I'm currently sitting with the Pflieger Cocoonistas in the opening plenary. We could use more sleep but we had a great time yesterday night in two successive outdoor cafes. The price/quality ratio of food is really impressive in this town. And the beer is good (even in decent amounts, hint ;-)

Yesterday after the Blockathon I had the pleasure of meeting Ross Gardler, Giacomo Pati, Gregor J. Rothfuss and Brian McCallister, all of whom I knew only in writing until now. As usual, people are even nicer in real life!

Host Zuse (the son of Konrad Zuse himself) takes the stage for his origins of the computer talk. Delicious accent, it's just starting but it sounds really interesting. He's showing the 1984 Ridley Scott video now.

Update: Horst Zuse's talk was awesome, a fascinating journey through history. Five hertz clock speeds, mechanical memory - wow! Attendees and presenters of other talks will hopefully notice his extensive use of pictures and videos in slides ;-)

Update #2: Brian has some details about yesterday evening's conversation. He seems to find the ping tunnel and webpage-compiling-classloared ideas sick and twisted ;-)