Notacon

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Notacon logo

Notacon (pronounced "not-a-con") is an art and technology conference which takes place annually in Cleveland, Ohio. The name Notacon became a bacronym for Northern Ohio Technological Advancement Conference, however use of this was mostly dropped after the first year.

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 Rubi-Con event, though it has now achieved its own personality and prominence.

RaD Man doing an interview with Dial-a-Dork on Notacon radio during the 2005 event.

While many hacker conventions focus on the mechanics or political issues that surround such activities, Notacon's focus is more on the underlying beauty or artistry of the technique of hacking, as well as other ways to apply a "hacker mentality" to the areas of art and music. Hence, in addition to topics of technology and computer security, many aspects of both the art and music world are represented. The concept of "community through technology" is one of the main focuses of Notacon.

The most recent Notacon event, 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 this year 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 [1]

In 2005 and 2006, 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.