2024 Unconf Los Angeles

The Preserve

The Preserve in Los Angeles was an ideal venue for this gathering. Getting there was a short jaunt from Pasadena, where LIVE 2024 was hosted, and was just far enough away from Downtown LA and Hollywood to escape for a day of thought. We enjoyed large shared spaces, a cafe setting, courtyard, and a few nooks to hide away in for deep work or conversation.

Attendees were greeted by staff, given nametags, and as has become tradition, a stamped and customized Ink & Switch Notebook. A meandering hallway led to coffee, and then to the Oval room, where the event kicked off and many of the sessions where held.

The Sessions

We chose six spaces from around the Preserve, voiced several areas of interest, gauged interest, and landed on a pretty jam packed schedule.

“From the Strudel session, I learned that sonic texture is to electronic music what harmony is to Western European music and melodic variation is to Middle-Eastern music. Does this make Grieg proto-electronic in the same way Beethoven is proto-metal? The observation also jibes with how Jacob Collier uses Google's MusicFX DJ to sample from a space of sounds here.”

“There was a conversation about using shape as a way to show an expression's type. For algebraic types, there's promise in using a compound shape so that, or instance, the branches of a `case` expression bind like proteans. Also realized that for parametric types, any good representation should also work for unification centric language. So maybe there's value in being able to alternate between a view of all the concrete expansions vs a compact superposition, then maybe the best view will partially instantiate and simplify some terms.”

“The thing that really resonated with me were several discussions about what an operating system really is. I have written a blog post around one particular discussion that made an impression on me.”

“In the visual programming session, we talked about how specific representations don't actually make a programming language visual — it's not about having circles and arrows. What matters then? A close correspondence to the semantics, especially runtime behavior, ideally a display thereof. Maybe not exactly Ivan's idea of being alive but close. 2D or 3D diagrams can be just as arbitrary as any textual syntax, maybe even more. It's the close semantic correspondence that grounds the visuals. An important extension, then, is to also have correspondence between visualizations. So, for example, a better visual programming system makes it easy to tell when you are seeing multiple perspectives on the same object, and an even better tool allows you to maintain focus while adding perspectives.”

Gatherings like this are a great opportunity to delight others with local treats and wares. Sam made excellent use of stickie notes and drew people analog NFTs. Taylor brought stacks and stacks of books to share. Steven Allen brought a nice coffee and tea kit. Someone brought Finnish Licorice and doodled an adorably tragic decapitated fishie.

Griffith Observatory

At the end of the day, a small group of staff and attendees kept the conversation going on an evening hike up to Griffith Observatory. It was a wonderfully clear evening in LA, and though the everyday haze clouded the horizon, the view of the LA skyline was expansive and aglow from atop the Observatory.

We're still putting together our recollections and photos. If you have any, please send them to hello@inkandswitch.com