i didn't realize i was a pangolin client

[Galvonaut]

It may be enlightening to read ILDA's voting criterion. I would certainly be interested in knowing this as well as who votes and how votes are cast.

It is always difficult to account for other's tastes, however some members of the board must have an appreciation for the finer things in life - as attested by Swami's award.

Keith

[swamidog]

the voting criteria is somewhat vague, but mike dunn has a room full of ilda awards and makes some amazing shows (my favorite is his tom sawyer abstract show). i could not possibly feel bad about placing behind him.

It may be enlightening to read ILDA's voting criterion. I would certainly be interested in knowing this as well as who votes and how votes are cast.

It is always difficult to account for other's tastes, however some members of the board must have an appreciation for the finer things in life - as attested by Swami's award.

Keith

[Galvonaut]

the voting criteria is somewhat vague, but mike dunn has a room full of ilda awards and makes some amazing shows (my favorite is his tom sawyer abstract show). i could not possibly feel bad about placing behind him.

There are some great effects in there!

My main interest in the criterion is just in case have my laser built and I'm happy enough with a show in time for next year

Keith

[Pangolin]

Does anyone else 'not get' the top 2 abstract places?

My saying about the ILDA Awards: *SOMEONE* is always going to be unhappy...

Abstract shows are obviously abstract. To add to this, this year the judging was done in Germany using all European judges. From what our European clients tell me, they don't like or use abstracts. Americans seem to love them -- particularly anyone who ever saw a show in a planetarium...

good to know that even Pango make mistakes now and again...

Oh, we make plenty of mistakes, that's for sure. It's just that most of them are made in-house and we're able to learn from them and try to constantly improve the way we do things. Not many mistakes are a source of public embarrassment...

You could always make the statement true(ish) by sending Swami a free Beyond + .net system...

Hehe, yes. I'd rather make things true rather than only true(ish)... In fact my own personal standard is higher than truth. My own standard is FACT. If you want truth, go to a psychology class...

Bill

PS: Most recently Patrick has been giving a kind of "class" (like a seminar) at ILDA, before the awards. He shows people in the class various award-winning pieces and tells them to rate it in various ways. For the past few years that he has done this, people in the class, by and large, tend to come to the same conclusion that the judges did. Still, *SOMEONE* is going to be disappointed ;-)

[swamidog]

Bill,

No worries at all. I was hoping my spirit of amused tongue in check translated into ascii. Thank you for handling this.

I did not receive any emails about software/hardware used in my shows. I'm happy to check my spam folder if you can provide the third party sender's address.

c.

Hi all,

Since I don't get to PL very often, it was a frequent PL member who called this thread to my attention. Of course I am deeply upset and embarrassed by this situation!

Whenever something fails in a major way, it is normally because of a sequence of events. I'm not sure why, but the example that comes immediately to mind is Apollo 13, whose disaster was caused by a long sequence of events, the first of which happened years earlier to a tank originally destined for Apollo 8...

In this case, the sequence of events went like this:
1. As Pangolin continues to grow, there is a growing sentiment that Bill Benner should not be involved with every single detail, and instead should concentrate only on high-level tasks, especially development.

2. Because of that sentiment and also because of timing, this was the very first year that I personally did not do "the count" of Pangolin-users who received ILDA Awards. Immediately after returning from the ILDA meeting in Frankfurt, I, along with the other managing officers of Pangolin, boarded a plane for the LDI show in Las Vegas.

3. The PR agency wanted to get this press release out quickly -- while it was still news. Normally this does not happen, and we simply send out an announcement after I personally have had a chance to do "the count" and update our web page of award winners. So this year it was a third party that tabulated "the count". Before I left for LDI I was assured by the third party that they had verified "the count" by sending emails to every claimed award winner and waiting for a response before tabulating them. (When this thread was brought to my attention earlier today, I forwarded it to the third party who said they received every confirmation email but one...)

4. Although I supplied the congratulatory sentence used in the press release, this is the very first time that I personally did not completely review the entire press release before it was sent out. Up until now, I insist on reviewing each and every public statement that comes from Pangolin.

So this sequence of events has led to this situation.

Earlier today, at the time when a PL member called this thread to my attention I was in the Las Vegas airport, about to take off for Orlando. In any event, you can rest assured I am not happy about this situation and made phone calls to the PR agency and others involved. Because of this I am fully reinstating the policy that I must review each and every public communication that comes from Pangolin -- regardless of how much time this takes away from development, and regardless of how demeaning it feels to others that the President of the company must watch over their work. Moreover, for however many more years I am on this earth, it will be me personally who does "the count" of ILDA Award Winners.

When we hire new people to work at Pangolin, during the orientation I try to impress upon them that "We get paid to get things right, not to get things done quickly". This is a situation where something was done quickly, but was certainly not right.

I am sorry for this situation, and I am appreciative of and impressed by the grace that Swami is displaying! If the tables were turned, I am not sure I would be so graceful...

Best regards,

William Benner

[Pangolin]

I did not receive any emails about software/hardware used in my shows. I'm happy to check my spam folder if you can provide the third party sender's address.

Completely setting this aside, I have sent you several emails in the past and even private messages here on PL with no response what so ever. I always assumed you were ignoring me... Perhaps your spam filter settings, or whole email handler is blocking things...

I was hoping my spirit of amused tongue in check translated into ascii.

Oh it translated -- at least for me. But that was one of the points of my response. I don't know that a response from me would have been tongue in cheek at all...

Bill

[swamidog]

it is entirely possible. my SA runs pretty draconian spam filters. hacking m4 sendmail macro files stopped being fun so i handed it off to someone else.

and there's this:





i'll shoot you my ph# in a pm. you can always contact me that way.

Completely setting this aside, I have sent you several emails in the past and even private messages here on PL with no response what so ever. I always assumed you were ignoring me... Perhaps your spam filter settings, or whole email handler is blocking things...

Bill

[norty303]

My saying about the ILDA Awards: *SOMEONE* is always going to be unhappy...

Oh don't get me wrong, I'm not unhappy about it. The ILDA awards have passed me by to date quite happilly, and will no doubt continue to pass me by for some years to come.

I guess I was just a little underwhelmed by what I saw, and didn't really connect with it (as is the case with all art). Maybe I'll check out some of the award winning beam shows and see how they grab me.

It's not going to ruin my day tho...

[hitekvoop]

hacking m4 sendmail macro files stopped being fun

hacking m4 macros was never fun, you sick sick man.

After watching all three shows, my first thought is they should break abstract category out to single and multi-head shows. Swami, aren't your shows technically dual head with one doing lumia? or is a "head" strictly defined as containing an x/y galvo pair?

[swamidog]

good question... i consider my shows single head because i only use one scanner. the lumia is just lovely background radiation.

as i mentioned, the criteria is pretty vague.

hacking m4 macros was never fun, you sick sick man.

After watching all three shows, my first thought is they should break abstract category out to single and multi-head shows. Swami, aren't your shows technically dual head with one doing lumia? or is a "head" strictly defined as containing an x/y galvo pair?