Now recovering from Extreme Computing

Now recovering from Extreme Computing 2002 yesterday, and you'll find various accounts of the day's events at Boing Boing, Plasticbag and Ben Hammersley.com. Although you probably know that, given our logs show a lot (and I mean lots) of folk coming in from those sites. So, if this is your first visit, welcome. Hope you'll come by again. As for the event itself, it was a very good show indeed. Tons of interesting stalls, some very interesting people, and if they'd called the debate in the pub across the road "consultancy" they could have fleeced a few corporations several thousand quid a head just to listen in. Biggest thing for me? The huge subculture that exists around computing, the internet and (to a lesser extent) weblogging came out to play yesterday. And it revealed itself to be evolving very quickly indeed: it has its own, well-developed literature, music, humour and politics, despite its youth (youth of participants, in the main, and youth of the movement itself). I've only experienced that kind of energy and debate in the US until now but, as observed during the lightning demonstrations by Ben Hammersley, this gathering was also very, very British in its nature. I mean: origami following on from the Dysons. And getting a respectable round of applause, too. Great stuff.