 So this conference is a joke that got out of hand about four years ago. Oops. And essentially, Recurs Center, how many people here are affiliated in some way with the Recurs Center? Quite a few. It's totally OK if you're not. I just want to point that out. So the Recurs Center is kind of like a writer's workshop for programmers that exists here in New York City, a free 12-week program. And they're one of our sponsors this year. And they have an internal chat application. And so we were hoping, or I should say Maggie, organizer emeritus of Bang Bang Con, was kind of hoping to see us around for this alumni week. And our friend Ian Whitlock says, hey, my boss said that if I can find a conference in New York that's at least semi-work related, my employer, which we probably should have blurted out but whatever, will pay for my flight. Anyway, that would save me a bunch of cash. Oh. So Alex, also programmer emeritus, says, make up a nice conference website, pretend you're going, then go. It's foolproof. So Julia says, you know, I bet you could organize a real conference by May if you wanted to have no time. And Alex said, wait, I'll actually pitch in. I'll organize a conference for you. And suggests the first working title of Bang Bang Con, which is Julia Evans blog posts con. Allison, at the time, one of the facilitators at Recurse, who's also in the audience, hi Allison, says, I would attend the hell out of that, our first support for Bang Bang Con, and asks for the CFP. So Julia then makes up the original CFP for Bang Bang Con, which is submit a talk. Requirements, it must contain at least three exclamation marks in the title. And the second working title of Bang Bang Con is exclamation mark con, which doesn't quite roll off the tongue quite as well, and then names it Bang Bang Bang Con, which Maggie tries to pronounce. And Julia gets sad, and she says, oh, I kind of want this to happen now. So Alex is like, all right, we're going to get a website, we're going to do this. And Ian says, how about Bang Bang Con instead of Bang Bang Bang Con? All right, cool. So Ian says, oh, Bang Bang Con is available. Great, all right, and now we need like a chair, and we need the space, and the conference, that the rest of it. So here's the first real CFP, still using the Bang Bang Con notice. And the first sentence still sticks around, right? It's a programming conference about what excites us about programming. And I think, especially Mindy's talk really showed that you can yell a lot, and it's exciting. And so, again, the CFP changed a little bit, right? Be programming related, that's important. And also have at least one exclamation mark. We've really relaxed the rules since that original, that original, right? And fortunately, we've gotten rid of this one, the idea that they are up-worthy style, right? You won't believe this one weird GCC bug. But at the time, Julia was under strict orders not to organize conferences, because apparently she does that too much, and then has no time. So Alex says, all right, let's do Bang Bang Con. He said, Bang Bang Con, you know, it's only two-thirds is exciting, but whatever. I'm going to go register a website. And we start talking about it, and he's like, all right, I'm going to register the website. Are we doing this? Is this happening? All right, we're going to get five years of website. That's how confident I am, right? And I want to point out that it's up for renewal next year. So hopefully, you know, we have at least one more. Maybe, yeah, hopefully. So he's like, yeah, five years. We're going to do this. I'm now the proud owner of Bang Bang Con.com. And everyone's like, yeah, wow. And he's like, wait, did I just register a Bang Bang corn by mistake? Yes, he did. I love Alan's comment. Don't worry, it's just a pivot. So we also own bangbangcorn.com, by the way, for five years. It worked out, though, if any of you worked with our sponsor companies, we actually ended up incorporating, for tax reasons, under the title, Bang Bang Corn. So for example, Comcast wrote a nice check out to Bang Bang Corn LLC, so we have a website and everything. It's great. Fortunately, Nick, one of the very gracious facilitators at Hacker School said, which recurse center was at the time called Hacker School, said we will host. So we had a space, we had a title, we had a CFP, which is basically all you need for a conference, right? So we're going ahead. Remember, this is all just to get Ian to New York for free. That's really the point. And that's it. I mean, that's the history of Bang Bang Con. It was a complete joke. And whoops, you're all here and having a great time. And so I want to just point out two things about Bang Bang Con. One is that I think part of our success, and this might sound like bragging, but is that we've really put a focus on radical inclusivity, that we really want to make sure that everybody feels comfortable here, we want to make sure that our code of conduct is very strong, and we want to do things the right way for everyone to feel like they're at a conference where their voice is being heard and that they feel like they are having fun and really enjoying programming. And so if anyone does have any feedback or ideas or ways that we can improve the conference to make it even more inclusive, please get in touch with one of us. That is one of our main goals as organizers of Bang Bang Con. And thank you all for making that a reality as far as it has been so far. Thank you for that. The other thing I'd like to say is that, and actually, Lindsay Cooper said it way better than I did in a blog post recently called Scaling Bang Bang Con. But if you haven't read that, we've been talking a lot about the size of Bang Bang Con. We've been talking a lot about scaling Bang Bang Con to more people or new places or things like that. But the number one thing we really want to see is more people starting conferences like this if you're interested. If you have a topic that you want a conference around, if you want to get a bunch of people together and make something wonderful and amazing happen, you can. I want to point that out to all of you as proof here that this started out as just a chat conversation. And it just took a little work and some amazing sponsors and a good deal of luck to get this far. But that it is pretty, it wasn't as much work as I thought it was going to be to make this happen. So if you're interested at all in organizing a conference, even if it is not programming related, but especially if it is in the style and the idea of Bang Bang Con, please come talk to us. We have a lot of ideas. We have some experience, I guess, about running conferences. And we would be happy to talk to anybody who's interested in replicating this experience or making it even better. So as the very last bit, I'd like to invite all the organizers up on stage for one last thank you. And I also just want to point out that I believe there's still a little bit of swag out there and please, please, please take it with you. So the other last organizational note is again, when you leave today, please just check under your chairs for any cups or bottles. Make sure you have all your equipment with you and I really, really, really... Come on up, come on up. We really hope you really enjoyed Bang Bang Con. Please be in touch. Please stick around. And we will hopefully see you next year, yeah? Maybe, yeah. Yeah. Thanks.