Notacon (pronounced "not-a-con") was an art and technology conference which took place annually in
Cleveland
Cleveland is a city in the U.S. state of Ohio and the county seat of Cuyahoga County. Located along the southern shore of Lake Erie, it is situated across the Canada–U.S. maritime border and approximately west of the Ohio-Pennsylvania st ...
,
Ohio
Ohio ( ) is a U.S. state, state in the Midwestern United States, Midwestern region of the United States. It borders Lake Erie to the north, Pennsylvania to the east, West Virginia to the southeast, Kentucky to the southwest, Indiana to the ...
from 2003 to 2014. Notacon ceased operations in 2014. The name Notacon became a
bacronym for Northern Ohio Technological Advancement Conference; however, use of this was mostly dropped after the first year. Notacon preceded the Ingenuity Festival by over a year in its vision for a cohesive blend of art and technology.
History
The conference was founded in 2003 by "FTS Conventures", a small group of friends who wanted to strengthen and expand their community. The conference was also founded in part to fill the vacuum caused by the sudden ending of the
Detroit, Michigan
Detroit ( , ) is the List of municipalities in Michigan, most populous city in the U.S. state of Michigan. It is situated on the bank of the Detroit River across from Windsor, Ontario. It had a population of 639,111 at the 2020 United State ...
Rubi-Con event, though it has now achieved its own personality and prominence.
While many
hacker conventions focus on the mechanics or political issues that surround such activities, Notacon's focus was more on the underlying beauty or artistry of the technique of hacking, as well as other ways to apply a "
hacker
A hacker is a person skilled in information technology who achieves goals and solves problems by non-standard means. The term has become associated in popular culture with a security hackersomeone with knowledge of bug (computing), bugs or exp ...
mentality" to the areas of
art and
music
Music is the arrangement of sound to create some combination of Musical form, form, harmony, melody, rhythm, or otherwise Musical expression, expressive content. Music is generally agreed to be a cultural universal that is present in all hum ...
. Hence, in addition to topics of technology and computer security, many aspects of both the art and music world were represented. The concept of "community through technology" was one of the main focuses of Notacon, with the participants being dedicated to the advancement of computer technology.
Notacon 3
Notacon 3, took place April 7–9, 2006, with talks such as "Make Your Own Linux", "Blended Threat Management", "How to Survive a Federal Investigation", "The Great Failure of Wikipedia", "Kryptos and the Da Vinci Code", "HajjiNets: Running an ISP in a War Zone" and "Your Moment of Audio Zen: A History of Podcasts". A few of the talks were in direct association with the computer club Infonomicon, as several of their more high profile members spoke at the con, including droops, kn1ghtl0rd, p0trill023, irongeek, and ponyboy. Other notable speakers in 2006 included
Jason Scott,
Elonka Dunin,
Drew Curtis, and
Eric Meyer
Notacon 4
Notacon 4, April 27–29, 2007, worked as an incubator for ''Blockparty'', the largest running North American
demoparty. This collaborative effort allowed the fledgling party to utilize the existing support structure of an established conference. 2007 also featured the first known presentation from a deceased community member, a multimedia update to a talk given at Rubi-con 5 called "Secrets of the Phone Guy". This remixed presentation was titled "Secrets of the Dead Phone Guy" and was presented by "The Friends of DanKaye". Also featured were presentations such as: "DIY Green Energy", "Why Building Hacker Spaces is Necessary and How to Do It", "Online Communities and the Politics of DDoS", "Notageek: Technology and Everyone Else", "8 Dirty Secrets of the Security Industry", and "Open Source Economic Development"
Notacon Radio
In 2005, 2006, and 2007, Notacon also included the Notacon Radio project, hosted by Jason Scott. Essentially an event-long
Icecast (using
Oddcast and Icecast2), Scott provided running audio commentary of the event, its attendees, and the world at large. The broadcast was also opened up to other contributors, including local tech-talkers ''Dial-a-Dork'', who did a four-hour live show.
References
External links
*
*
* Official collection of talks recorded during the event
* {{cite web , title=FTS Conventures , url=https://www.ftsconventures.com/ , access-date=28 September 2021 , archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20141108013607/https://www.ftsconventures.com/ , archive-date=8 November 2014 - parent company
Geeks as the Media at Notaconon
Slashdot
Notacon: Because Your Brain Has a Right Side, Tooon
Slashdot
Community converges on Ohio LinuxFest linux.com
**Notacon hosted a reception at
Ohio LinuxFest, October 1, 2005 and September 30, 2006
2003 establishments in Ohio
Technology conferences
2014 disestablishments in Ohio