MC's journal

Status 2026-09-20

Park path lined with trees, ground covered with leaves. A lonely green bench.
Figure 1: Late summer in Malmö.

Greetings, programs!

Status & sickness

I'm vertical! I have spent almost the entire week in bed with fever. Pain everywhere. My coughs tore like knives in my throat. It was terrible. Do not recommend.

The fever chills began on the train from Stockholm last Friday. Naturally, the train also ended up 1:30 hour late. So I sat there, shivering, thinking about my life choices.

I was supposed to get off in Lund, change train and then find my way to our country cottage where P and #3 were waiting. Feeling as bad as I did I decided to just go back to Malmö instead and hopefully not infect them, too.

A friendly cab driver managed to deliver me at home. I don't think I could walk very well.

Then I more or less passed out.

I didn't resurface for a couple of days. On Monday I stupidly thought I would attend dayjob's standup and even be able to comment on something that was waiting for me. But I had to interrupt the standup and just went back to bed, head spinning.

Didn't manage to work for the entire week! If I haven't replied to your mail or messages, this is why.

sec-t 2026

A very pale man dressed in black with a black cowboy hat and a white goatee standing on a stage with a laptop in front of him covered in stickers.
Figure 2: Some kind of goth cowboy? Photo by Lars.

The reason I was in Stockholm at all was the sec-t computer security conference. I presented on their Community Day with a very updated talk on "Increasing trust with measured & verified boot".

The recording is here:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H3BAsRau664

It's a complex subject and I had struggled a lot with diagrams to make it understandable with no previous knowledge. I was, of course, incredibly nervous and that didn't help, but all in all it could have gone much worse.

That evening I attended a very nice speaker's dinner and we had some nice drinks at Watson's bar in very nice company. Thank you! You know who you are.

Thursday and Friday I was a booth babe in dayjob's booth in the exhibition area at sec-t. I talked with so many people. This also meant I didn't manage to watch any talks at all. Lucky for me most of them are here (playlist, autostarts on first video):

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OjRS2NN-W-g&list=PLKdBD0LHS_Y4

sec-t might not be as extravagant as Chaos Communication Congress, but Thursday night they had Club sec-t, arranged by the fabolous people at Syntax Error. They hade booked no other than Master Boot Record to play on Thursday night! Chiptune metal! Awesome!

Helsingborg marathon

A couple of weeks ago we spent a weekend in Helsingborg. P ran the full marathon. Her 15th? I've lost count.

Helsingborg is very close so she could have gone there over the day but we spent a weekend in fancy Hotel Mollberg. This, of course, also meant a visit to the their nice bar.

A bar disk with an open book and a cocktail glass beside it.
Figure 3: Hannah Whittens' The Nightshade God and a Last word.
A marble bar disk with a view into the restaurant, painted pillars holding up the roof. Behind the bar, two bartenders in white discussing something. One of them stretching for a bottle.
Figure 4: The view of the bar.

I spent some time bar hopping with some friendly Americans. Late at night I found an old Halda mechanical typewriter in a corner of a bar. I couldn't fight the temptation.

A bald, very pale man with a white goatee dressed completely in black, with a novel in his suit jacket pockets, leans over a mechanical typewriter, looking back the viewer since someone called for him.
Figure 5: Natural nerd in action. Photo by Mike.

P ran in pretty nice weather and held good time. We later just walked around in a few shops and visited some restaurants and pubs, then the train home again.

Written by MC on Pungenday, the 44 day of Bureaucracy in the YOLD 3192 ().