Taken for Granted

DAC 2010 opened with the Monday Exhibits day. I showed up at the DAC Pavilion to hear Gary Smith’s “What to see at DAC” only to be regaled by music  Lousiana style, what I would call Semi-Zydeco (not Semiconductors) with Gary on  washboard and vocals, Mike Santarini on guitar, Bob Gardner on what I think was a sax (alto or soprano? I  could be quite wrong) and tambourine, and Peggy Aycinena on accordion. The crowd was suitably entertained, although a nearby comment was that Gary should keep his day job, and I did think he may not be auditioning for American Idol next year. He could be known as the William Hung of EDA, but he sounded a lot better than I do in the shower,  I am sure.

Gary followed by what to see at DAC, which didn’t contain too many surprises. He then did a repeat of his talk of the previous evening which I skipped out on.  The pavilion was quite packed out and the  crowds on the exhibit floor seemed good, although I am a pretty poor judge of crowd size normally.

After an hour on the floor I went back to the Pavilion to watch the panel “The Multiplier Effect: Developing Multicore, Multi-OS Applications”. However, it could have been called “The Substitutes”, because Paul Dempsey was supposed to moderate, replaced by Steve Leibson, my friend and colleague now at Denali (i.e. Cadence), Daniel Forsgren of Enea was replaced by Christopher (I am afraid I did not write down the last name) from Enea, Simon Milner of Marvell was played by the real Simon Milner of Marvell, and I was a last minute draft pick substitute for Alan Gatherer of Huawei. Poor substitute I may have been, but the subject was multicore and I could probably talk about that in my sleep – and maybe was dreaming! In any case I held my own and I hope said something someone in the audience found useful.

The only thing I can say about it was – be careful where you show up, you may become part of the show. But be brave and always try to help out if you can.

Tonight are a reception and the Denali party. Better hands than mine will no doubt talk about the Denali party when it is all over.