherwise fat beam specs of these new 643 nm diodes. This makes for a beam that rivals the Maxyz modules, but at a shorter wavelength so the beam appears brighter. He didn't get to talk about them at all.

Randy (Stuka) had an interesting story about the 20-grating polywheel that several people have incorporated into their projectors. Turns out there is a problem with the way the stepper motor is controllled, and he's been working with a few others on a possible solution. No one ever got to hear about that.

I brought a 1 watt argon laser that was supposed to be used with DZ's beam table projector. The laser developed a fault later on, when we tried to connect it to the table, and it wouldn't fire. I suspect it's something minor, as it was working perfectly earlier in the day and the tube only has about 40 hours on it. But we never even got a chance to look at the problem, nor did we ever get to see David's beam rail projector in operation.

So you see, everyone has to make sacrifices at these events. I'm sorry that the sacrifice you were asked to make hurt you so much. It was not my intent.

Adam

[Jem]

Post deleted in the interests of good taste and I didn't want to be responsible for adding fuel to the fire

I can see how the British sense of humoUr can easily be misinterpreted

Jem

[Stuka]

Same here ...

[allthatwhichis]

And we STILL didn't get to do what I wanted... 1 RGB projector playing Mission Impossible, graphic show, pointed away from the audience, and 2 RGB projectors playing Mission Impossible, beam show, pointed at the audience... Maybe 5th LEM will be the charm...

Either way, this was the best LEM we have had, IMO, and I am alreay excited for the next one. I think the only problem we are having is orginization, but at the end of each event, we have a better perspective on what is needed and wanted at the next event. I think we are only one step behind what we would like to see each time. Not too bad for a hobbyist meet/convention.

I want to say a few "Thanks", especially to Adam, for the idea and orginization of this and prior events.

Rob, for this board/forum, without which, Adam would have had no idea...

The Old School Proffessionals... Bill, Patrick, and Steve, for sharing all the information they have gathered while furthuring the laser industry, and the very informative presentations that I was able to see/hear. And Steve again for the great deal on the Yello HeNe!

David for the shirts and... NO work on my projector this time.

Mike for the technical assistance on my blu-ray pointer, hopfully I can finish it. Also for taking the white light pointer home to "adjust" it.

James for building me a LaserBoy DAC and correction amp. I wish I could have seen the Demo. Also for the conversation and bringing your paintings. I think I found one the boss will let me hang. Thanks to Dean for tagging along.

Marc, gottaluvlasers, for working as a good reseller... I will elaborate in a different thread once all is well.

And lastly, to all the rest of us who taveled any distance to attend, Bill, Randy, Marc, Jeff, Frank, Adam, Francesco (sorry I missed the LivePro demo), Johnathon... and of cource myself. With out us members, there would be no need or desire to have an event like this.

So when do we start planning the next meet?

[James Lehman]

I like you Adam, and I'd like to maintain that.

If your time is not as valuable as anyone else's, that's your perspective. Not mine. We're all here now and we're all on the same clock.

I'm not confusing respect with value. You are confusing value with reputation. Reputation is value that is known through demonstration. Value can be an unknown. The expression (10 > x) is neither true or false. But when it comes to humans it must be assumed to be false. If not that implies prejudice through ignorance. Taste or personal preference should have little weight in evaluating technology; especially unknown technology.

I wouldn't say that I was unprepared for my presentation. I had to start at the last hour, after patiently waiting through everyone else's presentations, most of which ran waaaaaaaaaaaaaay long. So I was already off tempo before I ever got started. I never caught my stride and being told I had five minutes didn't help. And your are correct. I have never done a demonstration of any kind of software creation in front of a large crowd like that. You might be surprised at how little time I spend using the LaserBoy application. Frequently, I use it just long enough to be called back to the code to fix or add a feature. I spend 1000 hours in the code for every hour I spend using the app.

When I say.....

"I have no desire to spend one second of my time wasting any of yours."

and

"My greatest joy would be that it becomes part of your wetware. <snip> I want nothing more than to feel the pride of giving a gift that is well received and genuinely appreciated."

.... in my mind those concepts are not mutually exclusive at all. There are implicitly connected. I have no motivation to show anyone anything that they don't want to see. And I will get no joy from it. Look at it this way. When I know that you and some others are sitting there watching the seconds tick by, waiting for me to be done, that creates what I would call a very high impedance environment. My voltage is there, but I can't get any current to flow.

I do believe that there were people there that really wanted me to get a real chance to show LaserBoy. A few people expressed that to me personally. So for those people and anyone else who may not have been there, please PM me your phone number and schedule and I will call you on the phone and spend some one-on-one time with each of us running the LaserBoy app and going through it step by step.

Other than all this, I had the best time of my life. I met some of the most fascinating people I've ever met and I feel like I connected to many of them on an extraordinary level.

James.

[buffo]

I'm glad that you had a good time, James. After your post, I was a little concerned. I'd like to think that everyone had a good time... Really, that was the main goal. I've said it before and I'll say it again: these Laser Enthusiast's Meetings are first and foremost a *social* event. If we're not having fun, then all the lasers in the world won't make it any better.

I also agree that it sucked that your presentation was scheduled for second to last. To make things worse, we were late getting started on Sunday. You should have been on at 3 PM, but because of other delays you didn't get the floor until shortly after 4PM. That was unfortunate.

One thing you may want to consider is to take a cue from Dr Laser. His video tutorials on using the trace-it engine have been well received... Perhaps you could point a video camera at your computer screen and shoot a tutorial or two, and then upload them to either youtube or google video.?. Just a thought.

Adam

[Admin]

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