On Saturday, August 25, 2001, at 11:51 PM, dmolnar wrote:
>
>
> On Sat, 25 Aug 2001, Tim May wrote:
>
>> (What might? Putting several of the main architects of competing
>> systems
>> like Freedom, Mojo, Morpheus, Mixmaster, etc. together in a room with
>> plenty of blackboards, a lot of beer, and some folks like Lucky, Wei
>> Dai, Hal Finney, and others to hash out some of the tough issues and
>> maybe catalyze some breakthroughs. Looking at the topics, I see the
>> likely paper contributors will be academics and corporate
>> ladder-climbers.)
>
> That's what targeted publicity is for -- making sure the right people
> see
> the message and show up (and maybe publish something). While I didn't
> make
> it to the 2001 Berkeley workshop, I know that some of the Freenet
> developers were there. ZKS was well-represented. I think the Mojo people
> were there, though I could be wrong. That's a start.
No, you're missing the point. The idea is not to just get _bodies_
paying their $600 or $1000 or whatever. That's just business as usual,
with suits with Powerpoint on their laptops displaying pretty charts.
When I said get the main architects together in a room, with lots of
beer, I meant that literally. I didn't mean a presentation at the
Airport Hilton or wherever. I meant an intense brain-storming session.
The beer to lubricate the "bullshits!" and "here's a better way"s.
Instead, you're just describing a "that's a start" scenario which is
actually just a snooze-a-thon.
>
> Then once everyone's there, the rest is a matter of (non)scheduling and
> beer ordering. (well, and Kahlua maybe).
>
> So what I should do now, I guess, is contact the Morpheus team and
> convince them to come. maybe submit something if they feel like it.
Little point in them just presenting a set of dry slides on what
Morpheus is intended to do, blah blah blah.
This is what is missing from so many conferences: pizazz! Controversy,
yelling, bullshit claims being denounced. (I'm not saying the Morpheus
or Freenet or Mojo people are making bullshit claims, but it's clear
that _some_ of the P2P/crypto players JUST DON'T GET IT.)
Rooms filled with comped (and bored) journalists, suits giving summaries
of product plans, spooks from Washington outlining policy initiatives.
Fuck that noise.
--Tim May
