Re: Defcon 30

[Thomas Dullien via Dailydave <dailydave () lists aitelfoundation org>]

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
>
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