Some time ago I got a mail from O'Reilly about OSCON, saying that the speaker registration / lounge will be at 16th floor. I think that's the top floor with the suites. I thought it was great. I was thinking that hopefully it'll be EMPTY and the big room that was the speakers lounge last year will be used as a general lounge area. (But alas, no - see below). The speakers lounge should be TINY. With "no talking!!" signs everywhere.
Yes, of course the lounge is great. Lounge areas are great. It's one of the best things about the conference. But having everyone with a speakers badge hide in the "speakers lounge" is just silly. And sad. Having a smaller room far away to be used as the speakers lounge is great. Next year just make it a regular hotel room!
But darn, I see on the convention map that last years speaker lounge is now being used as a session room. Are there more simultaneous sessions this year? I don't remember the exact layout from last year. Are all the small rooms downstairs still being used?
So still no big general lounge area ... Where are we supposed to hang out in between sessions exactly?
As a cool sidenote: This year all the presentation boxes are OS X (powermacs or powerbooks) rather than dual-boot Linux/Windows things. Go Apple!
