Re: [diybio] Re: a "biohacking village" at DEF CON
Nathan McCorkle
all the zillion local diybio lists, don't check them all often enough
though, apparently)
I'll be at DEFCON too, DNA extractions would be super cheap and easy,
cheap enough that we wouldn't need to charge (though I'd be up for a
donation basket).
Even if we don't get together for a booth, we should all connect for
food and/or drinks... or hanging out otherwise (during talks? I don't
know how quiet/lively this is, as its my first time).
On Tue, Jun 17, 2014 at 11:32 AM, Frazier Cunningham
<fra...@cal.berkeley.edu> wrote:
> Yes, I agree. So far, I am proposing a DryLab with an emphasis on
> computation biology, since that is safest/easiest and more
> importantly, most practical.
>
> Is anyone here doing some cool bioinformatics stuff, simulations,
> whatever, that they want to demo ...? You can use the projector or
> setup a workstation running R, Matlab, Python, whatever you're working
> in... at least that way computer hackers and understand bio hackers
> better, thru our common languages, including english to explain to
> people how this stuff works and why it is so cool ;)
>
> Mostly though I am guessing it will be one day or presentations plus 2
> to 4 tables for a dry/computational lab.
>
> -Frazier
>
> On Tue, Jun 17, 2014 at 10:28 AM, ruphos <apokr...@gmail.com> wrote:
>> This was always the major blocking point for me when I've thought about
>> getting a bio area going at DC. Some people may definitely be interested,
>> but just to do a basic transformation would take most of the con under the
>> best circumstances. The standard quick and easy DNA extraction from a
>> strawberry or such is neat in showing you that science can be done in a home
>> setting, but has little practical application. Knowledge dissemination is
>> great, but real world application is an important part of everything else
>> going on there.
>>
>>
>> On Tue, Jun 17, 2014 at 10:19 AM, Frazier Cunningham
>> <fra...@cal.berkeley.edu> wrote:
>>>
>>> Hey Everyone,
>>>
>>> I am still waiting on more info. Please stand-by until I find out if
>>> this event will be this year or next year at DefCon 23. In the
>>> meantime, anyone that would like to help volunteer... please send
>>> emails to the list with ideas for demos/experiments we can do and/or
>>> what what done at SCALE. Basically, right now I am feeling that I am
>>> more likely to be able to show things on a projector screen and have a
>>> speaker track versus desktop/lab style experiments. Any and all ideas
>>> would be great, since ya, I can't think of what can be made portable
>>> enough and be safe enough to do in a hotel convention space (even
>>> though, yes, it is las vegas... heh)
>>>
>>> Thanks for being patient for a few more days until I find out if this
>>> can happen this year or if we would have an entire extra year to
>>> prepare, both of which could be really awesome.
>>>
>>> - Frazier
>>>
>>> On Sun, Jun 15, 2014 at 8:14 AM, Frazier Cunningham
>>> <fra...@cal.berkeley.edu> wrote:
>>> > Hello everyone,
>>> >
>>> > My name is Frazier, and I've only been to one LA-biohackers meeting.
>>> > This is partly because I live in Orange County, but mostly because I
>>> > haven't done much research since leaving academia a couple years ago.
>>> > Nonetheless, I've met Cory and I thought the space in downtown LA
>>> > had/has lots of potential, and I haven't been there in about a year,
>>> > so I'd love to stop by again sometime soon...
>>> >
>>> > That said, I'd like to raise a topic and pose a question to anyone
>>> > reading here. As you may no, biohacker spaces are somewhat like hacker
>>> > spaces, and in fact LA-biohackers used to be housed at Null Space
>>> > Labs, the primary Los Angeles hacker space. Now, some of you may have
>>> > heard of DEF CON, the world's largest hacker convention in Las Vegas
>>> > every summer. This year is the 22nd year and it is August 7th thru
>>> > 10th this year. Now I can't promise anything yet, but I am in
>>> > (somewhat last minute) talks to do a "biohacking village" along with
>>> > their hardware hacking and lockpicking villages. The "village" concept
>>> > is basically a corner of a big room in DefCon where you can do
>>> > whatever you want... so, imagine like your booth at SCALE (which I
>>> > unfortunately missed), but with perhaps a larger budget and probably a
>>> > lot more interested people. Most hackers I know are both fascinated
>>> > and terrified by biohacking, and as we know there are many
>>> > interpretations of the word. For this, I'm leaving a broad definition,
>>> > the one used on Wikipedia, "Biohacking is the practice of engaging
>>> > biology with the hacker ethic."
>>> >
>>> > So, lets have a "show of hands" moment. Who could free up a Thursday
>>> > thru Sunday off their schedule so they can go to the world's largest
>>> > hacker conference in the world and be the first official
>>> > representatives of the biohacker movement at DEF CON. One of the
>>> > conference organizers and long-time friend of mine has asked for a
>>> > biohacker village, and I thought the LA-biohackers group would be a
>>> > good fit to help me make this a reality, as LA Is not too far from
>>> > Vegas, and as some of you may know Null Space Labs (although they
>>> > recently moved away from downtown)
>>> >
>>> > I won't get into too many specifics, but we would be doing tech demos,
>>> > tech worshops, we would need to borrow some equipment for this, we
>>> > would have a few people give presentations on topics from
>>> > health-hacking like life extension and "parasite therapy" or even
>>> > simply microbial "probiotics", a field in which I have done much
>>> > interest, and then we would have talks more about biohacking spaces
>>> > and DIY bio, how a lab is kindof like a fancy kitchen, and maybe
>>> > someone can talk about the promise of bioinformatics, systems biology,
>>> > synthetic biology, and how hackers may find themselves becoming
>>> > biohackers for fun/profit/survival over the next few generations...
>>> >
>>> > Any thoughts? Who would be interested to go to DEF CON? I can probably
>>> > get one free froom for 2-4 people from LA-biohackers to run the
>>> > booth/village area, which is larger than just a booth. We need 2
>>> > people plus myself at least, ideally 3-4 people. The village itself is
>>> > a one day commitment, then the rest of the time you get to wander the
>>> > conference (for free?!?!!) and see lots of cool stuff....
>>> >
>>> > so, whose with me? :D
>>> >
>>> > -Frazier
>>>
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>>
>>
>>
>>
>> --
>> "And if ye cannot be saints of knowledge, then be at least its warriors."
>> -- Friedrich Nietzsche
>>
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>
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-Nathan
Meredith L. Patterson
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ruphos
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Nathan McCorkle
<fra...@cal.berkeley.edu> wrote:
> Hello everyone,
>
> Nathan, it isn't exactly the splintered internet community that is entirely
> to fault for this. I was deliberate to only send out this announcement about
> the DEF CON Bio Hacker Village
So you didn't want to include everyone/anyone interested?
Nathan McCorkle
We can still get together and tell people who are interested we'll
extract the strawberries at Denny's or hotel buffet :P I wonder if
maraschino cherries would 'pull a snot'...
On Mon, Jul 7, 2014 at 9:06 PM, Frazier Cunningham
<fra...@cal.berkeley.edu> wrote:
> I just am not a member of the DIYbio mailing list... so I cannot post to it
> currently. Sorry for the inconvenience. Also, since there is no space this
> year, there is about 13 months to plan and execute a good defcon biohacking
> village for 2015, which is all they can accommodate. I didn't mean to keep
> the discussion limited for any bad reason, it is just that I was waiting for
> a green light from the defcon senior staff, which I got recently. Please
> don't interpret my not contacting everyone as a bad thing, and I didn't want
> to look like an idiot in case def con said no. I hope you understand.
> Thanks.
>
> -Frazier
Koeng
Nathan McCorkle
Cool! Maybe a good computer hook-in could be the Backyard Brains robo-roach (or whatever it's called). Or the project that was controlling microbes with electrical/light stimulus. I also can't remember the specifics of that project, but it should be easy to find that info if i search for a minute or two.
Awesome. Unfortunately I will not be there due to illness, but there should be a handful of people including a few DefCon staff & of course there should be some sort of meeting as there seems to be a good amount of interest.
For anyone else who cannot make it, you can expect a biohacking mailing list to go up on DefCon biohacking village.org, just make sure I have your email & I will make sure to add you to the list.
Also please keep in mind that not everyone at the meeting will be a biologist or engineer, although clearly engineering methodology is core to constructive unconventional use of biotech. Also, not everyone is interested in Synthetic Biology, even though I find it to be compelling enough to include in the biohacking conversation. Right now the idea is maybe it can be a two day event, if there is enough space, where one day is about biohacking humans (from cyborgs & singularly to simple life hacking type stuff or diet, and the other day is about hacking anything else in nature. It seems there is both an interest in practical (diet, health, bodybuilding even, haha) & future/science/policy stuff (long view topics including ethics & biosecurity) when I've asked some of the "DefCon regulars" and staff who know little about biology, and I've had an alarmingly high range of responses. It is good that biohacking is a diverse concept with lots of incarnations, but it is discouraging in the sense there may not be enough common ground for any one topic. So... Right now my idea & response to this notion is to be as all-inclusive as possible, however I've had a few "how is that biohacking?" comments when pitching ideas for talks. We can't and don't want to change the DefCon community, the idea is to tap into the demographic & see if we can find common ground.
FYI, Russ, a DefCon Sr. Goon, will hopefully attend the meeting & I plan to have a friend show up on my behalf. If you meet him, please thank him for bringing up the idea over twitter, after which was the first time I ever considered the idea. Since I have a few friends that are both software hackers/coders & biologists who would be going to DefCon each year anyway, I decided to reply and put together an early proposal. Nothing is for sure yet, but if the space can be found and the community wants it, this DefCon biohacking village idea is likely to materialize. I have no idea if DT is showing up, but I can tell you that every senior staff I've talked to is excited. My initial idea was for an only synthetic biology tech village for a day, but that seemed limiting and wouldn't include the human-computer interface research people are very excited about. A two or three day village would increase the odds of having more volunteers, more equipment, more time for speakers of all relevant topics... a one day event would be an easy start.
So for anyone at DefCon, I hope you are having loads of fun & please make *your* voice heard at the meeting. I might be conferenced in by a friend who will be there as a communication proxy for me.
Thanks for your interest to anyone reading this!
-Frazier (nulltone)On Jun 15, 2014 7:47 PM, "Asher Silberman" <ashe...@gmail.com> wrote:I'll be at defcon too if you need help :)
On Jun 15, 2014 8:14 AM, "Frazier Cunningham" <fra...@cal.berkeley.edu> wrote:
Hello everyone,
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Katherine Lam
Nathan McCorkle
Sure!
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