I’m at Chaos Communication Congress this weekend, and it’s like being surrounded by the brightest, most creative, and being honest, nerdiest crowd imaginable. And that’s super invigorating.
But because of the pandemic, this is the first in-person conference in four years, and it’s been a rather unsettling time in-between. There are tons of unknowns and issues confronting us all, geeks or otherwise, at the moment. I know some people who have fallen prey to this general malaise, and become more or less cynical.
Especially in this context, watching a talk about an absolutely bravado hack, or falling into a conversation that sparks new ideas, can be inspiring in just the right way to pull one out of the slump. Every talk is naturally a success story — of course they are, otherwise they wouldn’t be up there presenting.
But all of the smaller interactions, the hey-why-didn’t-I-think-of-that moments or the people helping each other out with just the right trick, that give me the most hope. That’s because they are all around, and I’m sure that what I’m seeing is just the tip of the iceberg. So stick together, nerds, share your work, and don’t give up!
There seems to be an absolute ton of negativity rocking about atm, probably slightly guilty of this myself from time to time but I am keeping it in check, try not to give in to your internal negatron, conversations and inspiration seem to go a lot better if you’re bringing positivity to the situation.
The negativity has a legitimate cause. However this is not a legitimate cause for despair. Time and willpower are the most valuable resources on Earth.
Been checking out the videos from 37c3, the Polish train DRM presentation and the Game Boy video hack presentation are the biggest highlights at the moment. Now watching the demoscene presentation, very good too. And the one about Belarus.
Stick tight! I’m writing up as much as I can on the train ride home.
When the translation is done, the DIY submarine one is a _killer_!
Will check that out when it’s translated, thanks for the heads up!
Sad it was not recorded for others to see, it was probably the most insane talk.
Of course there is a documentary, hope you will link to it in your article!
It also puts in stark contrast how greedy oceangate people were, that a bunch of enthusiasts could build a safer, better designed sub in a (admitedly huge and well equiped) garage.
Is this what you mean: https://media.ccc.de/v/37c3-11828-how_to_build_a_submarine_and_survive ?
“the DIY submarine one is a _killer_!”
Is it made out of carbon fiber?
B^)
“I know some people who have fallen prey to this general malaise, and become more or less cynical.”
Born optimists, die pessimists. Erosion is for more than just rocks.
i am of the general opinion that the chase is better than the catch. nothing ruins a project faster than its completion. what i do is nothing more than a mad obsession, and i don’t need to share that with other lunatics on similar trajectories. besides they got their own issues to sort out.
haha
Username checks out.
A pessimist is an optimist scorned.
An optimist is a pessimist with a couple of wins under his belt.
Doesn’t sound like a pessimist to me… a TRUE pessimist just keeps looking for the “other shoe” to drop, and derives little or no joy from the occasional win, since it is bound to be balanced out shortly by another setback.
(writing as an Admitted Pessimist and Dedicated Cynic)
A former supervisor once told me that was better to be a pessimist,
because if things actually work out, you’re pleasantly surprised, and if they don’t – you were right!
Yep, over optimism tends to proceed failure. Probably get a load more wins being reasonably pessimistic. Aim for 80% success rate to keep moral up.
Set low expectations and you will always exceed expectations. Had worked for me so far.
Yes! Preach it, Bulldog!
We’ll, yes, apart from the people who died.
How often do we see some neckbeard bristle with righteous indignation and reduce other’s work with a furore and passion often unrivaled with some of the most heinous insults and colourful language all because of perceived mistakes or difference of opinion? Even in somewhere where the hobbyist is at the centre of the focus of the blog like this website, the comments section can be a pile of steaming dog shit. Why? Because for others it’s so much easier to tear down than it is to build and to grow. I was very active in the community once upon a time, published in 2600, BL411, stuff under my own name in various publications. Now, I lack the bandwidth mentally to see naves and fools rolling in shit tearing things down, rather than helping to flourish and grow.
It’s good to see actual discourse happening in person, it gives me hope for the future.
Are you the Merlin that was linked to in another post? If so, I have an Engineer’s Thumb waiting for soldering up on my workbench, can’t wait to have it done and ready!
Nope, not me.
Please forgive me for my lack of paragraphs on this, I have no excuse other than being blinkered by my own righteous indignation.
It was good to be back after 4 years, last memories from Leipzig in 2019.
But next year i will make my own 38C3 calendar app/website, listing lightning talks, self organized sessions and official talks in parallel.
Oh!
Be sure to include Thuderbolt talks too!
B^)
As someone who is still masking in 2024, on doctor’s orders… Less of this, please.
On the plus side, I’ve enjoyed discovering outdoors hacker events, and not ever getting the common cold rocks.
Florida: 7.574.590 Covid cases, 86.850 deaths, 1,1465 percent of infected patients died.
https://coronavirus.jhu.edu/region/us/florida
Sweden: 2.699.339 Covid cases, 23.777 deaths, 0,8808 percent of infected patients died.
https://coronavirus.jhu.edu/region/sweden
Germany: 38.249.060 Covid cases, 168.935 deaths, 0,4416 percent of infected patients died.
https://coronavirus.jhu.edu/region/germany
It looks to me like it was better to be in a country where the government “over reacted.”
You were three times more likely to die of Covid in Florida than in Germany, and you were twice as likely to die in Sweden than in Germany.
and SURELY not a single person who died of *other* causes, who just _happened_ to have covid, weren’t counted in those “covid deaths.” No way that would ever happen.