Noise at BSidesSF.
My day job sent me to BSidesSF at the DNA Lounge this year. If you've never been to one before (and this was my first, due to unforseen circumstances some years ago), they're a loosely connected group of security conferences under the BSides name organized along the lines of an unconference. This is to say that the dynamic of "presenter and audience" is not the primary goal of a BSides, getting people together to talk about what's going on and what they're doing is the point. In other words, birds-of-a-feather gatherings among attendees (usually over a beer) are the accepted and encouraged mode of conference participation. Of course, there was also a lockpicking village and a small number of vendors.
There were also more people in attendence at the DNA than I've seen in a long time. This meant more background noise and sensory interference than I was prepared for. Hasufin (who was also attending) had to rescue me on one occasion, pull me down the block, and drop me off in a coffee shop to recuperate. I also found it very helpful to go for a brief stroll the let my sensory threshold return to normal.
After the cut, my best attempt at depicting what all of that noise looked like. It wasn't pleasant.
