Star Simpson's Blog

Hello June! Here are some notable events that have happened in the last six months, and then some things that are going to happen in the future. With photos.

December 2010/January:

• Went to Croatia (coverage here) and gave a talk on projects I’ve built and engineering, attended a tech gathering, taught an Arduino workshop



• Stopped at the 27c3 and caught some amazing computer security talks, notably a talk by djb tearing into DNSSec, and Bruce Deng’s summary (sans collaborator) of reverse engineering Stuxnet
• Went to Iceland for 2 weeks; and felt that if there’s a part of me that produces the feeling appreciation of nature, it was painfully overworked.  With just 4 hours of daylight.

February:

• Taught myself to ski and snowboard at Whistler

April:

• A grueling motorcycle trip from California to Seattle

May:

• Visited Ireland
• Flew sailplanes (that’s “gliders” elsewhere) in eastern Washington

And here are some things I think I’m going to do on a five year timescale:

• I would love to ride in the Paris-Dakar rally, on a motorcycle. I’ve been daydreaming about ways you could put two riders on one bike, with a crash cage or harness system of some sort around the passenger, so that one person could ride and the other could sleep, allowing for nonstop travel. For some reason, I think this would be fun.
• Glider pilot’s license. I want one. I’ve had actual dreams now where I’m flying sailplanes. As they say, listen to yourself!

Also this week, I’m moving from Seattle, will spend the rest of the month at home in Hawaii. I expect to reappear, in San Francisco, by July.