Episode: 2890
Title: HPR2890: Penguicon 2019 Report
Source: https://hub.hackerpublicradio.org/ccdn.php?filename=/eps/hpr2890/hpr2890.mp3
Transcribed: 2025-10-24 12:48:49

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This is HBR episode 2890 entitled, Ben Wicken 2019 Report, and in part of the series, Ben Wicken
it is hosted by Auken, and in about 14 minutes long, and Karim a clean flag.
The summary is, Ben Wicken 2019 took place on May 3, 2005, 2018 in Southfield, Michigan.
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Hello, this is Auken, welcoming you to Hacker Public Radio in another exciting episode.
And here I'm going to give my report on Pengacon 2019, which happened a little over a month ago.
May 3 to May 5th, but I want to get my report in while everything is still fresh in my mind.
This is the latest in my annual recollection, and if you check you will see that I've been doing
these every year for a while now. As always I have to emphasize that this represents just my own
experience of a massive event. We have 1,466 people attending. That was the number I heard at the
closing ceremonies. Over 400 different sessions, each of which lasted at least one hour.
In fact, if you add it up, there's probably more like 500 hours of programming going on,
or maybe even more. Clearly, I could only attend a handful of these sessions.
And I had a great time, but by way of example, my friend 5150 was here, and at no time were we both
in the same session. So if you were to come, you would probably have a somewhat different experience.
So the first day of the conference Friday May 3rd, as usual, I grabbed a dinner after my work
on Friday, I was at work all day, and then went to the Weston and Southfield, Michigan,
to attend the con, and I picked up my badge. Now we've been at this hotel for six years now,
and it is a fantastic venue for us. I usually purchased my badge a year in advance at the previous
con, so I had bought this on the last day of Penguin Con 2018, and it was waiting for me when I arrived.
I made a brief tour of the makerspace, then it was off to the opening ceremonies.
This is where you get an introduction to the various guests of honor, as well as here from the
Convention Committee about what to expect over the course of the weekend. Among the guests of honor
were Saladin Ahmed, who is an award-winning author, and is now doing some writing for Marvel.
Then Mikey Mason, who is a stand-up comedian with appearances on Nerdist.com,
sci-fi, and MTV Geek News, so he's a Geek comedian. Then there's Zed Shaw, who's a programmer and
artist who teaches programming and has a series of books. Learn Python the Hardway. Learn Ruby the
Hardway. Learn JavaScript the Hardway. Kind of sensing a theme here. He's most commonly known for
creating the Mongrel web server for Ruby web applications. Then Daniel Hanson, he created a
business called Crafty Keltz to sell his jewelry that he makes, and wound up creating jewelry for
TV show The Vikings. He is also active in reenactment and taught swordplay over the weekend.
Sophia Brookner is a professor at the University of Michigan who started her career as a developer
at Google before moving into becoming a designer and looks at that intersection of design and coding.
Finally, Karen Corbiel is a maker who loves to teach. After two years as a co-host on the Ben
Heck show, she is now on YouTube as part of Element 14's The Learning Circuit.
Now one thing you might notice is that a lot of these people do more than one interesting thing.
That is not accidental, as I learned when I talked to the con chair Jessica Roland.
She was deliberately looking for these people who could tick off several different boxes,
and I think she did a great job. And if there's anyone you want to know more about,
check the show notes. I have links to information on all of these people.
Now, after the opening ceremonies, I went to an anime panel on anime fantasy romance.
Now, there was a lot of anime programming this weekend provided by people who frequently do that
around here. Paul Chemner, Star Strammell, and a Karina Spears. So I did manage to catch a few of
their things. After this panel, I went to the Ubuntu release party, which is an annual event at
Penguin Con, because Ubuntu's .04 releases are usually within a few days of Penguin Con.
Now, at one time, it was a place to pick up a CD, but no one does that any longer, so now it is
mostly a place to catch up with your friends. All the members of Sunday Morning Linux review were
there. I got to meet Jay LaCroix for the first time in person after hearing him on the podcast for a
while now. I also got to thank Tom Lawrence because his company Lawrence Technology was one of the
sponsors for Penguin Con 2019. After this, I decided to leave since it was the end of a whole week
at work, and you know, I'm getting older. I need my rest. So that was all I did for Friday.
Now, for Saturday, I went back to the Weston, had breakfast at their breakfast buffet.
The first event of my morning was Tony Beamus from Sunday Morning Linux review,
doing a presentation on DDoSes and what the average person can do about it. Now,
Tony recently changed jobs, and is working for a local company on their cloud team,
helping to mitigate DDoS attacks for their clients. So he definitely has the skills for a good
talk, and he did not disappoint. Then it was off to Truths, Half Truths, and Sweet Sweet Lies,
which was a panel discussion by Erica Collar, Doug Johnson, and Mark Haynes, about the pitfalls of
being a consultant slash contractor in the IT industry. I spent quite a few years doing that,
so I wanted to see what they had to say. Then it was off to another anime panel,
Supernatural anime, by the same group of people I mentioned previously.
Here, the emphasis was more on creepy scary types of anime.
I next went to a screening of The Ghost in the Shell, which in the program was supposed to be
the anime film from 1995, but a mix-up resulted in the showing of the Scarlett Johansson film
from 2017, which I was not really interested in, so I left. And decided this was a good time for
the hallway track. I've been going to Pengwakan for many years now, and I have a lot of friends I
see there, so a little socializing is always good. I decided to get little hands-on next.
A local makerspace from Ann Arbor, called All Hands Active, was on hand throughout the con
for people to drop in and do a little soldering. Or, as they say, on the other side of the Atlantic
soldering. I think that's how they say it. Not really British. They offered a simple,
basic, blinking LED badge for free, or you could purchase a more complex one that had a micro-controller
and displayed text. Since hardware and particularly electronics and soldering are not my strong suit,
I went with a simple one this time, but I may try to step up next year. We'll see.
Then I went to a presentation by one of our guests of honor, Sophia Brookner, called Critical
Optimism, and I thought it was absolutely fantastic. Sophia looked at how technology is
posse is powerful, but won't necessarily solve all problems. She looks for a path between the
extremes of techno-solutionalism, which is that technology will solve all of our problems,
and the opposite, which would be a Luddite rejection of technology as evil.
This was one of the better things I experienced this weekend.
A following this, I was on a panel myself, called Unconditional Basic Income,
along with Matt Arnold and Zachary Black. We had a pretty decent turnout for this and a lot
of good discussion, which continued out in the hallway. We may do something next year,
and I suggested maybe health care would be a fruitful topic to get the discussion going,
and if you listen to the stuff I do on Hacker Public Radio, you might have some sense of my
background with all of that. After that, I went to the Con Suite, grab a little bit of food,
and if you've never been to a science fiction convention, the Con Suite is a wonderful thing.
Unlike some of the tech conventions where with Ohio Linux Vest, admission is free,
but you have to fend for yourself about food. At science fiction conventions,
the admission costs money, but the food comes with it. The Con Suite is a place you can go,
and usually there's some good food there, and I did indeed find some.
To constitute my dinner, and then I came back for a panel on the Fediverse decentralized
social networking, with Michael W. Lucas, Ed Platt, Matt Arnold, Craig Maloney, and Mark Felder.
I was really interested in this one, because last year, Ed Platt did a presentation that I
thought was excellent, and I asked him if he might do something for Hacker Public Radio.
He declined as he was busy, but told me I was welcome to use any of his material,
so I am in fact working on a series for Hacker Public Radio that will probably go up in autumn of
2019, where I look at some of the alternative social media. What got me off of my butt on this was
the closing of the Google Plus, which told me it was time to look around. After this, I again was
tired after a full day at the Con, so it was time to go home and rest up for day three.
So on Sunday, May 5th, back to the hotel, another breakfast buffet, where I met up with Craig Maloney.
Craig is the leader of the Ubuntu logo that put on the release party Friday night,
and is also active in the Fediverse. So I continued our discussion from last night,
and got some additional leads and information. And as he is a good friend, I have someone I can go
to with questions, which is always helpful. After breakfast, it was time for e-learning design,
the good, the bad, and the very, very ugly, by Erica Collar and Cliff Flint. Cliff is an old friend
of mine, and when I was teaching, I actually had to do e-learning design, so I had a strong interest
in the topic. There were many lessons learned here. And then from here, it was off to a
presentation on solar panels by my friend Gibson Nichols. I had a strong interest here as well,
since my wife and I have been planning to get a recreational vehicle and become what we call
snow birds. In other words, people who go away for the winter, some place warmer. And solar
power is very useful when your mobile and don't always have utility power available.
My last panel of the day was understanding USB, why this cable works, and that one doesn't,
by Henry Marshall. This was a great technical discussion of all of the different flavors of USB,
and I think I learned a few things. After this, I had a few minutes free, so I bought my badge
for next year, as I always do. It is a little cheaper if you do this, but even if the price was
the same, I would do it just because I think it helps the con to have a little working capital as
they prepare for the next year. And then it was off to the closing ceremonies. At this point,
the guests of honor get to say a few words about their experience, and the staff gets to thank all
of their helpers, awards are given for the best room parties, and then everyone winds down.
So, I went home and collapsed in my chair because I was really tired.
I think this year's event was wonderful, and as always, slightly different from any other year.
Penguin Con has a permanent board of directors, but they pick a new con chair every year,
and that con chair really puts an individual stamp on the event. I thought Jessica did a great job
with this year's event, but then I usually think that about the people who are con chairs.
And I am now looking forward to next year. I don't know who the con chair is going to be. I don't
know if they've picked anyone yet, but it should be interesting as always. And so with that, this is
Ahoca signing off for Hacker Public Radio, and reminding you as always to support free software.
Bye-bye!
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