Many interesting people in New York for Clay Shirky's shin-dig. Cory Doctorow was good fun, razor sharp and politically sorted, his short story Ownzored is one of the most accessible broadsides against trusted system technology and the intellectual property establishment in general. Jet-lagged to fuck, I stayed up all night reading his 'Down and Out in the Magic Kingdom' which tells the story of the sewer surfing decline of a Disney Kingdom fundmanetalist in a post scarcity economy.

Rusty Foster, founder of K5, explained his need for a form of currency that would deflate in value depending on how long you had held it and how much you had accumulated. This idea really appeals to me, but somehow I believe that it may take some time yet before anarchists understand the concept of radioactive whuffie.

Then there was Cameron Marlow, inventor of blogdex, which is a handy little tool that generates snapshots of the bogoshperhe universe, charting what is popular at any given time and threading the discourse together. Many other peeps, but these three were part of the initial phalanx of smokers who established a counter conference on broadway, that's why they get priority...