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[Atkelar]

apologies for this, the megaphone was bust and only did siren, admittedly whilst i have a very loud voice it only carries so far and fursuit heads dramatically decrease the range

*nods* - I did yell "CAN YOU HEAR ME" from the top of my lungs too... but the (relative) silence that responded clearly indicated a "no". And this was only one of the things going wrong here, it would fill a chapter in a comedy routine to list them all...

[Kamuniak]

- no more ears protection? If I remember correctly these were previously offered unofficially by one of the attendee, did this person not come this year or couldnt offer the service ?

anyone know anything about this?

IIRC that was Thygrrr. As far as I know it was a personal service he paid from his personal money. I guess he decided that people should learn to take care for themselves?

Whut? Last years those big boxes of ear protections at dance entrances were provided by regular member? I didn't know at all. I want here and now thank that person!

It would be great to have those again in future, maybe provided by Eurofurence itself this time Cheap but big favor for anyone who have forgot to buy own.

[nobs]

It would be great to have those again in future, maybe provided by Eurofurence itself this time Cheap but big favor for anyone who have forgot to buy own.

Maybe selling them for charity?

[Runo]

It would be great to have those again in future, maybe provided by Eurofurence itself this time Cheap but big favor for anyone who have forgot to buy own.

Maybe selling them for charity?

Selling protective gear isn't a good idea IMHO. Maybe a donation box next to it, but people shouldn't have to pass on protection just because they don't have money with them.

[Cheetah]

These things are dirt cheap ... if someone will volunteer to be responsible for it, I can promise we'll be able to afford it.

[Fafnir Kristensen]

These things are dirt cheap ... if someone will volunteer to be responsible for it, I can promise we'll be able to afford it.

I would gladly help with this, what would need to be done?

[Ralesk]

One thing I didn't notice being mentioned but I want to thank: the T-Shirt

Good quality, and finally something non-dark   I'm very happy with it!

[Tes]

I finally get around to provide some EF20 feedback...

All  in all the Con was great and the Hotel good.

But with the latter I have 2 complaints:

1) The ridiculous prohibition of using your own electric cooler and the justification for banning it. I can understand, that they don't want any heating devices likes coffee makers or the like since those can run in the kilowatt range. But the typical electrical cooler uses a peltier element and maybe a fan, consuming something in the range of 60W. Compared to the hairdryer in the bathroom or even the room lighting and some laptops I have seen at work that's a not even worth mentioning. I seriously hope the Hotel doesn't try this again since it makes it impossible to take other prohibitions seriously.

2) If you tried to use one of those little 3G / WLAN routers or your smartphone as a WLAN AP in your room, you might have noticed that it didn't work very well, you got disconnected almost immediatly. This only started with the beginning of the Con, no problems were encounted before the con started (if you booked early arrival). It looked a suspiciously like a WLAN-Deauth-DOS-Attack if you have your phone directly next to the 3G/WLAN-Router and it can't establish a reliable connection. This attack works by spoofing the MAC address of your Router and sending a de-authentication packet which will disconnect your device from your AP.  Please tell the Hotel to not do that again, it might backfire. After all, it wasn't done before the Con started.

[Cheetah]

I finally get around to provide some EF20 feedback...

Thanks for your feedback!

1) The ridiculous prohibition of using your own electric cooler and the justification for banning it. I can understand, that they don't want any heating devices likes coffee makers or the like since those can run in the kilowatt range. But the typical electrical cooler uses a peltier element and maybe a fan, consuming something in the range of 60W. Compared to the hairdryer in the bathroom or even the room lighting and some laptops I have seen at work that's a not even worth mentioning. I seriously hope the Hotel doesn't try this again since it makes it impossible to take other prohibitions seriously.

It's actually not specific to electric coolers - you are generally not allowed to use electrical appliances in your room that go beyond a laptop or a cell phone charger. Be it a cooler, a heater, a soldering iron, a sewing machine, a popcorn maker, or (*sigh*) an electric cotton candy machine. We've communicated the problem with them, and they made a few concessions, for example, allowing small fans for fursuit drying - we could convince them that the hygienic consequences of wet fursuits outweigh the fire hazard. But the appliance ban will stay in place, and I'm afraid there is nothing we can do about it. There will however be a way to officially use the minibar as a regular fridge (this time for everyone), which we are going to communicate when the time has come.

2) If you tried to use one of those little 3G / WLAN routers or your smartphone as a WLAN AP in your room, you might have noticed that it didn't work very well, you got disconnected almost immediatly. This only started with the beginning of the Con, no problems were encounted before the con started (if you booked early arrival). It looked a suspiciously like a WLAN-Deauth-DOS-Attack if you have your phone directly next to the 3G/WLAN-Router and it can't establish a reliable connection. This attack works by spoofing the MAC address of your Router and sending a de-authentication packet which will disconnect your device from your AP.  Please tell the Hotel to not do that again, it might backfire. After all, it wasn't done before the Con started.

I can assure you that no such thing was attempted. If you had problems like the ones you described, it was most likely a case of terribly congested WiFi spectrum - with both the hotels internal WiFi system and 2000 geeks with their own routers trying to fight for bandwidth. That being said, the solution they're using (courtesy of Cisco Systems) IS pretty hostile against competing networks. Not that it's programmed to actively attack anyone, but we (the staff) got a fair warning ahead of time, that to operate our own internal Staff WiFi, we would have to ask them to reserve channels for us.

We did, and it worked nicely. But since this is obviously not an option for everyone, and as it's unlikely they'll swap out their WiFi installation against any other type of system anytime soon, it's probably also one of those things we'll have to learn to live with.