Yes, PN7 has come to a close and I am still recovering. There was so much that happened at the con that I couldn’t even begin to record even part of it so I’ll just do a quick summary and move on. I would like to start by thanking Dolemite for organizing the con and putting up with all of the attendee’s bullshit. Skydog also deserves recognition for being the lead security monger for a hotel full of drunk geeks. Props to you both.

So what happened this weekend? In my mind the most important thing that happened was peer bonding. Of course this won’t be the popular opinion that most of the “kiddies” at the con will hold, but I deem them “kiddies” for a reason. This weekend I found myself in the company of many of the most technologically intelligent people I have ever known. In no particular order, I’d like to briefly say a word about each of them. Lets start with Abaddon aka Mike. Mike know’s so much about wireless connections and software its ludicrous. We are talking about the guy who wrote AirJack and impressed the shit out of everyone at blackhat. Then there was Elonka. Elonka is probably the closest thing you will ever meet to a natural code breaker. She gave an amazing talk and was cool to hang out with. She has to be pretty cool she cracks code with freaking MS Word for the love of god! Next was Acidus. This kid is hella cool. He is known by many as one of the kids that got sued by blackboard for trying to make the system better. I’m really happy that I got to hang out with him more this weekend as he is a fellow hardware enthusiast. Then there is nanochick aka Marie. Marie is a really awesome girl who is dating Abaddon. She is a graduate student at Emory in the field of nanotechnology and is, like all the others mentioned above, smarter than you (and I) are. The next person that comes to mind is Marie’s brother Decius. I can’t say that I know too much about Decius other than that he started memestreams.net and is well respected by just about everyone I talk to. Lastly but not least, is Inignoct aka Kerry. Kerry is a former Vanderbilt student and fellow ex-McGillite. He has a sharp wit and is always a blast to hang out with. These are just a few of the many, many people that I had the chance to hang out with. I look forward to meeting up with them all next year and at Interz0ne in Atlanta.

As for the events of Phreaknic, drunken coding never got off the ground because everyone was too drunk to compete. I don’t feel bad about that because everyone was having such a good time that no one wanted to take a break to try to code. The “Why you suck” panel went off without a hitch thanks to Apple Computers and iMovie. Abaddon, Noxfu (aka Timball 2.0) and I mixed 2 days worth of video and photos down to a presentation in 2 hours. Let me say this, everyone agreed that it would not have been even remotely possible if it weren’t for how badass Apple hardware and software is. Abaddon couldn’t even get a program to do a raw transfer to work on windows. To get it to work on my powerbook we just plugged it in. And it worked. None of us could believe it, but it just worked. I know that I have become an Apple zealot recently, but this kind of shit that makes me really believe in Apple.

That’s all I have to say about this weekend for the moment. There are many pictures of the con up at http://www.phreaknic.info/ as well as in my gallery in the assorted parties section.

Cheers,

Baudburn