I've found lots of interesting technical work via HN, github, youtube, and random blogs, often made by people who were simply interested in things, investigated

I've found lots of interesting technical work via HN, github, youtube, and random blogs, often made by people who were simply interested in things, investigated them, and then decided to share them with other people. I think open source type conferences may epitomize what conferences should be - like-minded people getting together to discuss and share work on problems that they are interested in.