[Speakers] Re: SVLUG speaking engagement request

[Steve Traugott]

Absolutely.  Let's do this.  Joyce, we haven't booked October yet,
right?

All I need is a description/bio like the one attached.

Steve


On Wed, Jun 05, 2002 at 12:15:22PM -0700, Michael Baxter wrote:
> Hi Steve,
> 
> My name is Michael Baxter, and I work at Xilinx, which makes Field
> Programmable Gate Array (FPGA) devices. I'm also a friend of Don
> Marti's, who has managed to drag me to the masthead of Linux Journal,
> where I make some contributions with the editorial staff. I also do some
> collaboration on Open Source EDA tools, here in Silicon Valley.
> 
> The reason I'm emailing you is that I'd like to request a speaking
> engagement opportunity at the October SVLUG meeting, on behalf of my
> Xilinx colleague Peter Ryser.
> 
> Peter has been managing the embedded Linux software program at Xilinx,
> for our Virtex-II Pro FPGA devices. These FPGAs are way cool,
> incorporating a PowerPC 405 core, along with a user-programmable
> flexible logic fabric, Multi-Gigabit Transceiver (MGT) cores, and other
> stuff. This family of FPGAs is going to be very cool for embedded Linux
> applications, because they allow a high-end systems to be flexibly
> constructed according to the user's design, all on a single chip. The
> FPGA device even allows reconfiguration after embodied in a system, such
> as over the Internet. Peter also has worked on the software tools
> development effort for this FPGA family.
> 
> We'd like to show the SVLUG audience a test and development board
> running Linux directly on the PPC in the FPGA device doing cool things.
> I saw a demo this morning, and it was running Quake on an xterm, on a
> color TFT LCD display. The reason for the October request is that all
> this hardware/software is very new, and a little unstable at present,
> plus the FPGAs are literally right off the fab line. We want to present
> something a lot more solid, and October is a preferred date, to give us
> the set up time needed.
> 
> For reference, here's a relatively recent media alert on Virtex-II Pro,
> for a CAD-related trade-show:
> http://www.xilinx.com/prs_rls/software/0287dacmediaalert.html
> 
> Anyway, could you let me know soon if you have the interest, and whether
> this date works for SVLUG? If OK with you, we'll lock the date in, and
> prepare for it. I can also have Peter generate a little abstract for you
> ASAP, so you can do the usual pre-announce on the SVLUG web site.
> 
> I thank-you kindly for your time.
> 
> Best,
> Michael Baxter
> Sr. Systems Staff Engineer
> APD System Engineering Group
> Xilinx
> 
> 

-- 
Steve Traugott 
Speaker Coordinator, Silicon Valley Linux Users Group
http://www.svlug.org
--
UNIX/Linux Infrastructure Architect, TerraLuna LLC
stevegt at TerraLuna.Org   
http://www.stevegt.com
-------------- next part --------------
From: stevegt at svlug.org
To: svlug-announce at svlug.org
Bcc: sclanton at mail.arc.nasa.gov
Subject: REMINDER: SVLUG Meeting, Wed June 5, 2002

We're pleased to announce the next meeting of the Silicon Valley Linux
Users Group!

WHAT:

  NASA Linux Research

WHEN:

  Wednesday, June 5, 2002, 7pm-9pm or so
	
WHO:

  Sam Clanton, NASA Ames Research Center


ABOUT: 

Sam's work in building an airborne embedded Linux spectrometer control
system was featured on the cover of the March/April 2002 Embedded
Linux Journal -- the ER-2 photo.

Sam is a researcher in Computational Sciences / Atmospheric Sciences
at NASA Ames, where he is involved in a number of Linux-based
projects.  His current work is mainly in EEG pattern recognition and
real-time data processing for brain-computer interface projects taking
place at the NASA Ames Neuroengineering lab.  

Sam will talk about the use of Linux as a part of the research
projects that he has been a part of at NASA, what he is up to inside
and outside of the space agency, and where a relative
newcomer/outsider to the Linux community thinks this Linux thing is
going.

MORE ABOUT THE SPEAKER: 

Sam is a recent graduate from Johns Hopkins University, where he
studied Biomedical Engineering and Computer Science.  He is currently
serving a year-long stint at NASA Ames, before he begins work on an
as-yet-unnamed technological development nonprofit he is co-founding
in South America.  In the future, he is most probably going to go to
medical school.  

Sam got into Linux in college as a result of dissatisfaction in not
being able to really control his own computer, or understand what it
was actually up to, with closed-source systems.  He views Linux as the
natural choice for research, and he believes that if more scientists
were to view a computer as a highly developed and tunable rack of
custom data acquisition and processing equipment, a lot of new
imaginative and effective research could be done.

Aside from work, Sam has been an avid rugby player for most of his
adult life.  He also enjoys mountain biking and hanging out in really
nasty bars.  At one time in his life, he was fluent in Japanese and
had plastic pants.
  
WHERE:

Cisco Building 9.  The land of NUMBERS. The VINEYARDS conference
center.  The side we are on is the Silver Oak/Jordan conference rooms,
where a large Cisco fountain is usually not turned on.  Directions on
how to get there are listed at:

        http://www.svlug.org/directions/cisco-9.shtml 

We've tried our very best for these directions to be accurate.  If you
have any improvements to make, please let our Web Team know!
web-team at svlug.org

NOTES:

It's best if you arrive close to on time, as otherwise there may not
be someone posted at the door to let you in.  After the speakers end
their presentation there is usually a Q&A session, time for job
seekers and employers to meet, and often a few door prizes.  When the
meeting is over people are encouraged to chat a bit, but also to exit
the building so Cisco can lock up. Don't worry, a lot of us go to
dinner afterward so there's plenty of time to chat outdoors or
offsite.

We look forward to seeing you there!