I’m at 23C3. I went to a couple of sessions last night, but felt tired after all the christmas meat-eating, so I went home early — and got up really late. But now I’m here.

(Just now, in the middle of me writing this, Bicyclemark just said hello, sporting a 21C3 press pass pegged onto his shirt. Guess I’ll have to get that story later. Go listen to his podcast — it’s really good stuff!)

Like last year the male-to-interesting person ratio is totally skewed. I’m not saying there aren’t a lot of pony tails. It’s just that… well, you know. I’m strangely fascinated by the culture here — being no real part of it as opposed to a lot of the other conferences I attend. I’m not a member of this club, I don’t stand outside the building with the rest of the participants exchanging ‘yeah, we know it all, don’t we’-smiles (outside this bulding you can smell the weed). I get what’s going on — but I don’t ‘get it’. While geeky as hell (dresscode: cargo pants, i-don’t-care hair, shirt with geek print, sturdy shoes, important-looking cables in hand), it’s a nice atmosphere and you can just tell that creativity is bursting from the tip of these people’s fingers). And while the schedule reflects the surrounding world’s adoption of social web technology (the people representing that wave like myself are easily recognizable by their inabilty to understand the geek jokes at presentations), most sessions and workshops are pretty hardcore and refreshingly free of a lot of the buzz I get tired from so very easily in my daily involvement with digital technologies.

Oh, and ideology and politics is big here. At a conference. Nice. Think about it.