PirateBoxCamp

If you’ve been keeping abreast of all the hijinks over at my Hacker in Residence blog you’ll know that I’ve become interested in the PirateBox project, an ingenious “make a wireless webserver on a $35 box” project. I love the project for many reasons, perhaps most for how much it evokes the spirit of Internet 1.0, back before SEO and “social media marketing” and analytics and monetization, the Internet driven by View | Source. The notion of creating a box that is not connected to the Internet, on purpose, is an oddly powerful idea.

As such, when PirateBox Camp was announced, I knew in my heart-of-hearts that I had to attend. Besides, it’s in Berlin. In the summer. How could I not go.

I must admit that the notion of a “camp” for PirateBox seems, on the surface, completely absurd. Of course that only increases the attraction: only absurd people will go to an absurd camp, and so I’m sure there will be all sorts of interesting discussion and hacking happening on Saturday and Sunday.

As an added bonus, Olle and Luisa are jetting down from Sweden for the weekend, and Morgan is already there, so it will be like old home week.

That all of this is the result of a single photo that Mita (Zap Your PRAM alumnus) pushed to Flickr in April, a photo that piqued my curiousity, ties the knot of the happenstancery of it all.

I’m off to Berlin tomorrow night, and I’m there until next Wednesday morning.

Let the absurdity begin!