The Glider

Hello all,

So this was my first Con ever an I had an amazing time... However, I'm hoping to get some digital evidence of my time there as I did not bring a camera.

I was picked to be paired with a celebrity hacker... Even if there are no pictures I am hoping to see if someone could tell me who I was paired with. You see.. I was really drunk. I was the guy with the shoulder length hair and orange bandanna on. I was drinking out of the Sailer Jerry's bottle up on stage.

I was hella stoked about being up there and I wish I had done better in the 2nd round of Canadian Agencies but I was just too drunk and swore the whole time. Bummer too because we had gotten 4 out of 7 on the first round.

But.. That said. Does anyone have any pictures, videos, or any other information for me?

I don't really have anything to offer in return except for my thanks and the promise that I'll buy you a few drinks next Con.

Thanks a lot!!

Yes - it's true.

Hacker Pyramid 2011 - the THIRD edition - is going to happen over Friday AND Saturday nights!

We're scheduled before Hacker Jeopardy so YOU DON'T HAVE TO CHOOSE!

Yeah.

Damn. We got work to do.

All of our needs are doubled up now -- more celebs, more players, more prizes, MOAR AWESOME!!!!11!!

Yes!

If you are dying for more awesome Hacker Pyramid action, then you're going to be thrilled to hear that we are back for DEFCON 19.


After much discussion between Winn, Nikita, Pyr0 and myself, we've tentatively got our act together and we will be running the two amazing DEFCON gameshows in a SERIAL schedule rather than a PARALLEL schedule. Yes, you heard that right. You don't have to choose your allegiance anymore.

Plans are still ridiculously in flux right now, but at the very least, you can expect we will have:

A) Better/More organized gameplay
B) PREqualification
C) More Committed celebs
D) Awesome prizes
E) New automated game play w/ scoring built in by @wintr

And so much more.

If you're interested in learning more, keep an eye on http://hackerpyramid.com and email me if you'd like to volunteer in some capacity.

I do not run this contest. Here is the present description of this forum which is subject to change without notice or announcement as the organizers for this contest choose:

The CLOSED forum for LAST YEAR is here.

This thread is closed and I should delete it if or when the organizers of this contest post something about it, but forum is open.

Wow.

I don't actually have sufficient words to describe that event.

I'm still in Vegas, unwinding, getting ready to rejoin the rest of my life (already in progress), but I wanted to get a few things down here before I forgot them.

1/ A big thank you to everyone who helped both before, during and after the actual 90 minutes.

2/ A special thank you to Wil (@wintr) for pulling off the excellent 10,000c Hacker Pyramid Question Interface BETA v0.9 -- I've been promised that the timer will be integrated and that clues will come up one at a time (so as to have automated scoring) for next year.

3/ Had a great 5 minute discussion with Winn, Nikita and Pyr0 subsequent to the closing ceremonies during which we determined that there will be no overlap next year. We'll be on Saturday from 7-9 and Hacker Jeopardy will follow us from 9-11+. This is in keeping with the conversation that I had with Winn prior to the first Hacker Pyramid -- we're the G to PG-13ish rated game show for people who aren't quite up to the antics of those crazy Jeopardy bastards.

4/ Unsurprisingly, there was the usual hassle with getting the contestants and celebrities matched up. Next year, we're going to do something about this. In all likelihood we're going to take advantage of the fact that Ashley will be doing pre-qualifications for Jeopardy and there's something to be said for the poetic parallel of having Jillian work with Ashley to get Pyramid contestants pre-qualified as well.

5/ Making up for the game play which spent too much time on the first part of the game and not enough on the last part, I'm making a formal change to the game play which will permit us to build suspense faster and also to make the championship round count for something. Watch for details to be posted soon - I'll ping this thread with updates until the DC19 forums are set up.

6/ With the move to the Rio and the addition of 5 DCTV channels, there was a suggestion that there should be a DEF CON Game Show Channel. This might actually have a non-zero chance of happening. If it does, I promise to wear bad television make up - really shatner it up a few notches.

I think that's all for now... if you've got photographs or video from the event, please let me know so we can get that up and online asap. I've got 12gb of video from a point-and-shoot camera that I'll be combing through for the good stuff.

Again, thanks to everyone. I had a blast.

Hey everyone -

In the past week, I've suddenly got a deluge of "hey I wanna help" messages and I've done my best to answer them all.

For all of the categories that people have written up, hey thanks.

For all of the people who want a contest badge for writing up a few categories - really? I don't think so. If you've committed to providing physical support for the event, you're on the "eligible" list, but I can tell you right now that there are plenty of those folks who've been working on this little project for months and they're ahead of you in line. Especially because I have no idea how many badges I'll even be able to claim - and most of all - THE CONTEST BADGES AREN'T FREE. If you think less than 100 words is going to get you a $140USD badge, bite me.


In slightly more positive news, we've got more celebrities asking to be a part of this than we'd planned and we also got permission to go over-time so we can have more rounds of awesomeness than we'd planned as well.


If you happen to be from Canada, I'm still looking for penny mules - get in touch with me.


Also, a little tease -- my outfit for this year... looks like fruitstripe gum.


And we've got some snazzy promo cards that I'll need help distributing.

http://twitpic.com/23je6o

If you are interested in being a Celebrity for Hacker Pyramid this year (and you think you're famous enough - tee hee) please drop a message to me (myrcurial@myrcurial.com) or Nikita as soon as possible.


If you are interested in being a Contestant for Hacker Pyramid this year, please review http://hackerpyramid.com/page1/page1.html and get your badge as early as possible. Once we are allowed to talk more about how to use your badge to get the key to becoming a contestant we will let you know. Or you could try and get the info out of Joe Grand since he knows.

Thanks!

Hey there everyone!

The following text was sent out via email to all of those who provided me with contact information. If you want to help out w/ 10,000¢ Hacker Pyramid and you didn't get the email - please send email to myrcurial@myrcurial.com. Thx!

======

At this point, I have the following great news to report:

Due to the hard work of a VERY small group of people, we're up to 50%
of the categories written and we have about 30% of the prizes
together.

Also, we're about 5 weeks away from DEF CON.

Pardon me for a moment.

AAAAAIIIIIIEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!!!!!!!!!!!!

Not good enough people. Not good enough at all!

So. Let us turn our attention to what remains outstanding:

Category Assistance!

If you could please put pen to paper / fingers to keyboards /
tentacles to touchscreens and get even one or two categories written
up in a reply to this email, we'd have enough. If you need help
figuring out what a category is, please have a look at the website:
http://hackerpyramid.com/page3/page3.html


Prize / Penny Mule Assistance!

If you have any great ideas for prizes (the more game show the better
-- anyone have sources for Rice-a-Roni or Turtle Wax?) and you'd like
to contribute (by which I mean pay for and donate to the cause) such
awesome as you are able to locate - please let me know. Also, if you
are perchance from that lovely country north of the fabulous United
States of America and would be able to mule some pennies down to vegas
as part of your luggage allotment, please let me know.


During DEF CON!

Due to the excellent work done by Badge Designer extraordinaire Joe
Grand, there's some 10,000¢ Hacker Pyramid goodness built into the DEF
CON 18 electronic badge!

In order to maximize the awesomeness of _being part of the badge_ ---
we need to get the word out to the DEF CON audience that they NEED to
be a part of 10,000¢ Hacker Pyramid. To further that goal, I'm
looking for people to help distribute some flyers / stickers /
tokens-of-esteem on Thursday, Friday and Saturday. Oh, and anyone
who'd like to help w/ designing or producing the above flyers /
stickers / tokens-of-esteem - we need you too.


During the CONTEST!

Apart from myself, we do need helpers during the actual contest. At
this point, I'm pretty sure that the following positions exist - some
are filled - if you think you can fill one and/or can think of a
position that I haven't thought of - please let me know.


Show Host (yours truly)
Show Hostess (do not taunt the hostess)
Show Runner (managing on-time performance and not forgetting things)
Show Girls (I've got 2 unlikely north-easterly folks on this one already)
Prize Manager (keep track of the prizes, make sure we finish w/ zero)
Celebrity Wrangler (keep the celebrities happy and interested)
Contestant Wrangler (keep the contestants happy and interested)
Audience Wrangler (get the audience fired up and keep them that way)
Computer Wrangler (get our crap working w/ DEF CON standard layout)
Questions Interface (someone to run the questions interface)
Timer Interface (someone to run the timer interface)
A/V Wrangler (make sure that the video and audio of the event gets recorded)
Photographer (there are literally less than 50 pictures of last year,
and all of them are blurry)


If you're already in one of those positions or if you think you'd like
to be, please plan on making some free time later this week for a
con-call as we need to get some planning nailed down hard.

If you've already committed to or are interested in committing to the
computer/av team - please get in touch w/ me asap -- we didn't put
enough effort into this last year and it showed.


Also, in order to pre-empt some/many of the questions I expect to receive:

1/ No, you can't get into DEF CON for free by helping out. DEF CON costs money.
2/ Yes, technically Speakers do get in for free, but if you don't
spend at least $140 of your time coming up with good content, Nikita
will take it out of your ass.
3/ I can get a limited (likely very limited) number of contest badges
for those who put in a serious contribution - this will have to be
pre-arranged.
4/ If you commit to this little project, please understand that we are
COUNTING on you - don't be a drama queen.
5/ Yes, we're serious about the categories thing - it's sorta the deal
with the game show we're emulating.
6/ If you think your idea is really whacky, please let me know, we
might just be able to pull it off.