{"id":819,"date":"2011-12-04T21:47:18","date_gmt":"2011-12-05T02:47:18","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/pappp.net\/?p=819"},"modified":"2011-12-04T21:47:23","modified_gmt":"2011-12-05T02:47:23","slug":"sc11-a-review-in-schwag","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/pappp.net\/?p=819","title":{"rendered":"SC11: A Review in Schwag"},"content":{"rendered":"

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\nThis is the less serious bit of review from SC’11, but there is fun to be had and a certain amount to be learned from the pile of schwag that comes back. The schwag pile is comparable to last year’s<\/a>, but I was actively aimed toward useful<\/b> or at least interesting junk this year, since I have > three cubic feet of this crap packed away now. Part of the point of this post is just to give credit (and links) to places that gave me cool stuff. <\/p>\n

I find I actually use the various random bags I get, so I always end up with quite a few. Several were particularly nice: For the second year in a row, I would actually USE the conference bag (Back left corner) on it’s own, and I got another one of the ridiculously tough Tyan\/Intel bags (far back, standing) which are handy for groceries and toting stuff around campus. Indiana University had a nifty little sling bag that I could contrive uses for (next to conference bag), and the giant blue CSC bag can consolidate a remarkably large pile of crap. <\/p>\n

With regard to apparel, Silicon Mechanics<\/a> again had the nice florescent green on black logo tee that I wear all the time, although this year’s has some text on the back that makes it a little less cool. We hung out for a while talking to the Pogo Linux<\/a> folks and were handed a pile of their shirts (logo on front, gold circle around Tux on back, back visible in picture), which are pretty nice. The Adaptive Computing\/MOAB<\/a> “Lifes a Batch” shirt is clever in the same way the Platform Computing “Whatever” shirt from a few years ago – I don’t know that it will get worn much, but it’s a memorable marketing effort (and, by the way, Moab has become really impressive – it can do PVM type tricks that PVM can’t, and look good doing it). NIMS (I’m slightly embarrassed to say I don’t remember which relevant organization with that acronym it was) had nice Beanies which may see some use this winter. I have some fuschia compact umbrellas from the conference daily giveaway (I think IBM payed for\/logo’d them) to be given as gifts – we brought back one or two each… plus a box of a dozen after they stuck the remainders out. <\/p>\n