I actually managed to see all but one of the presentations I intended to see. I didn't talk to all the people I had originally intended to, but, in hindsight, I suppose I could have. Instead of attending Nathan Marz' presentation on efficiency, I went to Steve Sokol's presentation on Asterisk, an open source communications software. The hindsight comes from realizing I could have still found Mr. Marz sometime other than after his presentation.
Like most of the attendees, I talked with the 3D printing guys. That technology is pretty amazing and relatively inexpensive. I particularly like that it can print its own component parts.
My favorite presentation was Walter Bender's learning to learn. He was very passionate about breaking the classroom mold and doing what helps students learn. Learning is an activity that students do, not something that is done to them.
John Diamond confirmed my suspicion that open source gaming isn't of the same quality as commercial gaming. However, Alien Arena, in practice, is really quite good. Some of the improvements he's made to the Quake II engine are quite impressive.
Bryan Johns presentation on open communications was informative as well. When I read the abstract for his talk, I was picturing a personal VoIP service, like Vonage. Asterisk and Digium think much bigger than that. They provide VoIP services, and more, on a company-wide scale.
On the whole, POSSCON was quite interesting. If it had been in Charleston and/or I could have attended all three days, I think I would have enjoyed it even more.
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