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Cleveland-based programmer Paul Schneider, better known both online and in person as Froggy, first organized Notacon after trips to HOPE and other hacker cons gave him the idea; there weren't any gatherings like it in Cleveland at the time, and attending HOPE cost more in money and time than many locals would have been willing to justify for a weekend. Froggy sensed there was a big enough community in Cleveland of hackers, musicians, artists and others to support one, though. So he wrangled space, put out the word, and lined up enough presentations to make it happen. Now, Notacon's been going on for nine years straight (and year 10 is already in the works). In that time, Froggy's developed some thoughts about how to pull off organizing a gathering that involves hundreds of people at a time — and not just any people, but ones with soldering guns, nerf guns, fencing sabers, a lot of electrical equipment, and sometimes (egads!) even children. Froggy is quick to credit the dozens of people — about 20 core staff, and others with smaller but important roles — who also take part in planning and running the conference. Finding hard-working, like-minded souls may be the most universal part of his advice on running a similar event; watch the video interview for more.

Jake Elliott and Jon (not Elwood) Cates are the ones who describe Glitch Art people as 'weirdos within the weirdos' in the context of Notacon 9, which was recently held in Cleveland. It's 'an annual event that focuses on people who like to build, make, break and hack stuff,' and even in the Notacon context the Glitch Artwork crowd stands out. Sit down with Jake and Jon and share their joy in working with "feral glitches... before they are domesticated," and see some of the output from artist Dave Musgrave's circuit-bent consoles.

musatov writes "SGT Coughanour, David A (HHC 1-110th Infantry US Army) speech on NOTACON 3: "Right now I am currently serving in Iraq where I run IT operations for a small chunk of the Sunni triangle. One of the major projects that we have accomplished here is setting up an ISP that supports 350 subscribers. It has also survived multiple mortar attacks, and is built entirely on Linux." Download video (80 MB QuickTime) Requires latest QuickTime installed. A mirror is available for people to download it."

sinnergy writes "One of the Midwest's only remaining "hacker" cons, Notacon, will be happening April 8-10, 2005 in Cleveland. As an interesting subtext, an extraordinary amount of interest in independent media coverage for this event has been occurring. One project includes Jason Scott's Notacon Radio project. The Packet Sniffers are doing their own Notacon TV project. In addition, numerous other online media outlets, oline radio shows and bloggers have really picked up on the idea of events like these being truly valuable to the geek community. Even the local geek radio show is keen on the idea. Richard Thieme, one of the event's selected speakers, has promoted the hacker con as being one of the final bastions of open speech. Is this the birth of a new trend or is this simply geeks doing what they always do... spreading the word about something new and different going on in their world?"

jgoeke writes "I attended Notacon last year and was impressed how cool it was for a first-year event. This year the organizers seem to be outdoing themselves and have quite an impressive speaker list, including Fark.com's Drew Curtis, Richard Thieme and CSS guru Eric Meyer. Presentation topics range from community radio to network security to MUDs. For events, the 'Anything but Ethernet' contest looks equally promising (essentially, create the most convolunted network set-up you can NOT using Ethernet). Notacon runs from April 8th through the 10th, so thankfully there's plenty of time for me to put it on my calendar!"

jgoeke writes "I attended Notacon last year and was impressed how cool it was for a first-year event. This year the organizers seem to be outdoing themselves and have quite an impressive speaker list, including Fark.com's Drew Curtis, Richard Thieme and CSS guru Eric Meyer. Presentation topics range from community radio to network security to MUDs. For events, the 'Anything but Ethernet' contest looks equally promising (essentially, create the most convolunted network set-up you can NOT using Ethernet). Notacon runs from April 8th through the 10th, so thankfully there's plenty of time for me to put it on my calendar!"

jgoeke writes "I attended Notacon last year and was impressed how cool it was for a first-year event. This year the organizers seem to be outdoing themselves and have quite an impressive speaker list, including Fark.com's Drew Curtis, Richard Thieme and CSS guru Eric Meyer. Presentation topics range from community radio to network security to MUDs. For events, the 'Anything but Ethernet' contest looks equally promising (essentially, create the most convolunted network set-up you can NOT using Ethernet). Notacon runs from April 8th through the 10th, so thankfully there's plenty of time for me to put it on my calendar!"

jeffg writes "For one weekend in April, presenters and attendees will descend upon Cleveland for Notacon, in an attempt to break all your assumptions about technology conferences. Yes, there will be a LAN and plenty of technical talks, but you probably weren't expecting art exhibits, live musicians, and weird contests! Notacon will bridge the gap between art and technology, bringing together performers, speakers, and artists from a wide variety of fields. Will you be part of it?" Specifically, that weekend is April 23-25.

jeffg writes "For one weekend in April, presenters and attendees will descend upon Cleveland for Notacon, in an attempt to break all your assumptions about technology conferences. Yes, there will be a LAN and plenty of technical talks, but you probably weren't expecting art exhibits, live musicians, and weird contests! Notacon will bridge the gap between art and technology, bringing together performers, speakers, and artists from a wide variety of fields. Will you be part of it?" Specifically, that weekend is April 23-25.

jeffg writes "For one weekend in April, presenters and attendees will descend upon Cleveland for Notacon, in an attempt to break all your assumptions about technology conferences. Yes, there will be a LAN and plenty of technical talks, but you probably weren't expecting art exhibits, live musicians, and weird contests! Notacon will bridge the gap between art and technology, bringing together performers, speakers, and artists from a wide variety of fields. Will you be part of it?" Specifically, that weekend is April 23-25.