Signal Hackerspaces: 28C3 Year End Roundup

Auf dem 28C3 war ich am Abend des dritten Tages zu Gast beim Signal Hackerspaces, dem Radio der Hackerspaces-Bewegung. Es war eine interessante Runde mit Moderator Thomas Lohninger aka socialhack und Co-Moderator Koen Martens (gmc), HF , Mitch Altman, Jérémie Zimmermann, Mark Fonseca Rendeiro (bicyclemark), Okhin (Telecomix). Das Gespräch wurde natürlich auf englisch geführt.

Es war eine interessante Runde und zu Beginn habe ich ein wenig aus dem Nähkästchen zur Geschichte des Congresses geplaudert, später drehte sich viel um Aktivismus und zukünftige Entwicklungen. Insgesamt ein sehr interessantes Gespräch, dass ich gerne mit Euch teilen möchte.

Talking in Kuala Lumpur

End of the month, I am going to talk on CCC activities in general and more specifically on Project Blinkenlights on the upcoming HITBSecConf 2005 in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. There is a nice page describing my talk.

This is new ground for me as I haven’t been to Asia so far except my travel to Sri Lanka beginning of this year. I am really looking forward to this event and meeting some speakers we had at 21C3 and some we are probably going to see at 22C3. I am really curious to see the cultural differences which I expect to be extensive in one way (people and country) and probably similar (hacker culture).

If you have any hints for me regaling Kuala Lumpur (and Singapore which I hope to be able to meet for a day or so) feel free to leave a note here.

Hackers and the Mac

I just bumped into this text by Paul Graham written in March: Return of the Mac. He describes the current impact the Mac platform has on the technological elite which he describes as „hackers“:

So what, the business world may say. Who cares if hackers like Apple again? How big is the hacker market, after all?

Quite small, but important out of proportion to its size. When it comes to computers, what hackers are doing now, everyone will be doing in ten years. Almost all technology, from Unix to bitmapped displays to the Web, became popular first within CS departments and research labs, and gradually spread to the rest of the world.

He’s so totally right. And he gets „hackers“. Later, he states that hackers „follow the most powerful OS wherever it leads“. He’s so right on this one as well.

So the war is on and Apple’s got to show they can keep up the pace. If they continue as they have been doing for the last four years, I am confident we’ll see significant change in the coming years leading to a situation which is by far more valuable than the current lame „Only Windows“ world.

Which is good.

My favourite web things: World Electric Guide

This is the first of my favourite web things: the World Electric Guide. The guide has been an invaluable resource when doing travelling so many times but is also my first address whenever new Blinkenlights ideas come up. The guide is very complete and comes with a lot of illustrations explaining which power system and type of plugs to expect where.

The overview page Electricity Around the World is a very detailed description of the systems and plugs in each country of the planet. It’s not only helpful but also quite telling as it shows relationships of countries based on colonial history or other influences.