Comment by dfc
I had a similar experience at PET in Ottawa around 2007. I felt so out of place listening to so many interesting talks and seeing all these people that I "knew" from mailing lists and IRC channels. Len Sassaman was really kind to me and included in me in hallway conversations. It was so wild I couldn't get over that rabbi was taking the time to explain things to me and listen to my questions. He definitely was not extending some grand charitable gesture, it was just genuine kindness.
I know I will never have that kind of impact on someone but I hope I have / can continue to pay rabbi back by practicing that level of kindness and consideration to others.
Is "PET" the "Privacy Enhancing Technologies Symposium"?[0]
Looks like it became a "symposium" in 2008[1] if we're discussing the same thing.
The one PETS I went to, Dan wasn't at, but Caspar Bowden joined me in my quest to try to eat lunch before 9pm in a certain EU country and reassured me that my concerns about mass surveillance were rooted in facts and logic in rather disturbing detail.
My impression of academia was that there's two very different sets of people, one I came to term the "hostel people", the other the "hotel people": Hostel people would talk to whoever seemed interesting, hotel people want to know: Who are you, who's your adviser, where did you do your bachelors, where did you do your master's, what did your parents do, did you go to a fancy prep school, did you grow up in a large city or "flyover country", and so on and so forth.
Anyways, in comedy we often talk about "punching up" -- when it comes to building community I feel it's best to do the opposite and "shore up the base" -- focus on building up the next generation.
https://petsymposium.org/2007/
https://petsymposium.org/2008/