This is my view right now: Not many people, yet. Everybody is working hard in building up. While I sit here and type, a man (should i say "boy"? I sometimes feel old...) sets himself on the chair next to me and asks me if I'm the one who's writing a daily log of the conference. He had seen the announcement on the hip website. His badge (which everybody must wear visibly all the time) says he's Mandrake, his nick on irc and elsewhere on the net. He's curious about what I'm doing, interested, he likes the idea of having an online continuous log of HIP. I feel old when he keeps saying "U" to me instead of "je". In Dutch, both "je" and "U" mean "you", but "" is more formal, one uses that for addressing people you don't know and who are older than you, or to elderly people in general. He must think I'm old. He asks me if I'm a reporter, and what I do. I explain I read the program and I go to the events I like, and then write about it. The story I write so reflects my interest in the conference. Mandrake seems surprised I take a genuine interest in what's going on at HIP. He thinks I'm a reporter. I explain I may not be a real hacker, but I'm not here because I write about HIP, on the contrary,I write about HIP because I'm here and I like to write. He looks as if he doesn't believe me. His friend passes by, and together they go have lunch. Which reminds me I haven't had lunch yet, it's 12:11 now. I woke up early, not here at HIP I must confess. I went home late yesterday night to pick up some things, fix my server at home and come back early this morning. Tonight I'll go home pick up my friend, she has to work today. She'll do a workshop on spam, one of the main subjects of HIP. One of the biggest nuisances on the internet, too. I get five spam message a day, all saying "if you want to be removed from our list please .." then explaining what I can do to get me off their list. I've never bothered to try. I hope we can find a remedy against spam this weekend. The infozuil is taking it's place in the middle of the Hall tent. Mostly unused, every once in a while someone tries, pushing the keys, wondering what it is, and then shrug and leave the thing alone. The most useful function of the thing is made visible now by three people, standing around it, talking to eachother, so getting to know eachother, and leaving the infozuil stand useless. Thursday is the most interesting day of HIP. All kinds of people, most of them carrying portofoons, indicating they're staff and volunteers. btw, everybody is a volunteer at HIP. That is, the standard badge you get says you're a volunteer. As Rop explained, that makes sure people feel obliged to help other people if asked. Among these volunteers there's many people I know, either from the net or from "real life". I should think of another word for "real life". RL suggest the net is not real. But in many ways the net is as real as anything else. Who knows a better word for "irl"? All these people, having in common they're HIPpers, are very different. They look different, they talk differently, they behave differently. Yet you can easily see they belong to the hackers community. What would happen if an alien would get to hip, get their badge and mingle? Supposing the alien wouldn't be green with antenna's on her head, would she be recognized. Supposing people would look up from their screens watching who's passing by, would they see that the person with the funny look, maybe purple or orange, with the built-in computer and three legs, is an alien? What if an alien would show themselves to just a couple of people, the rest of us not seeing them? Hmm. Maybe the sun is getting to much for me. I think I'll go have lunch now. Next page