So it turns out, Issue #4: The San Francisco edition
Recent rambles on the intersection of technology and society
Dear friends,
So here are some things I’ve been thinking about recently:
Apparently, this whole information security thing is a big industry, particularly in San Francisco
This week, I spent some time at RSA in San Francisco one of the largest security industry conferences in the world. RSA is fundamentally weird for someone like me who tends to go to hacker conferences like DEFCON or BSides, not “security industry conferences.” A brief comparison chart:
Hair—
DEFCON: Nonstandard hair is standard. Dyed hair is common. On-site barbers will give you a mohawk if you donate to charity, no waiting is required!
RSA: Largely normal colors, often grey, until Friday morning where all the dyed-hair folks emerged from, I assume, sales meetings.
Content—
DEFCON: “As we all know, you can flibbertigibberate flux capacitors to send arbitrary email traffic to the Shadow Realm, so long as you’re using a phone built between 2013 and 2017 by Samsung. We extend this work to create a small stable wormhole between two rotating rings in a non-relativistic universe for up to 38 minutes at a time.”
RSA: Flips wildly and suddenly between “Please view this discredited Businessweek article as an advertisement for our product” and “We’re actually OG world experts on this topic, but somehow half the seats are empty.”
Approach to privacy—
DEFCON: “You can only buy badges with $300 in cash (Luckily, we hold our convention in the “We can accurately count cash VERY quickly’ capital of the world, Las Vegas). The badges won’t have your name on them and people who cheerily describe themselves as “Goons” will forcibly eject you if you take photos of participants without their consent.”
RSA: “Your badge has your name on it, and cost infinity dollars! And has NFC chip so vendors can scan it to get all your personal details for future marketing! Please take photos of folks attending the talk ‘How I, Specifically, Was Nearly Murdered by White Supremacists After They Found My Address,’ wildly and indiscriminately!”
But in both, some common themes emerge. Specifically, there’s a recognition that somehow over the past few years, we rebuilt our economy around assuming that users won’t choose “password1” for their password. But while there’s a lot we don’t know, I think it’s worth noting that things have gotten better. For example, if you told most people in 1995 that you make the majority of your purchases online — with your credit card! — they would have assumed that you were crazy. Here’s hoping it keeps on getting better.
Sichuan cooking continues to be delicious
While at RSA, I had dinner with a dear friend at one of her favorite Chinese restaurants in SF. I was really excited by the menu because it was partly Szechuan (aka Sichuan, your transliteration mileage may vary). And it turned out my friend had never, in fact, tried Szechuan food. The cornerstone of Szechuan is really, really freaking good spices. Specifically, ma la spice, which tastes sort of hot-spicy, but has a numbing tingly feeling to it (this is delicious, not scary. I promise). And she loved it!
If you’re in DC, may I strongly recommend Great Wall Szechuan — unambiguously the best restaurant of its cuisine I’ve ever eaten at in America. (Yes, better than NYC or LA Szechuan restaurants, though I do recommend Chengdu Taste in LA.)
Many Asian cuisine restaurants are struggling as people let their fears of coronavirus dictate their culinary decisions, unfortunately, but there is a silver lining:
So now’s a great time to try their food with less of a wait in line than ever, and you’ll support one of the few Asian food traditions that people still haven’t caught on to!
The Guy Who Wrote “World War Z” reminds you that his book IS fiction
Please do prepare — specifically, this is a great guide by Zeynep Tufecki.
Given that the dominant model that the world has seen so far is “make people shelter in place for weeks without going outside,” you should be prepared for the requirement to do the same. But please don’t think that means it’s gonna go all Mad Max. And watch out for each other.
Other news:
Oakland apparently has a lake in the middle of it?
Enjoy Leap Year Shabbat today!
Next time, on Dave Kasten:
Will watching Teenage Ninja Mutant Turtles 2 cause you to ask: “Why don’t ninjas say ‘Ninjas, appear!’ when they appear, but say ‘Ninjas, vanish!’ when they disappear in smoke?”
Is Magic the Gathering a metaphor for continuous process improvement in decentralized communities?
Will I ever write about the things I listed last time?
Disclosures:
Views are my own and do not represent those of current or former clients, employers, friends, or my cat.
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