So DT asked folks to come up with more ideas to fill some con space. I was really impressed with lockpick village, especially the newbie stations.
A minor idea is to have a small area (it should be visible or it won't get used) as a dedicated breakout area, well labelled, with people highly encouraged to go there and show folks how to do xyz. We may be able to "grow" some good speakers this way. It's possible I may have been able to give a talk on my wearable at one time, but felt way too intimidated by the defcon crowd to even think about it. Maybe put multiple tables and chairs in there so hardware workshops don't have to work on the floor.
Hardware Village - this can contain such things as Robot Village, circuit bending and Newbie Town, with stations on how to solder, how to read a schematic, working with breadboards, etc. I'd like to steer away from really common/low end hardware stuff like taking apart harddrives or case mods. I think this would really help encourage folks who would like to get into hw, but feel intimidated by not having basic skills. How sweet would it be to have station/workshop dedicated to Fun With Gumstix?
With all the amazing work Lost has done with his contest and being so dedicated in trying to get folks into hardware, Hardware Village is a natural extension of what he is already doing. Personally, I nominate Lost and Joe Grand, if they'd like the honor.
Yes, I have to put in a gratuitous plug in for forming a Defcon Borg Collective. There's been some mention of projects DC groups could help propogate and I'd love to see a borg collective develop. If gumstix were used to create a diskless client, a wearable could be made for very cheap (if you used audio as an output device). Yes, there'd definitely be security issues, but hell, that'd be half the fun, since this stuff is gonna have to get ironed out sooner or later. These units would also be very low profile, which would make them more fun and less of a hassle. Imagine going into some place as a flash mob, having one of the server borg running an irc daemon and having everyone communicating that way, enabling the look of functioning as one unit - everybody turning in one direction simultaneously, asking for coffee with one voice, etc. I am sure legitimate uses would turn up as well, such as some borg getting into a talk and others being unable to do so, but being able to get a transcription of the talk from the borg inside. The weak point is that networking would be done over bluetooth, but hey... it's a challenge (security, length of signal vs bulky equipment, etc)!
A minor idea is to have a small area (it should be visible or it won't get used) as a dedicated breakout area, well labelled, with people highly encouraged to go there and show folks how to do xyz. We may be able to "grow" some good speakers this way. It's possible I may have been able to give a talk on my wearable at one time, but felt way too intimidated by the defcon crowd to even think about it. Maybe put multiple tables and chairs in there so hardware workshops don't have to work on the floor.
Hardware Village - this can contain such things as Robot Village, circuit bending and Newbie Town, with stations on how to solder, how to read a schematic, working with breadboards, etc. I'd like to steer away from really common/low end hardware stuff like taking apart harddrives or case mods. I think this would really help encourage folks who would like to get into hw, but feel intimidated by not having basic skills. How sweet would it be to have station/workshop dedicated to Fun With Gumstix?
With all the amazing work Lost has done with his contest and being so dedicated in trying to get folks into hardware, Hardware Village is a natural extension of what he is already doing. Personally, I nominate Lost and Joe Grand, if they'd like the honor.
Yes, I have to put in a gratuitous plug in for forming a Defcon Borg Collective. There's been some mention of projects DC groups could help propogate and I'd love to see a borg collective develop. If gumstix were used to create a diskless client, a wearable could be made for very cheap (if you used audio as an output device). Yes, there'd definitely be security issues, but hell, that'd be half the fun, since this stuff is gonna have to get ironed out sooner or later. These units would also be very low profile, which would make them more fun and less of a hassle. Imagine going into some place as a flash mob, having one of the server borg running an irc daemon and having everyone communicating that way, enabling the look of functioning as one unit - everybody turning in one direction simultaneously, asking for coffee with one voice, etc. I am sure legitimate uses would turn up as well, such as some borg getting into a talk and others being unable to do so, but being able to get a transcription of the talk from the borg inside. The weak point is that networking would be done over bluetooth, but hey... it's a challenge (security, length of signal vs bulky equipment, etc)!
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