Dailydave mailing list archives
Re: Defcon 30
From: Thomas Dullien via Dailydave <dailydave () lists aitelfoundation org>
Date: Sat, 20 Aug 2022 13:59:05 +0200
Hey, One of the benefits of aging is that one gets to focus deteriorating eyesight on the past through rose-tinted glasses. Fond memories of times that feel simpler in retrospect, but didn't feel simple as they were happening. Software, like a tide that keeps rising, has eaten the world, and ARM cores outnumber humans. A lot of us have built lives, careers, and considerable material comfort on top of something that people told us to stop doing for most of our youth. The software tide lifted a lot of boats, including the poorly constructed skiffs we took out. A few observations: 1. Old-timers like us are terrible sources of career advice. Aside from survivorship bias, the environment we acted in was drastically different than today's environment. 2. A field with no curriculum, few prospects, and that is generally treated as a bad habit will attract very different folks than a "promising career path". 3. For those of us that thrived on avoiding the conventional path, and for whom that formed a part of their identity, having gone mainstream is a bewildering experience. What's next? If you find a beautiful spot in nature somewhere, do you tell anyone? Cheers, Halvar/Thomas On Wed, 17 Aug 2022, 01:06 Dave Aitel via Dailydave, < dailydave () lists aitelfoundation org> wrote:
As you wander the halls of the inaptly named Caesar's Forum, amidst a living sea of the most neurodiverse Clan humanity has ever seen, you cannot help but stop for a second to close your eyes amidst the cacophony and mentally exclaim, "Look. Look at the world we have created!" Sitting in the one cafe in the Paris hotel with food, a tattooed thirty-something who has been to Defcon twice gives you advice on how to do the conference. "Take the unirail." they say. "Also, you should have a hacker name! Mine is 'youngblood''" "Noted!" you respond. These are good ideas. The unirail in particular, probably, because Vegas is overflowing - and decent food options and anywhere to sit that is not beeping at you or showing grungy dystopian TV ads the Cyberpunk 2077 developers would find over-the-top are impossible to come by, making the conference ten times more exhausting than usual. In that sense, you miss the Alexis Park days, sitting with Halvar Flake next to a pool where everyone was more larval than they knew, watching Dildog lauch BO2K to a thousand screaming fans in the same room Dino Dai Zovi explained Solaris hacking an hour earlier. Some of the best talks this year had no attendees at all - Orange Tsai's talk was over Zoom, to a huge room, but with few butts in the seats. There were a hundred "Villages" it seemed like, living a half-life between physical space in the conference room and a Discord channel. Defcon may be the worst and best place to learn anything in that way - the environment is hopelessly chaotic, with two talks happening inches away from each other, and only feet from a DJ pumping out house music. But perhaps the best environment to learn in is the one in which you are most inspired? My friends, we've conquered the world. What's next? -dave _______________________________________________ Dailydave mailing list -- dailydave () lists aitelfoundation org To unsubscribe send an email to dailydave-leave () lists aitelfoundation org
_______________________________________________ Dailydave mailing list -- dailydave () lists aitelfoundation org To unsubscribe send an email to dailydave-leave () lists aitelfoundation org
Current thread:
- Defcon 30 Dave Aitel via Dailydave (Aug 16)
- Re: Defcon 30 Thomas Quinlan via Dailydave (Aug 19)
- Re: Defcon 30 Thomas Dullien via Dailydave (Aug 20)
- Re: Defcon 30 Richard Thieme via Dailydave (Aug 21)
- Re: Defcon 30 Ken Pfeil via Dailydave (Aug 21)
- Re: Defcon 30 Konrads Klints via Dailydave (Aug 23)