CarolinaCon Hacker Conference Starts Friday 3/19

The very excellent CarolinaCon starts Friday night in Raleigh. Each year the conference gathers hackers and other technology enthusiasts in one space to hear presentations on everything from copyright law to lock picking. CarolinaCon is one of the last great tech bargains out there. Low travel costs, low entry fee, fascinating speakers, entertaining attendees, and cheap booze; how can you go wrong?

This year's call for presenters was so popular the organizers added another day of talks for no extra cost! Just check out this schedule of presenters and try to tell me this isn't worth $20.

We Don't Need No Stinking Badges - Shawn Merdinger	Smart People, Stupid Emails - Margaret McDonald
Locks: Past, Picking, and Future - squ33k	Mitigating Attacks with Existing Network Infrastructure - Omar Santos
Cybercrime and the Law Enforcement Response - Thomas Holt, Professor Farnsworth	OMG, The World Has Come To An End!!! - FeloniousFish
You Spent All That Money and You Still Got Owned - Joe McCray	Physical Manifestation of Software: Microcontrollers 101 - Nick Fury
Something Smells Phishy: The Evolution of Social Engineering - Chris Silvers and Dawn Perry	Protecting Systems through Log Management and System Integrity - David Burt
It's Not A Vulnerability, It's A Feature - Deral Heiland	Why Linux is Bad for Business - wxs
The Search for the Ultimate Handcuff Key - TOOOL	Hacking with the iPhone - snide
The Art of Software Destruction - Joshua Morin and Terron Williams	Metasploit - Ryan Linn
How the Droid Was Rooted - Michael Goffin

Reminder - Make:RDU Meeting is Saturday

Make:RDU is an enthusiasts group of makers, hackers, tinkerers, and creatives that gathers every month at TechShop Durham.  Come out and discuss your ongoing project, past exploits, and share your lore.

A healthy portion of the planning committee for the Maker Faire:NC will be there discussing the upcoming event.  If you'd like to offer your input or just get a preview of the plan, come on out!

A special thanks to TechShop Durham for providing the meeting space for these sessions!

When: 2:00PM, Saturday 11/21/2009

Where: TechShop Durham - 4022 Stirrup Creek Drive #315 - (919) 806-5432

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Durham, NC Named #6 Best Performing City

The Triangle Business Journal has an article presenting an analysis of the data contained in a Miliken Institute study listing Durham, NC as the sixth best performing city in 2009.  While mostly an indicator of job and salary growth the most telling datum is likely Durham's High-Tech GDP Location Quotient for 2008 that places Durham at #4 in the nation for high-tech concentration.  Woohoo!

None other than Wired Magazine in their Top 10 Tech Towns list had this to say about the area:
"RALEIGH-DURHAM: The jocks here may get worked up about college hoops, but the tech set is passionate about Linux distros and Mac-PC holy wars. North Carolina’s Triangle is ground zero for Red Hat, SAS Institute, and an IBM center. Bonus: The area hosts two World Beer Festivals a year"

Creative Class champion Richard Florida squeezed us into slot 10 of his recent Next Youth Magnet Cities list saying: "Another great high-tech, university, smart city, which boasts a mild climate, highly educated population, great outdoor activities, and a great music scene."

This is certainly encouraging news to read about the location of the next mini maker faire!  The triangle area of North Carolina is a vibrant, intelligent, artistic, technological, and creative area packed with visionary people. 

It sure sounds like a perfect location to hold some kind of amazing event celebrating people who are vibrant, intelligent, artistic, technological, and creative, don't you think?