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The Infinite Game of Poetry: Protocols for Living, Listening, and Transcending the Rules

Talk Robert Peak

Robert Peak, an acclaimed poet and technologist, explores how poetry and poetic craft can inform protocol design and thinking. He argues that poetry, despite its inability to directly change the world, has transformative potential and offers valuable frameworks—particularly from the craft perspective—that can enrich how technologists and engineers approach protocol development and thinking about rules and systems.

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A Protocol Fiction Protocol

Benitesh Raalo presents an informal talk on protocol fiction as a genre and methodology, framing it through the lens of theatrical performance (Kabuki) as an analogy for how protocols function as narratives. The talk explores protocol fiction as both a creative practice and a framework for understanding complex systems, introducing the concept of protocol fiction protocols—meta-protocols that govern the creation and analysis of speculative protocol narratives.

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Benitesh Raalo

Talk

Into the Spannungsfeld (SIG Kickoff)

The speaker introduces the Spannungsfeld (field of tensions) Special Interest Group, a research initiative exploring trade-offs and conflicts in protocol design and technological development. Drawing from tension games conducted at conferences, the group proposes a framework combining engineering trade-offs with social conflict to understand how tensions shape protocol design and societal outcomes.

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Talk

Charity Majors: Observability

Charity Majors, operations engineer and CEO of Honeycomb, discusses observability as a critical concept for protocol design. The talk explores how observability—the ability to understand system behavior through external outputs—applies to both database engineering and protocol architecture, with connections drawn from Majors' interdisciplinary background in music and mathematics.

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Charity Majors