Tidbits

I was flipping through the New York Times (yes, an actual newspaper) and I found an article about a computer hacker's convention. I had always thought that, while bright and creative, hackers were, you know, criminals. So I was surprised that they even had not one, but two conventions, called Black Hat and Defcon, in Las Vegas. I was joking with my daughter, saying, I wonder what kinds of panels they have at hacker conventions? It turns out, they have panels like "Meet The Federal Agent."

In fact, federal agents are openly at the convention, in part to monitor their activities, but mostly to hire them.

Later in the article, they talk about competitions. Some are actually hacking contests like in The Social Network, the others are what they call "tinkering." Lockpicking, creating beer cooling machines, and, my personal favorite, competing to tamper with tamper-resistant packaging.

I also saw and article about a new kind of day camp- social skills camp. Doesn't that sound like fun? It's like when I ask my kid what she did on her camp trip she rolls her eyes and mumbles under her breath, "teambuilding."