Jeez I’ve aged since the last time I was on a stage
Conversation
Okay, calling it a night. Was great to catch up with my mathematician friend from UMich days , who is one of the few ambidextrous ML+crypto people I know (who can also geek out over relativity, time etc). Did not expect we’d meet in Bogota 🤔
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Did a bunch of meetings today and didn’t go to any talks or sessions after mine, but tomorrow, plan is to do take in a few. Should be more relaxed now my part is done (advantage of speaking early in an event is a) you get to relax after and b) a lot of people now recognize you)
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Reflections on Day 1: This is one of the hardest-to-read crowds I’ve been in, in a good way. Unlike trad conferences, I can’t quickly sort and cluster the attendees into a handful of obvious “types.” This is more a primordial social soup than a mature social milieu with types.
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But I’ve had enough primordial social soup for the day so it’s room service again. I’m in a funny situation here… I’m new to the scene, but enough people know me that I probably *could* pack my calendar, but I’m not on any critical path here, so there’s nothing I *must* do
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There’s also a ton of things to go to here even if you know nobody and don’t want to make the effort. Lots of side events with free food. The general vibe here is social discovery in teams. Maybe 10% true isolates, 40% people who’ve come with 1-2 team members, 40% deep scene.
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It would be fascinating to map the social graph of devcon. I think it would be a small-world graph, but with some small worlds (like the EF team running it) that are first among equals. Very appropriate for a milieu associated with a decentralized technology.
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I did randomly drop into a couple of talks for like 10 min each today beyond the opening general audience talks, and damn the difficulty scales really fast. Every talk seems deep in the technical weeds of some esoteric topic silo that’s 80% different from the next one.
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Beyond basic protocol level, this is not a tech “stack” in the traditional sense, and I suspect people from one small world will at best understand the innards of 1-2 adjacent ones. 3 hops away from your small world/well, it’s basically alien talk beyond basic shared elements.
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Actually what it reminds me of is math, in terms of field structure. Except for a few people like Grothendieck who supposedly built mansions with vast swathes of math, most mathematicians can’t understand anything the mathematician in the next room does.
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Above the basic “protocol” of say sophomore college STEM math (say calculus, stats, perhaps a bit of topology, real/complex analysis), it’s a Babel situation
Replying to
Won’t tweet the obscenely large sandwich I had for dinner. Ordered fries too not realizing it came with chips. To my credit I only ate half. But I will share picture of this 75% chocolate bar that I’m eating a bit off for dessert. Came with hotel room. Speaker perk I’m guessing?
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Verdict: good chocolate. If you’ve never been an invited speaker at a nicer conference, be aware that there’s often a nice goodie bag waiting at the hotel. Conference I spoke at a few times in Chicago came with a nice cab of popcorn, jellybeans etc.
Tomorrow I must swag hunt.
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gn wagmi etc
If you’re around, come to the meetup tomorrow if you can (linked up thread), or just say hello if you see me.
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Day 2, gm
What hath the day in store today? Well, for starters, getting breakfast with in a bit, so that should be fun.
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After fun breakfast chat, now catching back half of this panel on “notable security incidents since devcon V”
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I think this the first time seeing in the flesh after years of vaguely crossing paths online.
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Now talking flash loan attacks. Panelist is helpfully ELI5ing it before getting into it.
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Panelist arguing that flash attacks are more in MEV bucket (miner extractable value) than hacks/security exploits. So software working as intended rather than bugs. Just in very inefficient markets.
Though I’d argue algorithmic stablecoins are theoretically suspect too
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Third time I’m hearing this analogy between crypto dev and more safety-first tech fields like aerospace and nuclear. I bring it up whenever I can to exploit my aerospace cred 😎
This field needs an introduction to Perrow’s normal accidents theories
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Interesting distinction: DeFi is new classes of attacks, NFTs/consumer retail is simple, old attacks from 10y ago deployed against new classes of users. Commoditization curve of attacks?
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Next: Working Towards a Plural Public via Common Knowledge and Designated Verifier Proofs by
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This is at my level. Hybrid tech/social level. He wants to make digital shibboleth objects.
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Nice connection between Byzantine generals and common knowledge here
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This is a very good talk. Speaker Shrey Jain is Microsoft. In general quality of talks here has been very good.
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Apparently the reality.eth module for gnosis safes are essentially superuser bots that can be easily exploited if misconfigured
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Good stuff here. He won a bug bounty by white-hat stealing it from a honeypot safe set up by gnosis and then helping others defend.
Takeaway: Configuration audits should be a thing
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“Everything from traditional IT practices is also needed in compostable governance stacks”
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* composable 😆
Though why not compostable architect too? 🤔🤔
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Next adventure. Standing in line for lunch. Opens in 20min but line is already like 50 people long. Yesterday pulled monarchial above-the-law privileges to cut to front of big line towards end to get us lunch. Today I shall get my lunch the democratic way.
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The more you go to conferences the more you’re willing to shamelessly put creature comforts — food, drink, bathrooms, breaks, naps, sneak outs, introvert retreats, wifi… above both water-cooler networking and attending sessions.
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Vegetarian queue stalked waiting for new batch. I’m at front of it. Queue is not well marked so a lot of carnivores standing in wrong stalled line. Also lots of cutting in line and unauthorized forks and merges that would never be tolerated in my centralized monarchy 😤
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Worth the wait 😇
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I’ve noticed Latino cultures have thoughtful design intentions (queues, bathrooms, signage) but sloppy execution in the design of everyday things. Anglo cultures are the opposite: sloppy design, thoughtfully executed. East Asia is thoughtful on both, South Asia is sloppy on both.
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Considering doing exactly this. Next thing I’m planning to go to is 3:30
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Replying to @vgr
moving from "I'll attend every talk and network all day!" to "i feel like a nap at the hotel. lets do that" is the mark of a veteran
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Collected the minimum viable attendee swag on way back to hotel for nap time. Coffee, tote, large t-shirt in vitalik style. They were out of mediums. This is too big for me but had to take it. Maybe I’ll go to Hawaii 😆
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There seems to be tons of other booth swag available for those prepared to demonstrate Proof of Apparent Interest. I’m probably too old for that game. But maybe I’ll look to score a Proof of Genuine Interest thing or two.
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