CAMDEN, Maine -- It's not rare for PopTech participants to call this conference the best of any they've been to.
The star-studded speaker list, the bucolic seaside town and the opportunity to ponder and debate technology's effect on society draws an eager crowd each year.
Though the audience was a bit smaller this time around than in years past (every other year the conference sold out), PopTech still excited and inspired the faithful.
"I love it," said Jim Bueche, who has attended the conference each year. "It's really unique. There's a lot to bring one back."
Part of what makes the conference so good is the small scale of the gathering and the opportunity participants are given to mingle with the speakers, he said. On both Friday and Saturday, PopTech participants received a free lunch ticket to local restaurants and could easily join any table to talk.
Yet one repeat participant was critical of how the conference has evolved.
"It seems that now there are intellectual groupies that are fans of these speakers who are not here to have a real discourse," said one who requested anonymity. "It's almost too familiar."
"They are out of touch with what's really going on; they're too busy being smart."
Wired News roamed the conference for interesting tidbits and minutiae:
Angus wows 'em again: Tech maven and PopTech participant since its inception, Maine Gov. Angus King received a standing ovation when he was introduced.
King will leave office at the end of December, much to the chagrin of the audience.
"Term limits seemed like a good idea at the time," said PopTech host Tom DeMarco.
King put in a pitch for his state by promoting its groundbreaking technology program in schools: During his watch, every seventh-grader in the state received an Apple iBook to use in class.
He encouraged businesses to consider Maine as a place to set up shop and quipped that he had just seen the "empty building festival" in San Jose.
PopTech for the kiddos: Next June, 100 kids ages 10 to 14 will come to Camden for the first PopTech Kids conference.
Like its poppa, PopTech, the conference will feature an assortment of interesting speakers, but the focus of the event will be "hands, eyes, ears and minds-on."
Kids will participate in workshops to make movies, invent robots, play music and design games.
Can I get your number? New this year was a large number on each badge that indicated how many years that person had attended PopTech.
Some didn't like being labeled a newbie, while others thought the idea was a good conversation-starter.
Of course, a handful of folks couldn't resist the temptation to make the numbers a little more creative.
Julie Ellis, a professor at the University of Southern Maine, took a black pen to her badge so it read, "3.1416."
Turns out that pi is an important number for her because meetings in her department always start at "pi time." Colleagues gather at 3:00, and at 3:14 the event begins.
She said she just added the extra numbers to be goofy, but added, "One woman came up to me and said, 'Pi's all right, but it's really common. My favorite number is e."
E is the base of the natural logarithm at 2.71828, Ellis said. She pulled out her Palm to look through a list of other constants, numeral approximations to things like the universal gas constant, speed of light and acceleration of gravity.
"Now what's really amazing is that I can't remember my anniversary," she said.
John Bukowsky from Bainbridge Island, Washington, gave his "5" sticker to a "1" who didn't like the label. She then walked around with a "15" on her badge.
Feeling a little lost without a number, he went to the store, bought a pack of alphabet stickers and added a "V" to his name tag.
"Everybody looks at it and says, 'What's a V?'"
Hey! That's my password! A handful of audience members were taken aback to see their passwords on display at the Camden Opera House.
Simson Garfinkel, author of Database Nation, pulled a fast one on the audience before introducing author Vernor Vinge and chemist Alexander Shulgin for a session titled "Artificial Worlds at the Far Reaches of the Mind."
He tapped in to the wireless LAN and made an example of those who -- tsk, tsk -- don't use encryption.
Music from a real star: Noel Paul Stookey, one-third of folk group Peter, Paul and Mary, delighted the audience with music created using samples of a Bill Gates speech and synchronistic computer error messages. He also performed a song about logging on to a "Virtual Party," and in another, sang about how people are connected to each other like "Facets of a Jewel."
With these connections, people have a responsibility to be kind to one another and giving of themselves, he said. He underscored his point with an a cappella hip-shaking rendition of Tina Turner's "What's Love Got to Do With It?"
And a virtual star: Ray Kurzweil, on the other hand, boogied as Ramona, his virtual female alter-ego. He presented a demo of Ramona dressed in a hot pink lace-up shirt flanked by three virtual male go-go dancers.
The go-gos went shirtless with their beer bellies hanging over their pants. The audience, ahem, busted a gut.
