Star Simpson's Blog

I just got in from a several-day’s jaunt through Zagreb and Ljubljana — both delightful cities.

I particularly like the massive sculpture of Nicola Tesla in this main square in Zagreb:

In Zagreb, I gave a talk to a lovely crowd at Club Mama (net.culture.club) about technology, MITERS, projects I’ve worked on, and the potential disasters associated with wearing LEDs on one’s clothing in the United States.  The talk was recorded in audio form, and has been posted online [ogg audio].

Thanks to flickr/tomislavmedak for photos, Marcell Mars for audio recording, and Club Mama for hosting the event.

I then traveled to Ljubljana to do some actual bona-fide sight-seeing/touristing, which seemed like a good use of the week between speaking in Zagreb, and heading to Berlin for the computing convention, 27c3.

Ljubljana was a picturesque tiny little European capitol — with a castle on a hill, a river, and attractive older architecture; everything you would want to raise a city around.  Also, this time of year they’ve given complete control over lighting design to someone with really great taste:

Central Square at night.  Hire Ljubljana’s light designers.

Ljubljana evidently also successfully used the “Here Be Dragons” meme to its defensive advantage.  This makes sense; if I were trying to protect a city as small as Ljubljana, I would want people to think it was infested with dragons, or possibly worse  (rumermongering before the age of twitter).

Here evidenced by the unusually strong presence of dragon sculpture and imagery that is all over Ljubljana:

So that’s what dragons really look like!

Following that I spent a lovely couple of days in Hamburg, and am currently writing from 27c3 in Berlin.  Say hi if you’re nearby!