[ale] PhreakNIC 18! (pt01/02)
Pope jonnyX
jonnyx at mindspring.com
Wed Aug 20 09:20:39 EDT 2014
(Hmm, if I'm gonna do this via email, rather than that social media crap the kids are all into these days, I might as well go oldschool. Load up your monospace fonts, peoples! Slag off, Twitter, with your pathetic 140 character limit! ASCII art ahoy, ftw!)
Good lord! It's
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THE QUICK & DIRTY
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Who: Nashville2600/NLUG/ALE/friends & supporters/YOU! Yes, YOU!
What: a weekend of hacking, panel discussions on a variety of topics, partying
When: 30 Oct (1pmish) - 02 Nov (5pmish)
Where: Millennium Maxwell House, Nashville TN, http://goo.gl/0ZWaAv
or call 800.457.4460 for reservations
Why: See below
$$$: $25 'til 05 Sep, $30 'til 24 Oct, $40 cash at the door
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Greetings! This is the initial announcement and invitation to PHREAKNIC,
a convention for hackers, phone phreaks, cypherpunks, programmers, civil
libertarians, ham/scanner enthusiasts and culture jammers. Not one of the
above? No prob. Network engineers, ISP owners, sysops, security consultants,
the generally curious and (especially) those who want to learn about some
of the more "underground" elements of our technological culture are all
encouraged to attend. We even expect a fed or two. A media circus is being
engineered as well.
The con starts 1:00pm Thursday and runs nonstop until 5:00pm Sunday; there
may be a few additional events afterwards, so check phreaknic.info once it
goes live for daily updates. There will be live music, films, a series of
lectures, panel discussions and workshops, and numerous informal tech talks
and demos.
Why are we doing this?
A very wise man once said "Don't get mad at the media, BECOME the media!"
We see this as a chance to dispel many of the misconceptions and outright
lies spread by certain greedy corporations (especially those in the
telecommunications industry) about our subculture, expose the bad laws their
lobbyists sponsor and our politicians pass (usually over the protests of
experts), and chastise the mainstream media for frequently poor and biased
reporting (and for perverting the term "hacker", which was a complement up
until the 80's). Assuming anyone wants to listen, that is...
It's also an excuse for a big party Halloween weekend. See ya there!
50 68 72 65 61 6B 4E 49 43
Howdy folks,
That, with a few content tweaks, was the PhreakNIC v1.0 announcement, blasted into teh intarwebz tubes on October 9th of 1997, just before midnight. What a long deranged trip it's been...
OK, back to 2014: Dru Myers here, aka jonnyX. I'm one of the PhreakNIC founders and the guy who ran the convention its first five years (1997 to 2001). I'm back in Nashville and running the convention again this year.
I've made some changes that I hope will result in growth for both the convention and its parent non-profit, Nashville2600, as well as a better convention experience for everyone. We're working very closely with NLUG, the Nashville Linux Users Group, which is undergoing a similar reboot.
The PhreakNIC website is still in a state of transition, but that should change within a few days. Here's a heads up for y'all:
Con dates:
PhreakNIC 18/XVIII/0x12/0b10010/etc is Halloween weekend this year; we're starting at 1:00pm CDT/UTC-5, *Thursday*, Oct 30th and running non-stop 'til 5:00pm CST/UTC-6, Sunday, Nov 2nd (note that 1:00am-2:00am Sunday will repeat, as we come off Daylight Savings time; anyone got any ideas for something amusing/obnoxious we could do to celebrate that extra hour?). Why are we starting Thursday? Well, our host hotel made our con rooms available as of 8:00am Thursday morning for setup. Setup won't take very long. We might as well put the extra time to use.
Con hotel:
Millennium Maxwell House
2025 Rosa L. Parks Boulevard
Nashville, TN, 37228-1505
The group code for booking a room is 1410PNICON.
The group rate is $105.00/night, which gets you free internet (wireless) as well.
http://www.millenniumhotels.com/usa/millenniumnashville/
http://goo.gl/0ZWaAv
Group rates apply from check-in Wednesday, Oct 29th through check-out Tuesday, Nov 4th. Call (800) 457-4460 if you don't want to book online. Local numbers are (615) 259-4343 and (615) 313-1327 fax.
Note that the group CODE is only valid through Tuesday, September 30th, so book your room by then (you can always cancel or transfer your reservation to someone else if you can't attend). On October 1st, the Maxwell House releases any unused rooms in our block, returns them to the general pool, and rates go back up to $160.00-$180.00/night, with wireless net access an additional $10.00/day.
I suggest booking early, as the hotel *will* sell out. We're not the only event in town that weekend. The nearest overflow hotel is several blocks away and even more expensive.
Check-in: 3:00pm
Check-out: noon, inquire at front desk on departure date for late check-out options; if you stay too late, they can legally charge you an extra 1/2 day.
The hotel was renovated from top to bottom last year, so it's pretty nice. The hotel has a restaurant and bar onsite, both renovated as well.
The hotel has an airport shuttle. If you're flying in, give us and/or the hotel your arrival info once you have it; they'll make sure the shuttle driver has it too.
There has been some talk of perks for people who book their rooms by Sunday, August 31st. Ideas we've kicked around include comped breakfast vouchers or a free PN18 t-shirt, possibly with a special supporter design. Wadda y'all think? Got any other ideas? PhreakNIC is by and for the community, so tell us (the organizers) what you want & we'll do our best to make it happen.
Con space:
We've snagged most of the Maxwell House convention rooms, and we will be running multiple programming tracks. Of particular interest to ALE will be the Linux/FOSS room. It'll seat ~100 people, and both ALE & NLUG (as well as other participating regional LUGs) will have exclusive use of it throughout the con; think of it as a linux convention running inside PhreakNIC, with someone else graciously handling the logistics and picking up the tab, so start planning accordingly (see "Call for Papers" below). Use this as an opportunity to promote ALE.
Need more space? We have a larger room that'll seat ~300 people, and if necessary (ie - if y'all bring in a Big Name), we can reconfigure the ballrooms to seat up to 1000 people. There's also a large workshop area for projects that require more time than typically allotted to a talk or panel discussion. You can see a meeting space diagram here:
https://www.dropbox.com/s/3bb952t2q69dlne/Meeting%20Space%20Diagram.jpg
http://goo.gl/EGR7uj
The Linux/FOSS room will either be in the International or Forum room (do y'all have a preference?). The East Ballroom will be the larger talk & panel discussion room, workshops/gaming/misc in the Central Ballroom (feel free to move tables & chairs around as needed), vendors will be in the West Ballroom.
We do NOT have the Embassy room (apparently there's a small bodybuilding convention in there the same weekend as PhreakNIC, I've been assured that they are easy to co-exist with) or the Crown Ballroom on the top floor (weekend wedding reception, my advice is to stay far away and do not risk invoking bridezilla wrath; no big loss on the space, as until the soundproofing has been upgraded between the Crown Ballroom & the 9th floor guest rooms, the hotel does not allow overnight use of the space; I *do* want it for the 2015 PhreakNIC Halloween Ball, however...).
Finally, note the Pavilion at the bottom of the meeting diagram. We have that, too (hopefully the weather will be agreeable). Hamfest, anyone?
Call for Papers:
Got something to talk about? Great! Send me the following info:
+ Your name & contact info (preferred email address and phone#).
+ Is this a solo talk or will others be joining you? If the latter, we need their info as well.
+ A talk title and a one paragraph synopsis.
+ Talk format (see below).
+ Your target audience. Newbies? Gurus? The general public? Family friendly, kid safe? Adults only? You get the idea.
+ Special equipment needs? We'll have con room sized PA systems & laptop capable video projectors, tell us if you require more.
+ Any time/day preferences or restrictions.
+ Please put [PN18 CFP] in the subject.
You can also publicly post your proposal in the PhreakNIC google group, if you'd like some (polite) feedback, comments, suggestions, etc.:
https://groups.google.com/forum/#!forum/phreaknic
The PhreakNIC call for papers runs year round, so it's never to early to submit (got something in mind for PhreakNIC 87?), but the cut-off for PhreakNIC 18 will be October 1st.
If your submission is accepted, we'll need the following for the website:
+ A detailed talk description, including links to relevant resources, if any.
+ A bio and a headshot.
Note that you can pitch more than one talk.
Note also that we're including some kid's programming in the late AM/early PM hours, when the partying adults without kids tend to sleep in (this is how we help ensure the next generation of geeks will thrive & take over the world).
Once we have the initial schedule online, if you see something else you might like to participate in, let me know.
Friendly advice: People are paying to attend PhreakNIC. Some may travel quite a distance to see your talk. Please be on time, be professional, and give them their money's worth.
Talk formats:
We're doing several types of talks:
+ 50 minute traditional talks, includes audience Q&A, starts at the top of each hour.
+ 20 minute TED-style talks with limited Q&A, starts at the top of the hour & half past.
+ 10 minute lightning talks, very limited or no Q&A, starts at the top of the hour & runs in quarter-hour slots.
Unless requested otherwise, all talks will be recorded and put online under a creative commons/copyleft license (ie - may be freely redistributed for non-profit/non-commercial purposes, with attribution & if unaltered; science/educational use encouraged) after the convention, both on our website and via archive.org (we'll let you see the video first & make requested edits if necessary before uploading).
Not familiar with TED talks? Here's the format info:
http://storage.ted.com/tedx/manuals/tedx_speaker_guide.pdf
http://www.duarte.com/blog/10-ways-to-prepare-for-a-ted-format-talk/
Some of my favs:
https://www.ted.com/talks/hans_rosling_shows_the_best_stats_you_ve_ever_seen
https://www.ted.com/talks/george_dyson_on_project_orion
https://www.ted.com/talks/johnny_lee_demos_wii_remote_hacks
https://www.ted.com/talks/elon_musk_the_mind_behind_tesla_spacex_solarcity
https://www.ted.com/talks/david_christian_big_history
https://www.ted.com/talks/phil_plait_how_to_defend_earth_from_asteroids.html
Bonus:
https://www.ted.com/talks/a_ted_speaker_s_worst_nightmare
Best? Worst? You decide:
https://www.ted.com/playlists/171/the_most_popular_talks_of_all
http://mashable.com/2013/07/08/ted-talks-change-your-life/
http://www.buzzfeed.com/katienotopoulos/the-20-all-time-worst-ted-talks
http://www.foreignpolicy.com/articles/2012/05/17/the_10_ted_talks_they_should_have_censored
Need more info about lightening talks?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lightning_talk
http://www.perl.com/pub/2004/07/30/lightningtalk.html (detailed info)
http://perl.plover.com/lt/osc2003/lightning-talks.html (short & sweet)
Lightning talk examples:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gJOkpP__dY4 (Ruby Conf 2013)
http://pyvideo.org/search?models=videos.video&q=lightning
More useful info for preparing your talk:
https://us.pycon.org/2014/speaking/cfp/
http://perl.plover.com/yak/presentation/
~~~end pt01/02
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