Project:Bitcoin/Bitcoin Weekend 2011
See also: Bitcoin Workshop 2011-09-25
About
A meetup for Bitcoin contributors, enthusiasts, and everyone curious about Bitcoin. We will discuss the code, the infrastructure, the mechanisms of currency systems, and many other things. A great chance to bring new people together.
The event is scheduled for Saturday, 24 Sept 2011 and will start around 2pm. Location:
Day 0 schedule
(This is a draft and will change a lot.)
- 14:00 Keynote by Amir Taaki (10 mins)
- 14:15 Bitcoin song (10 mins)
- 14:30 Break (15 mins)
- 14:50 Technical talk by Amir Taaki (15 mins)
- 15:05 Mining talk by Vladimir Marchenko (15 mins)
- Getting started with bitcoin mining
- Common mining rig designs
- Common software
- Using bitcoin mining pools (do's and dont's)
- Bitcoin mining axioms.
- 15:30 Geek discussion (30 mins)
- 15:45 Break (15 mins)
- 16:05 Economics talk by Gary Mulder (15 mins)
- What is money?
- Bitcoin inflation vs. government fiat inflation.
- Investing in bitcoins.
- Future of bitcoins.
- 16:20 Legal talk by Jason Chia (15 mins)
- 16:40 Roundtable with speakers and audience (30 mins)
- 17:00 End (5 mins)
Day 1 schedule
- 14:00 Security talk by Vladimir Marchenko (30 mins)
- Security is not a state, it is a process.
- How to do quick and simple risk assessment
- How to safeguard your bitcoin wallet
- How to safely operate bitcoin mining machines.
- 14:30 Practical bitcoin workshop by 'TBC (1 hour)
- 15:30 Break (30 mins)
- 16:00 Developer workshop - use bitcoin on a simple PHP website by Amir Taaki (2 hours)
Speakers
Vladimir Marchenko
Vladimir Marchenko, is a seasoned IT professional who started decades ago and since than run a FIDO node in Russia in early 90's; worked for Russian Ministry of Defence, worked for companies such as Coca-Cola, Pipex, Ebuyer, founded and run a number of private companies in UK. He is known as an author of websites filedonkey and figator (p2p). Vladimir is currently running a private supercomputer, which is one of the largest private bitcoin mining operations in UK and probably in the World.
Amir Taaki
Another lover of all things free. Known by nickname genjix.
Jason Chia
To be completed after: Jason Chia is a barrister specialising in the bitcoin legal situation. He has been closely following the law around bitcoin during the last few months.
Gary Mulder
Gary first encountered the Internet in 1992 and has bounced around the world and the IT industry for nearly 20 years. Realising that there was more money to be made in investing than being a wage slave, he decided to learn as much as he could about economics. Bitcoins are both a pure artifact of the Internet and a very interesting financial experiment with many novel applications.
Contributions
(This is a draft and will change a lot.)
Proposed
Suggestions for talks and other contributions, along with people who could run it:
- ...
Confirmed
These contributions have been confirmed, and the contributor can make the schedule:
- ...
Invitations
Groups we should invite:
- ...
Email Draft
This is what I've been sending out to prospective Bitcoin economists -- Martind 12:55, 6 September 2011 (UTC)
- I just started talking to Amir Taaki ("genjix"), a Bitcoin contributor and one of the founders of the Bitcoin Consultancy, about giving a talk at the London Hackspace. He is a coder and has been working on and with Bitcoin for quite a while; he knows the community and the software system well, has helped build a few Bitcoin exchanges and is running one himself; his talk will probably be quite technical. He's kind of an open source nomad too.
- I thought for the event it would be interesting to pair him with an economist who knows Bitcoin well and can talk about currency systems to an informed and critical crowd of mostly non-economists. We're not necessarily looking for someone prolific; we're looking for someone who can understand, explain and critique these systems. Put them in a wider context.
- Where would I find such a person? Who else could I ask? Any pointers appreciated.
- The London Hackspace is run as a non-profit, we don't have a budget to pay people for talks, and attendance will be in the low dozens rather than hundreds; but we draw a passionate crowd of specialists and hackers of all kinds of interesting backgrounds. Last week we had an event with people from Pachube and the Nanode project and had people travelling from as far as Belgium to attend… this one drew a brilliant crowd.
- I.e., someone young and/or naturally inquisitive is going to enjoy this; someone who's mostly interested in building a high profile probably won't get much out of it.
- The talk would be in the near future, probably late Sept or early Oct. We'll try to record it and will make the video public.
