After a few days in the lab, I am finally catching up with things. Over all, I am happy with the way this HOPE turned out and am considering going to the Next HOPE, maybe to present something. At least one reader enjoyed it too! I didn’t take too many pictures, so here is a whole flickr pool from the meeting. The above image is from sushimako. I will summarize my experience in a typical Clint Eastwood style.

The Good:

  • A few interesting talks regarding hardware modification. Audience seemed pleased and interested.
  • An interesting demonstration by Ladyada regarding how to hook up a used pay-phone to a skype box. These phones seem to be dirt cheap so I am already thinking of a way to wire one up as a bluetooth headset.
  • Round the clock soldering training. The “hacker village” people really outdid themselves and provided ample building tools and helped attendees put together the circuit kits they bought.
  • Club-Mate, something like a caffeinated version of ginger-ale.
  • Hackerspaces in Philadelphia and Washington D.C. (among others) that I will try to visit.
  • A comfortable area with to relax in. This featured hammocks and a large display showing some random videos (more on that below).

The Bad:

  • Some single presenters were not prepared to give an hour long presentation and would either repeat themselves or end way early.
  • Most of the software security talks were low on content and used overly contrived examples. One penetration testing example had the user obtain /etc/passwd and then use a password cracker, I hope it was using a wordlist and not brute force.

The Ugly:

  • The overall smell of the attendees forced the organizers to give away deodorant soap bars by the box load.
  • A short documentary was played in the rest area depicting an individual who had eight realdolls (wikipedia entry). That is about 50,000USD spent on latex “companions”. At a point in the video, he decided to introduce his dolls to his girlfriend, who tried to deal with them at first, but then gave up and ended the relationship.

 
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