Issue 6

We are just a few days away from the start of the Summer of Protocols! The kickoff meeting (for Core Researchers only) will be held on Monday, May 1. This will be followed by the kickoff guest talk by Geoff Manaugh, author of Burglars Guide to the City on Wednesday, and a discussion of the pilot study, The Unreasonable Effectiveness of Protocols, on Friday. The latter two events will be open to Affiliate Researchers as well, and both will be recorded and shared on our YouTube channel later [livestream if possible??]. Details in the new "Upcoming Events" section of this newsletter below. As we ramp up to the launch, the Discord is also starting to buzz. 

Our first serious bit of permissionless research has also been sparked by Na Chi (with some help from GPT4).

Meet a Researcher - Sarah Friend

Sarah Friend is an artist and software developer currently based in Berlin, Germany. She was formerly the smart contract lead for Circles UBI, a community currency that aims to create a more equal distribution of wealth, as well as for Culturestake, a quadratic voting project targetting arts funding. In 2022, she was a visiting professor at The Cooper Union. Recent solo exhibitions include Off: Endgame, at Public Works Administration, New York, and Terraforming at Galerie Nagel Draxler in Berlin

Project Spotlight - BCD Protocol by Na Chi

A project to make a bot, and perhaps a protocol based on it, to produce basic consulting diagrams (BCDs) using input parameters. You can try the initial version of the bot on the SoP Discord by typing /tbt (for two-by-two, the first diagram supported), learn about the project and how to contribute in these slides, and join the Replit project here, and the ongoing Discord discussion here.

From our Discord

"Since the parameters are limited, a 2x2-specific protocol might appear by genetic / survival so one way is to initiate / fast track the syntax and/or steps to a contemporary stable state"
- Na Chi

Link to BCD Protocol Design discussion

Three Links

What makes for a successful protocol? - Observed factors that contribute to or hinder the success of a protocol (🎩: Evan Miyazano)
What constitutes a constitution? - Rethinking constitutions for blockchain governance (🎩: Eric Alston)
Design rules and design with rules - Design principles for the urban landscape (🎩: Miguel Guerra)

Upcoming Events

May 1 - SoP Kickoff with Core Researchers
May 3 - Guest Talk w/ Geoff Manaugh (open to all researchers)
Codes of Entry: Burglary, Architecture, and the Protocols of “Nakatomi Space”
Geoff Manaugh, author of A Burglar’s Guide to the City, will explore how criminal vulnerabilities can be inadvertently designed into the built environment—from the Los Angeles stormwater network being repurposed as an illicit method of entry in a 1986 bank heist, to a cat burglar who used Toronto’s fire code as an apartment-targeting mechanism, to a man who robbed dozens of chain restaurants based on their identical floor plans and predictable employee routines. This hour-long conversation, moderated by Venkatesh Rao, will also look at the idea of “Nakatomi space,” or the possibility that all architecture includes within it potential methods of misuse.
Pre-Reading Material
May 5 - Pilot Study Discussion (open to all researchers)
The authors of the pilot study, The Unreasonable Effectiveness of Protocols, will host a salon style discussion starting with a quick overview of the study, and some discussion among the authors, followed by open live Q&A and parallel discussion in the Pilot Study channel on Discord
Pre-Reading Material

Website | Discord | YouTube