Another Närcon down
Related link: pictures
Last week it was time again for my annual pilgrimage to Linköping for Närcon summer. I've been going to conventions here in Sweden for 18 years about and almost every year of those I have been to at least one Närcon event, barring a few years were I couldn't afford it. It doesn't have the spark anymore that it used to for me but hey, after 18 years that makes sense. This year I figured I'd make some notes of what I did to post here, actually motivated me a bit to do more things so I'd have stuff to write about.
I'm always trying to streamline my packing and my logistics for trips so this year I tried adding my tickets to catima (google wallet alternative that's open source), adding my Närcon ticket worked just fine by saving the qr code to a file and then importing it but the same can't be said for my train tickets as there was no way to export the QR code, I tried making a screenshot and trimming it but that was too fuzzy, I also tried just writing the same code in the kind of QR I think it was but that didn't look right at all.
I rarely ride first class but this trip I decided to splurge on first class tickets, which sadly were only available on the short leg of the trip (1h 30m), took advantage of the free hot beverage and wifi, running all my traffic through my Integrity VPN setup. I also brought my meshtastic node with me and ran that while traveling but didn't hit any nodes I could talk to.
Noticed there was a security camera on the train RIGHT above me where I was sitting, got me thinking about ways to counter them that I need to look into, the camera housing and the wooden frame of the train had some tolerance so maybe I can just slip a bent piece of paper in between them, but would the staff complain about it? Maybe privacy screens on my phone would help at least with blocking so it doesn't see my phone screen.
After I arrived, I took my yearly side pilgrimage to kebab Berlin, the only place I've found in Sweden that uses good bread for their kebabs, every other place the bread is so thin it LOOKS at the sauce in terror and disintegrates, disappointing this year though as they didn't have the same bread,saw some unifi devices that I might look into. This year we got free bus passes for the duration of the convention which was really nice, normally I walk all the way to the site from the train station or use scootypuffs. It took longer and it was crowded but at least I wasn't carrying my stuff all the way. When setting up my stuff in the sleeping hall I got to thinking if a light meter would be useful for optimizing my location for minimal light, I'll have to look into that.
Day 2
Woke up with a crick in my neck, hard to turn left, I guess at nearly 40 I'm not as spry as I once was, much to my dismay. Normally I have a very unhealthy diet at conventions but this convention was probably the least soda I have drank at any convention due to my ongoing boycott of USian goods. Hit the store for a bottle of water, some croissants and a cuba cola. Saw a flyer for learning HAM radio with a vtuber which I thought sounded interesting so I queued for that, turns out they were there physically and had a mask on so as to not out themselves. Did some short range communication using someone elses callsign, was out hunting for a fox (transmitter) while other people were attempting to do long range comms but because of the solar maximum they couldn't reach their intended recipient. Afterwards talked to the vtuber for a while, turns out they're quite the hacker, going to security cons, CCC, going dumpster diving and stuff. Reminded me of when I was younger and had more energy to do stuff like that. Also found another person there from my "hometown" who had LoRa gear with them, they turned me on to a local LoRa club that I'll be checking out in the future. After talking to some friends for a while, I had a bit of an anxiety thing so I sat somewhere, did my breathing exercises and tried to let myself feel the feelings like my shrink has told me to do. Eventually calmed down and even appreciated the moment I was in, which is hard for me. Popped into the arcade to play some games, Asteroid still rules.
More stuff happened but nothing I wrote down, noticed I have a pyspunka (very small hole) in my matress, I'll have to fix that.
Kind of a ramble honestly, but hopefully I'll be able to explore some of the things mentioned above.