heipei's weblog » 22C3

22C3: Waiting for day 4

Jojo — Fri, 30 Dec 2005 03:04:31 +0000

As we are approaching the final day of this congress there is a little looking back and summarizing to do for me. Since there is still one day left this isnt final, ill probably do another examination later on. To begin with, i wanna point out this blog-entry where some crucial things that went wrong this year are mentioned. The author talks about missing “spirit” and i can only agree, although im not completely sure about what caused it yet. Ill try to give reasons i think led to this:

What The Music??? There was no music from the Lounge anywhere in the building. I remember listening to the cool electronic music in the Hackcenter, walking up the stairs and still grooving to the very same music while taking a dump. This killed most of the atmosphere for me and a lof of people. Thats why this is at position 1.
Fewer congress participants, which is thanks to the increased entrance fee. This meant less stress during rush-hour, but also less party during the nights.
A new way of assigning hackcenter space, combined with point 1. and 2. led to a much less crowded (almost empty) hackcenter this year, and especially at night you felt pretty much lost there.
The shift from real-world events to the internet layer. What i mean that one is much less likely to run around and scream “free beer” or “hack the planet” or whatever but will instead create a neat and tidy wiki entry, link it and wait for something to happen. Of course I myself as an active blogger am part of this problem, and i would trade it all in if i could
Some more conservative opinions on certain matters. Now, this point can really be argued about forever, but in the end i sometimes miss stupid stuff like defacements, people being bonded with eth cable, frequent network failures which result in people actually talking to each other, and other stuff that one can only experience while attending. (Think humppa)

I know the congress grows, and also grows up, so do the people organizing it. Maybe everything i mentioned will only lead to a shift in the average visitors mentality, maybe it was just this year, maybe its just me and everyone else thinks this congress was exactly the same like every year. But maybe, and thats something i want to avoid, the congress might lose popularity although everything done wasnt meant to come out that way. I really dont know, you give the answers.

22C3: Day Three / Berlin

Jojo — Thu, 29 Dec 2005 20:25:53 +0000

So, this is gonna be a somewhat longer entry, i hope. See, the problem with the Congress is that you see/hear/read so much, want to do and try so much and finally end up forgetting 90% of what you wanted to do. Short-term memory loss at its best.
We spent the night on today in the Hackcenter, my back can tell you a story about it. Then Flo and i took of to get something to eat and to find a bank to unlocked my EC-Card which i was returned to me yesterday. We ate a 30cm sandwhich at a nearby Subway, which seemed to be the equivalent of 3-4 burgers at your favorite fast-food-chain. After that, and after not having found a bank, we took of for our hotel to get a shower. This was the first time riding subway in Berlin for me for years (only did it as a child). Although the stations are really filthy and the trains feel like they gonna fall apart any minute its really something everyone staying in Berlin should do imho. Long story short, we stepped out at Potsdamer Platz and took the wrong route to our hotel. But thanks to that we saw a lot of German Government Buildings and even wandered through the Holocaust Memorial which was impressive, though not really fitting its purpose. Imho the designer should have built it like a maze, so it isnt this easy to look outside once your in.
After a really good shower we took the short way back to the subway station (boy, did we go wrong before) and headed back to the BCC. There we bought ourselves the Congress Shirt (looks really cool btw) and went to listen to fd0′s talk on Atmel AVR for Dummies. I think the presentation was really good, you could see that it was a lot more than just reading points from a sheet. Unfortunately I, not having done any assembler programming before, didnt understand that much, and for the people who had already programmed assembler it was to basic (so i was told). But thats no surprise, and having to go from 0 to explaining something like this sure is complicated.
Another thing i have noticed is that more people than i would have guessed are reading my weblog. How? Well, it offen happened to me that i talked to people (sometimes even strangers) and they mentioned something they already read here, or that im being linked, like by the 22C3 Konferenzblogger. Since we moved the apache to a chroot environment recently, thus eliminating perl scripts (i know its possible, but havent had time yet) i miss my awstats and really have no way of telling the popularity of this blog. So please: If you like/dislike the entries here, use the comment function.

22C3: Good Morning World

Jojo — Thu, 29 Dec 2005 12:45:45 +0000

Yes, the forecast was accurate. We have about 10cm of fresh snow here, and it doesnt look like stopping at the moment. I just woke up from a somewhat uncomfortable night in the Hackcenter, and still didnt have breakfast, so thats my priority right now ;).
I hope I wont forget to watch some lectures today. Especially fd0′s talk on Atmel for Dummies.
“Use more bandwidth” still seems to be the motto around here, but Flo and I have all our HDDs (local and remote) already completely used, so we have to count on people from the outside to generate some traffic. Please dont leave us with the shame of not exausting the uplink.

22C3: Lost … and Found!

Jojo — Thu, 29 Dec 2005 04:50:47 +0000

Yeaye! I didnt think it would happen, but when i checked half an hour someone had really returned my wallet to the Lost and Found counter. It had been found outside the congress center, the money of course gone. Funny, the thief even took the 1-dollar note which was there purely for decorational purposes.
Anyway, congress is moving along, the CTF is still taking place (!eof ranked last while we were there). We moved to a more comfortable spot, we have a table, two couches and still no stable internet (which is our fault, you should see the Discordian Cable Management here). Flo is doing everything to respect the wish of the Infotresen which was printed everywere in Huge Letter “Use more bandwidth”. Seems that there are to few people here to really make us of our 16Gbit/s internet uplink, or that the people here have better things to do than leech all the time (or simply that everything you could ask for is available in the internal network so there is no need for downloading from the outside world). Hmm, i should really upload some more photos…

22C3: Voll Uncool

Jojo — Wed, 28 Dec 2005 20:15:26 +0000

Congress is coming along pretty good so far. But there is a downside. About 5 hours ago my wallet was stolen (well, i suppose it was since i went the 50m back where i could have left it and it wasnt there). Yes, it happened inside the BCC, and no, it wasnt checked in at the Infotresen yet (and i suppose it never will). This really sucks, and i cant stress this enough. There was some money in it, which doesnt bug me that much. Whats really annoying is that with the money a lot of other things have vanished, like my ID, my drivers license, and a lot of other important documents which puts me in a somewhat critical situation. I can remotely understand how someone thinks he needs to steal money, but even people sinking that low should have the decency to return wallets to the Lost and Found… Btw, if you happen to find it (Black 4You Wallet), please contact me here or return it to the Lost and Found.
Nevertheless, i am not going home like some people already did but ill try to enjoy the congress anyway. Weather forecast annouced 15cm (or more) snow this night for Berlin, if this should really happen we might see many more people sleeping in the hackcenter i think.

22C3: Second day

Jojo — Wed, 28 Dec 2005 11:58:30 +0000

The second day has just begun in terms of the congress schedule. I feel really confident that i will see a few lectures today, which is partly because im really fit again thanks to almost 12 hours sleep in a real bed with real sheets. It might also be because i got to shower this morning. I showered yesterday evening as well, so this makes it a new record for my congress visits. Right now fw and me are sitting in the upper ring between the NOC/POC and the Wikipedians. There is an annoying phone which rings every two minutes and noone seems to answer it, but thats okay, compared to the Hackcenter, where we spent most of the time since we arrived. I told myself that i wouldnt go back down there again, since its just so hot, overcrowded and quickly becoming really dirty. The climate up here is much more comfortable, and you can even look outside. I hope ill see some interesting lectures during the day so i can report about it later.

Touchdown

Jojo — Tue, 27 Dec 2005 01:50:29 +0000

So, finally we arrived after about 6 hours of driving. Flo fell asleep for the last hour or so, but i woke him up early enough to enjoy some highlights of Berlin at night.
We started in meors at about 6 pm, took a little detour right at the beginning (damn you A45) but then we drove straight through, only stopping once in some little hill-billy nest somewhere near Hannover, where they didnt seem to have any winter-service. My mum called about 100km before Berlin, telling me that they had announced some nasty snowfall in Berlin itself, but when we arrived i was a little disappointed, because those “masses” of snow wouldnt even bother anyone back at home.
Right now im sitting in the Lounge of the BCC, the bistro, whatever. There are already quite a few people here and most of the critical systems (entrance tickets, lighting, food) seem to be running, but, same procedure as every year, the Wireless DHCP network is not functional at the moment (thats why im writing this locally ;).

More updates later.

22C3 Preliminaries

Jojo — Sun, 25 Dec 2005 23:12:17 +0000

So, replaced the Strauss Greatest Waltzes and Polkas with something more “adequate”, i.e. the Hackers OST ;). I told myself that i have to get into the congress fever tonight, since the last few days have been quite relaxed and very christmas-y. I think some of that stuffed turkey is still spinning in my tummy. So here we go…
I just noted all the stuff to-bring in an internal wiki for fw and me, and yes, nerds do have to remind themselves to bring stuff like a toothbrush and fresh clothes for _every_ day. Tomorrow im gonna do another thorough check of my car, a Ford Galaxy which has served me well for the last congress, but has been parked for almost 8 weeks now since im in Aachen most of the time. Additionally, it was buried under aprox. 50cm of snow for a week and yesterday when i popped the hood i noticed that my all-time-favorite marten (zu Deutsch: Marder) really enjoyed the last couple of weeks… Well, nevermind that. I even got my winter-tires mounted the day before yesterday. Looking at the image made me not regret it.
Right now we are thinking about when to take of from Moers, reading last years “blog” was really helpful. I think we gonna do it like last year, except one day later this time. You might ask yourself why one would start driving at 8 pm and thus arrive at about 2pm (comfortable traveling speed of 130kmh, gas is expensive). Well, if you have ever driven to the A2 after midnight, and also during holiday season, you know that you have all the 3 lanes just for yourself, 6 if you count the opposite direction. And in Berlin you dont get stressed by a lot of traffic while finding your way to the Alex, since the streets are relatively empty. Same at the counter in the BCC. No check-in hassle whatsoever.
Other than that, hmm, whats more to say. Im really looking forward to the congress, spending a little time with fw again and all the fellow nerds that will show up.

G’schichten aus dem Wermelswald

Jojo — Sun, 25 Dec 2005 09:44:27 +0000

So kommts mir manchmal vor wenn ich wieder hier bin. Zum Glueck. Bin am Donnerstag endlich mal wieder nach hause gekommen. Da merkt man schon den Unterschied, wenn die Autobahn ploetzlich bergig wird, die einzigen Lichtquellen die entgegenkommenden Autos sind und das OBI Zeichen orange ueber den Baumwipfel glimmt. Morgens aufstehen, merken dass das Fenster auf ist man aber trotzdem keinen Mucks hoert ist definitiv ein Unterschied zu der ersten Etage, Haupstrasse wo ich in Aachen wohn.
Wie auch immer, ich wuensche noch frohe Festtage den Leuten die tatsaechlich heute/morgen Blogs lesen ;). Ich jedenfalls werd mir gleich mal einen kleinen Kahlschlag auf dem Kopf verpassen, o.g. und andere Lieder ganz kitschig aber dafuer entspannt reinmachen und das von Flori so hochgelobte “Sie belieben wohl zu scherzen, Mister Feynmann!” weiterlesen dass ich zu Weihnachten gekriegt hab und das bisher sehr interessant geschrieben ist. Ich wollt mich ein wenig ranhalten weil ich auch noch ein paar andere Sachbuecher und auch Romane hab, ein paar noch von meinem Geburtstag.
Congress-Related: Die fairy Dust ist gelandet, Flo’s Powerbook auch, ich hab mir immer noch nicht genau den Fahrplan angeguckt. Gestern hab ich mein Auto mal wieder ein wenig in Fahrt gebracht damit es uns bis nach Berlin traegt. Das arme Ding stand die letzten 8 Wochen rum und war zwischenzeitlich mal unter einer 50cm Schneedecke begraben. Nu laeufts aber wieder.

22c3 Podcast

Jojo — Tue, 13 Dec 2005 12:07:37 +0000

I usually dont like podcasts that much. Seems to me like something for people with too much free time on their hands. Ive listened to a few in the past, like the Inside Mac Radio Podcast, which was pretty much useless. But now ive started listening to the Chaosradio Podcast, which has been very active the past few weeks, thanks to the upcoming Chaos Communication Congress. The cool thing is that you can plug in your earphones, listen to Tim and Guests talk about the Congress Program and hack away while listening. You can check it out at http://chaosradio.ccc.de/empfang.html, even without using iTunes. Its german though, but maybe its that time of the year to learn a new foreign language :P

Btw, for the German users: The ARD has a daily Videocast of the 8 o’clock news “Tagesschau”. For nerds like me who dont own a tv and dont like to be bound to specific air dates this is pretty cool ;)