The Nerd's Eye View

There are times when I wish I was a far more glib writer, and that it was easy for me to pump out the dross that I pass off as pithy observations of life. Usually those times are in the wake of a full day of grist for the mill which I have to put down in the 15 minutes before I am to go to bed. Times like now ...

This week I have been at SPIE Microlithography 2006, which is an optics conference attended by many folks in the industry and academia or in fact anyone involved in optics. Like any conference/trade show it's also attended by tons of vendors and the folks who make the things that make you go "Ooh". They bring with them, not only news of the latest materials and equipment with which to make the next generation of semiconductors, but many trinkets and baubles, affectionately known as swag. Swag is in many cases the only thing that makes these conferences worth attending. I mean why buy a stress ball when you can get one from Nikon that turns yellow when you squeeze it? [ aside: that's not the only type of swag, and we'll get into that a little bit later]

Needless to say I decided to be "Our Man at SPIE" (pronounced "spy"), but I will admit that the best account of it is by Chris Mack, aka the Gentleman Scientist. Dr Mack - and he is called that apparently by everyone, including his Mom - created a program that does optical simuliations and then retired with his millions to Texas where he apparently lives the life of a country gentleman and scientist. Which is a pity since this is the life I had intended for myself. The Nerd's Eye View is only a stepping stone folks, to fame, fortune and the life of science notoriety that I can only aspire to.

As I mentioned earlier, stress balls are not the only type of swag you can get. The vendors, in the spirit of spending money to make money, spend lavish amont of cash setting up "hospitality suites" in the hotels adjoining the convention center. While the hospitality suites do not contain booth babes or massage chairs (that's a great idea for next year!), they do typically contain hors d'oeuvres, sushi bars and copious amounts of alcohol. For the price of a simple business card (more on that later) you gain access to this oasis of earthly pleasures and are also entered into a drawing for all sorts of high quality swag (iPods and the like) that your corporate anti-corruption policy won't allow you to accept anyway. Between sessions we spent time in the hospitality suites eating salmon served on silver platters and shrimp skewers and talking loudly about our jobs and how we were considering buying a new system from the vendor.

This brings me to my other point: SPIE and other conference/trade shows are an opportunity to be young lions. We move in large packs (not like young lions at all) from exhibit to exhibit demanding baubles and sometimes not even bothering to feign interest in the wares on display. This behavior is made more flagrant by the fact that, unlike many of the other attendants at the conference, we work for a rather large and influential semiconductor manufacturer and hence we throw around our weight. Imagine the Capulets or the Montagues swaggering around Verona filching apples off carts or sneering at wine merchants. They need us, we know this, ergo, we are jerks. More or less. I don't want to overstate the issue. After all, we're also just happy to be there.

All year long we are essentially slaves and for one week, give or take, we are fawned upon with a solicitousness that borders on the obsequious. Can we be faulted for wallowing in it like pigs in shit?