Flutterby™! : Needed: a geek gathering 2004-05-19 22:52:46.630863+00

Needed: a geek gathering

2004-05-19 22:52:46.630863+00 by Dan Lyke 5 comments

Had lunch with Brian Warner today, the topics were wide ranging and deep, but one of the things that came up was a need for a geek gathering. Something in the Bay Area reminiscent of some of the gatherings and show-n-tells of the mid '90s, transcending Flutterby and Scotch Night (which has withered of late).

If you're in the Bay Area and would be interested in a gathering in which the mentioning of seeking of sysadmin or web design jobs would be strictly prohibited, drop a message or an email and let's see what we can work up. We need this.

There was a good one in Chattaboogie last night.. TeamUTC.Org is the beginnings of some pretty interesting UTC CompSci types to get involved in the DARPA Grand Challenge. A nice group of guys with that 'spark' in their eye thay makes you want to help them. Another local engineer type showed up.. and we had some good discussions.. Most of them on-topic! I cancelled yesterday's AITP meeting yesterday.. lack of interest. - Even the local IEEE Engineering society, which has some INCREDIBLE speakers and presentations.. is poorly attended by non-retired engineering types.

You (and the FidoNet Saturday Brunches) taught me how powerful and energizing such get-togethers can be at Chia-lunches. Those broad and deep conversations are something that even now.. I yearn for.

This is the kind of thing that I've indirectly been working towards for years. My spearhead was to (and hopefully still will be, someday) establish a GeeksOutdoors website/community. The idea was to spawn activities - outdoors (hiking, biking, etc.) or otherwise - with other geeks.

Personally, I don't do so well in social situations where the primary activity is socializing. I need to have some other reason to be there, and if I'm comfortable enough the socializing will just happen as a side effect.

#Comment You had lunch made: 2004-05-24 19:17:13.047718+00 by: baylink [edit history]

Grin. As I once remarked to someone trolling through Ross

asking if they knew where Sean Penn's house was: If you have to ask, I wouldn't tell you even if I knew...

In answering correspondence resulting from that entry about interpreting "light switch", I was reminded of the difficulties of remembering who knows whom by what name. I've thought a couple of times about trying to enhance the Flutterby software so that when I mention a name (or even "anonymous contributor") in an entry I can link to a page which will give a range of information from a repeat of that name as referenced in the post to that name with all known aliases, depending on what aliases you (as a person with an entry in the Flutterby user base) know.

For instance, when I say "anonymous correspondent" it'd be nice if I kept track of which anonymous correspondent made that suggestion, with contact info & such for them, and maybe they'd like to see what they've been credited with, but nobody else should know. And some of my social group works in movies or in... "live entertainment", and it'd be nice if those who know know which "Bill" I'm talking about, but I don't sound like I'm name dropping, or that "Angel" is the "Angel" that I know that they know without revealing information to would-be stalkers.