rC3World on CCC Event Blog

#rC3: Community Highlights

Tue, 22 Dec 2020 23:14:44 +0000

Hello and welcome as we approach the finish line!

Today we have some more important or practical information and a little retrospective of our blogpost series, concluded and garnished with a few thoughts on festivity, elective families and tradition.

First up, a correction to the weekend post: Close proximity conversations in the rC3-World do not run via Jitsi, but are part of the World-software and peer-to-peer. Jitsi is used for larger communication spaces in the rC3 World.
There is now a How-To-Play.

Those of you who carefully read during the weekend can rejoice again:
Today, Wednesday the 23rd, we will have a load test of our Jitsi instances and we’re inviting you to join us! Keep your eyes peeled for the announcement later today and join in large numbers to the location linked in the upcoming blog post from 6pm (GMT+1)! Bring your friends, chat or warble a little song. As a treat, the Jitsi servers will remain open throughout the Christmas period. Feel free to use them to meet your (elective) family in a data-saving way – distance is cool, but being together nevertheless is even better!

Heavenly helpers can join us on 25.12. (aka Day -1) for a small but nice social huddle in heaven. So if you don’t know what’s going on yet, are alone, curious or looking for exchange, you’re welcome to join!

We announced that you don’t have to click tickets for bots. The solution is here:
For bot access, please click an account in the Maschinenraum and then contact us here. Tell us your bot account and your supervising account. Your Maschinenraum account will then be converted into a bot account and linked to your user account on the platform. Please note: Bot accounts will be disabled before other accounts in case of performance issues on the rC3-platform.

Community Submissions

In reaction to our musical-lyrical opener, we received more material from you that we won’t spare you with.
The creature who sent this additional piece wonders why this song is always passed over among the weird classics:
“World Wide Web Girl (Radio Version)”

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RkTjZR77Neo

And if you still require lyrical assist to recite under the Christmas tree, we have something from the submissions on offer:

A bit set to low on a logical gate
where data might flow and change the bit’s state
suddenly flipped to high.
So it carried the date from it’s source to it’s drain
to the next logic gate that was forming the brain
of an overly hyped AI.

– cyriax’ thoughts on emergent intelligence

Our heart goes out to all participants and we hope you enjoy reciting their work as much as we did.

Best of December

We looked at that internetz thingy and found: You’re ready for rC3 and you’re prepared!
You have exchanged a huge amount of stickers. There were build-up leaks from your living rooms – the mate boxes are piling up to unimaginable heights. We even got fanart on mate and beer bottles. <3

Rocket-shaped biscuits were baked and waffling-rehearsals happened. Of course, someone correctly noted that there can never be too many waffles. Nevertheless, the recipe was converted to a manageable trial quantity as a precaution.
For those who want to decorate themselves, fan wrist bands and small rocket badges are an option. You’ve even liberated software and designed creative Angel concepts for access control at one’s own front door!

Unfortunately we cannot answer some hopeful calls, such as the vaccination of all participants by the CERT.
But your keen interest in the many current technical and social topics tagged with #rC3 shows us that it was the right decision to venture into the rC3 experiment.

Buildup During the Holidays

Even if it is kept secular, Christmas has a certain tradition at the Congress. Far away from home and only in the circle of one’s chosen family, Day -2 is the last break before the event begins. For half a day the halls are closed and instead of storage, set-up and material there is food, entertainment and creatures.
It is up to you when you feel you have arrived, when you think you are ready to start, and where you place your individual event start. But the morning after Day -2 is a good candidate to start: “Just a short Christmas, I have to go to the Congress.”

Keeping this in mind, only five more sleeps and it’s rC3! And no arguing, being exhausted in the chaos ain’t fun for anyone. The 6-2-1-rule also applies at home! So take care of yourself and the beings around you. More on this and our last useful tips await you on Saturday.

#rC3: Technicians Are Informed!

Sat, 19 Dec 2020 23:28:42 +0000

Hello and Welcome to post No 6 on our chaotic journey to the remote Chaos Experience 2020.
Like the last few weekends, we bring you helpful, knowable and simple things(TM) that everyone can practically put in their pockets. The information noted here was all screwed up, made possible and gained from volunteers kept in a nerd-appropriate manner.

On that note, mate, unicorn and biscuits packed….

What the FAQ?

For rC3, even more information than usual needs to flow: Everything is new and the swarm knowledge you pass on year after year has to emerge. We have ground to make up in terms of implementation and we are doing our best. Even if we can’t answer every social media post personally: We are listening and try to include the responses here!
We have noticed that some questions that have already been answered continue to be asked here and there. We’re trying to make the answers more accessible – the rC3 calendar blogposts are still worth reading, of course, but difficult to search.
That’s why the Infodesk is getting in on the act earlier this time and preparing a new FAQ section for you at https://rc3.world/infodesk. You can send your questions to infodesk at rc3.world at any time. Questions on other channels such as social media can only be answered when the Infodesk shifts start on day 1.

Machine Room Update

Good news for assemblies: The machine room has seen the light of day!
You can find it via https://maschinenraum.rc3.world. Instructions on how to use it can be found at https://howto.rc3.world/maschinenraum.html.
Please create your assemblies, enter your sessions and make your first badges!

The Technology Thing (aka: “Can you hear me now?)

rC3 uses a variety of communication technologies, including web conferencing, chats and the like. Some core technologies are directly integrated into the world, while others that have evolved historically are also to be served. To help you find your way around and to give all beings as smooth and seamless an introduction as possible, we present the most common and important systems here. For most of you, lots of these should be familiar, and perhaps you will learn a few tricks that will help you to say goodbye to data-guzzling top dogs in the long run – or to get your families to do so.

For workshops, i.e. self-organised sessions, etc. we’re using Big Blue Button. BBB is a web conferencing system with whiteboard, breakout rooms, polls, etc. The documentation is very comprehensive and easy to understand. Reading time for the basic functions is about 15-30 min.
Similar to BBB, but integrated directly into the 2D world is Jitsi. This is intended for ad hoc conversations in close proximity. It’s very easy to use, so it’s not a big deal that there’s no usable documentation for the application area; we can all manage that.
Enough words, let’s click pictures. Here are a few impressions of what it will look like:

entering a room

video conference

General things that might need some preparation:

Consent: If you are used to the usual commercial applications, you might be unsettled by the many consent requests in BBB or even the 2D world. Don’t panic, the requests are normal. Many applications do not explicitly require these consents, or they take place in a very simplified way. During rC3, as well as with Jitsi and BBB in general, you always have the possibility to decide for yourself what is shared and what is not.

Microphone: If possible, use a headset and adjust the settings on your machines/computers to the headset. Have a small session with friends, acquaintances and other beings to check this. But you’ve probably become experts in the last few months anyway and you’re rocking it.

Camera: Even the image quality of the normally over-taped cameras can be improved with a few tricks. Level 1: more light. At least illuminate the face (if it’s a daylight lamp even better; if you want to buy one, you can find some without esoteric gobbledygook in photo supply). If direct lighting is too stark, you can achieve indirect lighting by using a fabric that does not lie directly on the lamp or by bouncing the light off a white wall. Just try out some setups.

So much for the systems used and integrated into the rC3 World. Now to the structures that have grown historically …

IRC

Simply said, not different from the classic online chat rooms of the 00s, simple and fast. As said, not rC3-official, but many teams and spaces are permanent residents here, so it’s worth a visit with a little digging in:
https://www.hackint.org/connect

Voice Chat With Mumble

Apropos “digging in” … Since we do not maintain Mumble servers for rC3, Mumble is not a necessary prerequisite for participation. However, many Spaces do maintain such servers and you might be invited to spend the evening with nice people on one of them. To get the fun started as quickly as possible, you can already install and set up Mumble beforehand.
You can find client downloads in the package manager of your Linux distribution or for all desktop operating systems at https://www.mumble.info/. Many app stores also offer Mumble clients for mobile devices.
Mumble comes with an audio wizard in the configuration settings, i.e. a tool that helps you step by step to set up your microphone and headphones. You should run this once. Pro-tip: Mumble does not adopt the audio settings from the operating system. If something goes wrong, check the Mumble settings to see which microphone or headphones are selected.
You are welcome to use the Push-To-Talk function, which switches your microphone on only when you press a button and prevents the transmission of coughs and loudly knocking over mate bottles.
To join a server, you then only need the server address and port, and a password if necessary.
Mumble may seem like a step backwards for many, but it allows for pretty good communication and latency on bad connections (a shout out goes to the many dead spots of Germany and the eternal bandwidth expansion).

And that brings us to the end of our entry for today. The whole team is working hard to make sure that everything will not only be up and running in eight days, but will also look great. We think we speak for everyone when we say we are looking forward to it and can hardly wait.
Stay healthy, take breaks and be patient with yourself, wherever and whoever you are.

rC3: virtueller Aufbau

Sat, 05 Dec 2020 21:28:52 +0000

Welcome back, this time we’re in “serious Saturday” mood, presenting the latest info on #rC3 participation.

We bring you this message while hard at work with the digital build-up. Oldtimers among you might wonder where the Wiki is, when the “Fahrplan” (schedule) will be available and what you can already prepare with and for your assembly.

The short answer is: yes.

Tickets

The most pressing question probably is if and when more tickets will be available. Our volunteers are working hard trying to solve this problem, a big Thank You to them for that. We’ll get back to you as soon as we have additional news on this topic, in the meantime you can find all available info in this blogpost.

What is the ticket actually for?

As usual at Congress, no ticket is required to access the #rC3 streams, you’ll be able to watch those on media.ccc.de.

The customary Fahrplan for the streams will soon be published here.

Merchandising is also available without a ticket this year, but be aware that the webshop can only guarantee everything to be available until Sunday Dec. 6th, so hurry up and finalize those orders until then!

What do you need a ticket for, actually?
Your ticket will contain credentials for all the #rC3 services (SSO in nerd parlance). Starting point will be the new platform we’re just finalising, it will be available under https://rc3.world. The link might still be worth a look now and a bookmark as it will contain an overview and additional links until then.

Wiki, Fahrplan, Hello World

Everything’s different this year, so #rC3 is running on a new and different software as well. This platform contains all info from the Wiki, the Fahrplan and more, all with a single login. Participants will have one place to look for official events as well as the assemblies, their projects and self-organised sessions. This means that the community content as well as access to workshops and voice/video-chats will all happen on this platform. This will be completed by the assembly-spaces in the “rC3 World”, an online 2D world.

Assemblies offering free content on their own infrastructure will be able to link to those and inform ticket-holders through the rC3 platform.

The rC3 platform will offer badges as a replacement for the usual sticker-swap tables, we hope this will satisfy your hunter-gatherer instincts. Assemblies can offer 2 types of badges:

Sticker mode: showing up at the assembly gets the user a badge
Achievement mode: the assembly decides what a user has to accomplish in order to get a badge, for example solving a riddle.

The rC3 platform will keep track of a user’s badges, the user can then decide which of their own badges should be visible to other participants.

Engine room

Back to our build-up session! As in previous years we’re looking forward to all this wonderful and diverse content you and your assemblies will create to enrich and participate in this event. Assemblies will have access to a back office courtesy of our software angels. There you will be able to:

offer events and workshops (online, streaming, …)
announce your own projects
manage the members of your assembly and invite them to your back office
create your own assembly rooms (in the #rC3 World, in the voice/video-chat and so on)
upload and manage badges for your assembly

The engine room is in essence the organiser’s corner of your assembly, where you can manage the content your assembly plans to offer and which will then be available to participants. We will launch the engine room shortly and update this space with a link when this happens.

Virtual build-up in the #rC3 World

If you would like to design your own space for your assembly in the #rC3 World keep reading.
Our software angels have written a how-to for designing your own #rC3 World-compatible map in https://howto.rc3.world/maps.html .

Some pixel-pushing angels and assemblies have already created some building blocks and additional material, hoping to provide you with inspiration for your own map. We’ve created a tiles repository, already filled with lovingly crafted compatible pixel graphics and to which you will be able to add your own. It wouldn’t be a Chaos event if you weren’t able to bring your own decorations, would it? The current collection is available at the #rC3 tiles repository.

As the #rC3 seems to have a knack for attracting controversial topics (or the memes you made of them) from events past, we’ll simply do the #Aufbauleaks (build-up leaks) ourselves this time around. If you don’t want to peek (and keep the surprise momentum) please shut your eyes and keep scrolling!

The #rC3 is just being realised, please stand by.