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I like your explanation, and hypothetical examples. Thank you for spending the time to explain these viewpoints as you did.

It seems to me like the critical portion of this question is the definition of the word "owe." I tend to take the viewpoint of the third group when it comes to the word "owe." I don't believe it's possible to "owe" someone something without some kind of agreement. I pay for my employees to provide "free" WordPress support, since my company makes a decent chunk of our income on the "free" WordPress ecosystem. I do this because I'd like to contribute back to WordPress, it's a good marketing channel to show people what we're capable of, and I appreciate the fact that I, individually, was able to un-learn programming and learn WordPress configuration through these Meetups. I think that is a good thing to do, but I do not owe this to anyone. Whenever someone says that my company owes this, I correct them, and let them know that we do not owe anyone for the use of WordPress. This mentality, and way of phrasing this sense of obligation, makes moderate, reasonable, people angry and consider the speaker to be an entitled person that does not properly understand obligation.

I also think the term "taking advantage of" in the headline puts the person that created the headline into the first group. This seems like a petitio principii (begging the question) rhetorical technique, which already assumes that the answer to the question is "Yes, Amazon owes for unfairly taking advantage of the free labor provided by Wikipedia."

Bullshit.

Proof: Microsoft (R) Online Services Global Criminal Compliance Handbook

That handbook is about specific information requested through proper legal channels, such as a subpoena, warrant or an NSL. All companies are required to comply with those. It is not about scanning all email for keywords like TFA is describing. Perhaps Microsoft is doing what Yahoo did, but your link is not proof of that.

> Microsoft spokesperson told Vocativ that "We have never engaged in the secret scanning of email traffic like what has been reported today about Yahoo."

Bullshit.

Proof: Microsoft (R) Online Services Global Criminal Compliance Handbook

Could be true. Key element in MS quote: "like what has been reported ... about Yahoo." Meaning, they scan your emails for *other* reasons, like for marketing and demographic information -- I'm looking at you Google too.

> Microsoft spokesperson told Vocativ that "We have never engaged in the secret scanning of email traffic like what has been reported today about Yahoo."

Bullshit.

Proof: Microsoft (R) Online Services Global Criminal Compliance Handbook

Now, now. Remember, "Binary is for Computers!

                        http://www.meetup.com/Boston-D...

It was one of the funniest, and stupidest, presentations I've ever seen at those DevOps meetups. A "non-gendered" wannabe lectured on and on about how we, in the DevOps workplace, need to not acknowledge the existence of gender at all. It was the best case of "I can't admit I have a gender, so I can pretend I'm not jealous of people on the top of the workplace foodchain. And so I don't look stupid doing it, nobody else gets to have a gender either!!! Boo-hoo, watch me cry like a little sad princess about how *unfair* you are!!!!" political correctness I've seen in decades. If I saw that resume (and I did, a few months later!), I'd flush it for "mathematical inability to tell concave from convex".

Frankly, I spent *decades* picking up this sort of left-wing nutjob. And, hey, there was a fresh crop every four years!!!!

Dating is only tiny sliver of what meetup.com. Take for example the hundreds of these politics-related meetups.

And if the results are bad for the Dems, will you all publish?

Of course, they will. Avast is a scamware company. They thrive on misinformation, fear, and publicity.

http://avastscam.com/a-track-record-of-fraud/

Avast's CEO has even blamed its affiliates for their scams, which he claims they deactivated and are no longer forwarding phone calls from their 800 numbers to, but once the bad press died down, nothing changed, and their current affiliates are still scaring grandpas and grandmas everywhere into shelling out hundreds of dollars for worthless Avast products that claim to fix problems that those people didn't even have in the first place.

The only story that everyone seems to be missing right now is the fact that a well-known scamware company was able to place wireless hotspots within the Republican National Convention, and is actually bragging about it after the fact. I ask you. How many convention goers used their credit cards from the convention floor during that time? How many people logged into their banks to wire donations? How many used those hotspots to check email from their own private insecure servers sitting in their homes? Don't tell me that Democrats are the only ones doing it. Colin Powell, for instance, admitted as such for when he was Secretary of State.

By letting Avast scam artists get into their convention, the republicans really made a huge mistake.

I work a few blocks from the proposed HQ site and there are construction cranes in all directions, & there is plenty of demand for office space in Fort Point and excellent freeway access due to Big Dig exit at convention center. We already have enough Internet of Things meetups believe it or not.

Muckrock and the Boston Institute of Nonprofit Journalism tried to raise $1700 demanded by the mayor's office for reproducing the GE emails. But who needs emails when the charm offensive has begun? BINJ did a five-part series on the scheme.

These crony style one-off deals are always terrible economics. The "free market" certainly will fill that space very soon. There is no lack of demand, instead tons of local money already develops this area. In Jan 2015 a parking ramp in Fort Point sold for $56 million or $106,500 per spot!

As noted above many in the population are furious #MakeGEpay protesting in the freeze of last weekend's clipper. (Mayor Walsh was elected with 52% on 38% turnout). The schools are facing a $50 million shortfall, students walked out just a few days ago partially protesting this.

In this deal they don't have to pay regular taxes, instead they get to muck around in the local school system with all the purse strings attached as the press release makes clear. Instead of letting the city get normal tax revenue and the School Board allocate money for programs GE gets to basically do what it likes, as the press release clearly specifies.

Sen. Sanders said they are "destroying the moral fabric" of the USA. Boston Magazine reported in January:

"GE isn't exactly a shining model of corporate conduct. The company is one of most notorious abusers of offshore tax havens, with $119 billion stashed away across 18 overseas locations as of 2015. Democratic presidential hopeful Sen. Bernie Sanders once named GE the nation's top corporate tax avoider. From 2002 to 2011, GE eliminated a fifth of its U.S. workforce while its offshore profits multiplied sixfold to $92 billion."

Do you really think that some of these Beacon Hill luminaries haven't been looking forward to a taste of that offshore $119,000,000,000?? The centralization of decisionmaking in the schools, by withholding program revenue, is unfolding in parallel to this incredible offshore tax scam. Maybe they want Ft Point Channel access to float in barges of cash, why not? I am disappointed none of this important info is in the story summary.

This is a single event, not a new Silicon Valley with a "no boys allowed" sign up front. It's not even female-only, the only requirement is they're founded by women. There are still men in attendance in every other role, including members of the start ups.

...

Why would a guy give a crap about being excluded from this event? It's one event.

Just for fun, here's another one. It's a professional meetup - the classic "business networking" kind of event that led to the sexual desegregation of country clubs - happening today in San Francisco. The description is pretty blunt: "Sorry, no men allowed".

> I'm sick and tired of the Microsoft is evil crap.

Sticking your head in the sand doesn't make the problem go away.

1. Maybe if Microsoft would come clean with how much data they collect people might actually trust them again.

Microsoft also provides some country specific domains such as .co.uk, .fr, .it, .de, .es, .th, .tk, .co.jp
* Currently all e-mail service customer data is stored in the U.S. even if the account name contains a country specific domain.

2. Gee, nice to know MS is back porting their privacy-invading Windows 10 features to Windows 7, 8.

Every time you turn around MS is selling you out.

Here's URLs where the event was announced.

http://www.meetup.com/SVPerl/e...

http://perl6releasetalk.ticket...

You should direct the job hoppers to a place like Nerdery where they can develop their skill and learn to work with a team (I've only worked at two companies, neither of them Nerdery, I've only visited their HQ for meetups, it's a nice place). If you need programmers to work on things, you could hire Nerdery to do them or maybe even hire some of their programmers directly (not sure about the latter).

Attend a local user meet-up for PHP development. You should easily be able to find one at Meetup. Simply showing your face is a great start, but if you really want visibility to local employers who are hiring, put together and submit a presentation regardless of how basic it may seem. Try not to say "I don't know that" but instead talk like you're interested in learning more but without BS-ing. Most likely the people hiring will have seen a lot more than you have and won't have time for someone who pretends to know things they don't, but will greatly appreciate enthusiasm and an eagerness to learn. Once you start to get to know people and they get to know you, you'll find the type of people you actually want to work for/with and the feeling will be mutual.

I research hard AI. In my view thinking through and tackling example problems is the best way to explore a topic. If you require your system to mirror our current understanding of neuroscience, then you're essentially researching the algorithms of the brain.

If you're specifically looking into epilepsy and related, consider checking out William Calvin's website. He's an experimental neuroscientist from University of Washington, who wrote many books that explain the neurological foundations of the brain in readable form with good detail.

(1) What are some interesting computational neuroscience simulation problems

Pretty much anything AI falls under that category. Go over to Kaggle.com and check out some of their competitions, including their past competitions. Check out the Google AI lab and see what they're doing, and check out recent publications to see what people are trying to solve. Ask yourself: Are humans better than the computer, and can it be done better?

Here's a video of a system that uses neuron simulation (of a sort) to recognize hand-written digits. A hand-written digits dataset is in the UCI archive below.

(2) Is it easy for a non-academic to get the required data?

Generally, yes. UCI has a repository of machine-learning datasets. The researchers supporting Kaggle competitions frequently release their data.

I've found that researchers are generally approachable, and will give away copies of their data (I have 4 datasets from researchers). As a personal anecdote, last week a researcher from this very forum sent me his dataset of Mars altitude images - I'm trying to come up with an algorithm to recognize craters.

(3) I am familiar with (but not used extensively) simulators like Neuron, Genesis etc. Other than these and Matlab, what other software should I get?

In my view, pick a computer language that has a wide support network of libraries, and code things from scratch.Something like Perl or R. At some point you will want to break open the box and see what's actually happening inside, and familiarity with the system (having constructed it) is key. You will want to insert trace statements, print out intermediate results, and so on. Most of the pre-built systems don't have what you will ultimately want, and building simulation objects isn't terribly hard.

(4) Where online or offline, can I network with other DIY Computational Neuroscience enthusiasts?

Please let me know if you find any (by posting a response).

I've found that most AI enthusiasts are really "big data" enthusiasts, and most of them are all about business rather than AI. The IRC AI chatrooms are all but dead, and most of what is there are students asking for help with their homework. (Although to be fair, the lurkers there know everything about AI and can answer questions and make suggestions if you're stuck.)

The NEAI meetup in Cambridge is mostly spectators - people who want to find out about AI or how to use AI ("how can I use AI to improve the performance of my financial company?"). I hear there's an AI meetup out on the West coast that's pretty good.

See if there's a meetup in your area for something related, or start one and see if anyone shows up.

I research hard AI. In my view thinking through and tackling example problems is the best way to explore a topic. If you require your system to mirror our current understanding of neuroscience, then you're essentially researching the algorithms of the brain.

If you're specifically looking into epilepsy and related, consider checking out William Calvin's website. He's an experimental neuroscientist from University of Washington, who wrote many books that explain the neurological foundations of the brain in readable form with good detail.

(1) What are some interesting computational neuroscience simulation problems

Pretty much anything AI falls under that category. Go over to Kaggle.com and check out some of their competitions, including their past competitions. Check out the Google AI lab and see what they're doing, and check out recent publications to see what people are trying to solve. Ask yourself: Are humans better than the computer, and can it be done better?

Here's a video of a system that uses neuron simulation (of a sort) to recognize hand-written digits. A hand-written digits dataset is in the UCI archive below.

(2) Is it easy for a non-academic to get the required data?

Generally, yes. UCI has a repository of machine-learning datasets. The researchers supporting Kaggle competitions frequently release their data.

I've found that researchers are generally approachable, and will give away copies of their data (I have 4 datasets from researchers). As a personal anecdote, last week a researcher from this very forum sent me his dataset of Mars altitude images - I'm trying to come up with an algorithm to recognize craters.

(3) I am familiar with (but not used extensively) simulators like Neuron, Genesis etc. Other than these and Matlab, what other software should I get?

In my view, pick a computer language that has a wide support network of libraries, and code things from scratch.Something like Perl or R. At some point you will want to break open the box and see what's actually happening inside, and familiarity with the system (having constructed it) is key. You will want to insert trace statements, print out intermediate results, and so on. Most of the pre-built systems don't have what you will ultimately want, and building simulation objects isn't terribly hard.

(4) Where online or offline, can I network with other DIY Computational Neuroscience enthusiasts?

Please let me know if you find any (by posting a response).

I've found that most AI enthusiasts are really "big data" enthusiasts, and most of them are all about business rather than AI. The IRC AI chatrooms are all but dead, and most of what is there are students asking for help with their homework. (Although to be fair, the lurkers there know everything about AI and can answer questions and make suggestions if you're stuck.)

The NEAI meetup in Cambridge is mostly spectators - people who want to find out about AI or how to use AI ("how can I use AI to improve the performance of my financial company?"). I hear there's an AI meetup out on the West coast that's pretty good.

See if there's a meetup in your area for something related, or start one and see if anyone shows up.

I've got exactly what you need! Tinfoil hats are cheap. They are easy, to make too, it takes less than two minutes. Don't believe the MIT study that debunks the time honored tinfoil hat, it's a government conspiracy you know!

Don't worry, there are support groups for conspiracy theorists! Now I know like any number of other conspiracy theories those pesky facts might get in the way. However, learn from Joseph Goebbels and don't ever let logic, facts or reality get in your way. I know you look like a raving lunatic to any rational person, but not to worry, there is someone even crazier will soon show up to defend you, so cheer up!

It is better to think of FBP as a language / methodology for software architecture. FBP ideas are indeed old, yet tend to be ignored. FBP keeps resurfacing and keeps being rediscovered ("steam engine time"). This is due to the fact that these ideas do solve real problems encountered in software design. Software practioners who care about software design are the ones who rediscover FBP, or immediately "get it" when they find out about it. An excerpt from my slides (intro.ppt) here http://www.meetup.com/Toronto-GTA-Flow-Based-Programming-Meetup/files/ ... FBP is Often Compared to... - Erlang, CSP, Actors. FBP is hierarchical and sibling components are invisible to one another. - UML. FBP is meant for compiling designs, not modelling them. - LabView. FBP presevers component separation at runtime. - Scratch, et al. FBP is primarily meant to simplify software engineering / architecture. FBP is not targeted at non-programmers, per se. [If you're in the GTA, feel free to come out to the next meetup, Oct. 23. Join the meetup.com group, the google group, the Bento Miso mailing list https://www.bentomiso.com/ , or email me paul.tarvydas@gmail.com]

I've got exactly what you need! Tinfoil hats are cheap. They are easy, to make too, it takes less than two minutes. Don't believe the MIT study that debunks the time honored tinfoil hat, it's a government conspiracy you know!

Don't worry, there are support groups for conspiracy theorists! Now I know like any number of other conspiracy theories those pesky facts might get in the way. However, learn from Joseph Goebbels and don't ever let logic, facts or reality get in your way. I know you look like a raving lunatic to any rational person, but not to worry, there is someone even crazier will soon show up to defend you, so cheer up!

The PI gives you a cheap, but fairly capable Linux computer in size of a cigaratte pack and under $50. Then you can plug sensors,e.g. range finder, and actuators, e.g. rolling motor feet, into its I/O ports. Some of the other vendors mentioned in this thread sell these devices. Then you stick a monitor & keyboard temprarily into the PI to program it as a computer.

I havent done this myself, but saw a demo.

I attend an AI group in Boston (for about two years ongoing) and I've learned to not give out my E-mail for this very reason.

Giving an E-mail address results in them entering it into LinkedIn, which results in me being spammed forever by that system. People I've never heard of send messages "I'd like to add you to my professional network on LinkedIn" (some store owner in a distant city).

The message has a convenient opt-out link, whose page is hilariously ambiguous:

"You're receiving these emails because a LinkedIn member invited you to become a part of their professional network. By clicking the "Unsubscribe" button, you will stop receiving these emails"

Two checkboxes below are labelled "Invitations to connect" and "Reminders to connect".

It took me awhile to realize that you have to *check* the boxes to stop receiving E-mails, instead of *uncheck* the boxes which is how pretty-much all other sites handle it.

I've never seen a compelling need for this LinkedIn service. Sure, if a member could manage their contacts effectively it might be useful, but the system auto-encourages bigger and more comprehensive webs... which are at the same time less and less useful.

My impression is that many of the people on the site are "salesmen" types, who think contact circles indicate how impressive they are. Professional networks just for the purpose of having professional networks.

Thanks, but no thanks. The address-book in my E-mail client works just fine. It even lets me add notes about the person - where I met them, what they do, &c.

It also doesn't hold my contact info up for everyone to see.

Okay, lets say there is an actual bubble, and places are hiring, how do I get a position? I've tried online job boards, and I'll find 300 technical recruiters who say they're thoroughly impressed with what I have on my resume, but I've only ever had three interviews in the past 10 years from these people. There has to be a better way. On paper, I should be in demand, I've programmed my entire life and can make Android and ios aps.

Come out to the Newtech Meetup and similar regular events. Specifically watch for the "Shout Outs" but also just talk to people. Backend database is actually in more demand than front end app development but both come up.

Their best one was OMG PONIES, but they can't do that one ironically anymore because people actually like ponies now.

Not in Tehran they don't.

http://bronies.meetup.com/members/ir/tehran/

Granted they probably have to meet in secret if they don't want to end up with their heads on pikes in the name of most merciful Allah.

Yeah but he's describing Meetup, seems like that battle is already lost.

http://www.meetup.com/RAW-Foundation/members/24218882/

I've had a lot of success with Meetup: http://www.meetup.com/

Obviously, YMMV depending on your local community, but I've participated in lots of fun games of pick-up kickball, softball, etc. Considering half the people at any given sporting event had a beer in their hand when not actually on the field, lack of physical ability didn't seem to upset anyone.

FYI - I'm the London JUG co-leader, we have a seat on the Java Standards Body (aka the JCP) and I've seen first hand the Oracle and Java community challenges :-).

I think Oracle's record with the Java community is turning around in the right direction. They clearly didn't know how to the deal with the community to begin with, but I'll give em credit for trying their damnedest to get better at it! For example:

• They offer amazing amounts of (no strings attached) support to the Java User Groups (we've certainly had it better than we did under Sun). They put their $/£ where their mouth is and offer logistical support for user group events to boot (again, no strings attached).
• They set a date for Java 7, and they delivered the darn thing.
• They're working on the JCP reforms, starting with openness and transparency (JSR-348) and they will have a follow-up JSR to address all of the legal/licensing etc concerns (promises to be a humdinger of a mailing list).
• They've gotten a number of major community players into the OpenJDK (some will argue dubiously, but hey having Apple, SAP, IBM, RedHat on board is not to be sneezed at).

Now before the sceptics spit out their coffee:

• Have they screwed up a bunch of times? Yeah sure they have, Hudson/Jenkins, the Java Web Start thing and a few others.
• Do they communicate in a way that the community would like them to? Definitely not always, they like to keep silent until they get the official ducks in a row.
• Are there issues around legal/licensing? Heck yes. and that's going to make for an interesting 2012, I suggest you become part of the JCP process so you can have your say.

So there's definitely stuff to work on, but they are listening and the community has worked with them on many occasions in the past year to get some really cool things done. Let's not forget they're mainly individual engineers like you and I trying to do the very best they can for the platform.

Now I'm off to put on my Kevlar ;-)

Who is the head of atheism?

Richard Dawkins -- though the existence of religion doesn't necessitate a religious leader.

Buildings we meet in?

http://skeptics.meetup.com/

I believe your information is a little outdated, as illustrated by this map of the known world.

Can't seem to find it on my map.

And if you look around, nearly all the radio stations that were around 30 years ago are now gone completely or their call letters used by Cumulus, ClearChannel or similar propaganda engine.

Propaganda engines like Air America, a progressive but not liberal radio station. Because it could not compeat with other stations it had to shut down in January 2010. Now if you look at how long network ownership lasts, in 30 years ClearChannel may be gone too. In the '70s ABC, CBS, and NBC were the big networks. Cable and satellite TV came along in the '80 with WGN in Chicago, Ted Turner's stations, and others coming to dominate broadcasting. The '90s came and cable stations mushroomed. Now we have internet based programming. I bet in 20 years the media giants will not look like they do now.

If you look around at newspapers you'll see that nearly all the newspapers have disappeared in all but title.

Nearly but not all. Some newspapers are actually expanding. They are doing it by offering what people want. I couldn't find it online but a couple of weeks ago CNN had a story about a newspaper in AZ. It was going under, out of business, when this guy scrapped all the money he could then bought the paper and brought it back to life. Residents liked what was printed so they subscribed. Then with subscriptions growing advertisers started advertising.

Give enough people what they want and enough will pay for it.

How can any country have open and democratic elections with out a forum for discussing facts and debating positions?

How did Jessie "The Body" Ventura become the governor of MN in 1999" How did Ron Paul raise millions in campaign contributions in days? By using the internet. With the internet it's easy to create meeting spaces. Look at Move-over.org and Meetup.

Falcon

Which is why groups like this:
http://www.meetup.com/kwcoffee/
are a real boon, especially as they seem to be mostly single geeky females in their 20s/30s.

Facebook seems to have gotten big mainly by chance. like being the only bacteria in the pietry dish. The only savvy they had was realizing the peitre dish was available and rushing to get there first.

You're right, no one ever thought of social sites before Facebook.

As it's probably been said already, the easiest way to get employed practically anywhere is by networking. This, of course, is much easier to do if you live in a larger city where business networking events happen more frequently. This actually works better than most other methods because you build rapport with people you might eventually work for, which, in turn, makes it easier to prove your skills and find a good place to be.

You can also try joining mailing lists. One list that I'm on, which is supposed to discuss C++ development and such, has been practically posting SOLELY job offers, all of which are pretty highly salaried. (The last posting I saw advertised a position that paid $200K/year in NYC for a senior C++ development position.) http://www.meetup.com/ makes it easy to find such lists, though you can also find similar lists on open-source projects you find interesting.

Yet another way to look for jobs is by joining forums that interest you. There are tons of forums that discuss programming, many of which are separated by language. Proving your salt on a forum and gaining some credibility can make it easier for you to find jobs, though they come by less often in my past experience.

If you must play the online resume game, play with the keywords, as most online resume systems filter solely by that criterion. I believe that is a reason why so many applicants who call themselves developers even get through the door; online resume submission is a fairly simple system to defeat once you play with them enough.

The last alternative that you can consider is using a headhunter to find a job for you. They usually tweak your resume to make it attractive, and use their network of contacts to get you interviews. I've met a few headhunters from events, and they spend a substantial amount of time just meeting people expressly for this purpose.

Hope this helps!

Well not D&D but you're welcome to lurk at our Google Wave Shadowrun game.

If you're actually looking for someone to game with (and there are a whole lot of us out here), check out

http://www.penandpapergames.com/

Farcaster has an excellent gamer registry. Assuming you're not in an area with 5 people in it, there's a good chance there are a few folks local to you.

And of course, check out the local game shops. Here in the Denver area there are 11 that I'm aware of.

http://www.yelp.com/list/denver-metro-gaming-stores-westminster

And of course, at least in the Denver area, our meetup group is up around 300 members and there are 5 gaming specific meetups for Denver (ours; Shadowrun, 2 D&D, a Cthulhu, and a Boardgame one).

http://shadowrun.meetup.com/79

Seriously. You just need to do a little hunting :)

[John]

I don't condemn all software patents. Just because it's software doesn't mean that it can't be brilliant and stunningly innovative.

But sudo with a GUI? A quick fix I'd suggest to get rid of those bogus patents is to have a rule that says that if a patent is proven obvious later on, then the company (Microsoft in that case) would lose all their patents for the year. That would make them think twice before filing junk...

---
the Co-FoundersMeetup in Mountain View is next week

On your own time, you should do something that gives you a sense of personal accomplishment. Bring that where ever you go, and make it the basis for your attitude. Also spend time to broaden your interests. Find something likely to be shared by the people you're with, and make that the basis for your conversation.

You can drastically increase your chances of finding common interests by joining organized groups with a clearly stated purpose. I've found meetup.com is a great place to search for groups to hang out with. Organization and planning happens online, but unlike social networks like facebook and myspace, the express purpose is to get people together physically, to do something together. This does a few things:

• You don't have to push to get what you want (personal contact with people). Everyone there wants that too, or they wouldn't be there.
• You know something about the people already. They're interested in whatever the activity is.
• People feel safe in a social environment. They get to know each other, and they feel more confident in the presence of friends.
• You get to have fun doing something, regardless of whether you meet someone you like.

If you can manage to come off as fairly happy and confident just as you are, then other people will want to share in that. If you can't, then you may still have some work to do with personal accomplishment and broadening interests.

Hope that helps!

I totally agree with broadening your horizons, and trying to socialize with people who aren't necessarily exactly like you.

My suggestion would be to join a social organization. My particular favorite is the Junior Chamber (formerly the Jaycees). Membership is open to anyone between the ages of 21 and 40. What they do, in a nutshell, is put on a variety of projects throughout the year -- some educational, some for fundraising, some for community development, and some are just for fun. You will learn a LOT about leadership and organizational management, and you will meet a broad cross-section of people from your city or community. A listing of chapters across the US can be found here.

Here's the thing: you need them and they need you. Most chapters are in need of tech help, someone who can do web stuff and the like. You need them because someday you are going to want to change jobs, and you may meet someone there that will help you get your foot in the door at your next company. I also know a lot of JC members who met their spouses there.

I mention the Junior Chamber because it is specifically geared towards young folks, and they are very active in a variety of ways. If not that, then there is the Chamber of Commerce, Toastmasters, Lion's Club, Rotary Club, and about a billion small groups on MeetUp.

Here?

Seriously.

I moved 1800 miles across the country two years ago. I knew exactly 1 person here excluding my wife and the guys at my job.

http://www.meetup.com/ has been really awesome. I found local rock climbing, snowboarding, and off-road riding groups on there, met some really great people, and never lack for something to do should I want to leave the house.

Even if your cup of tea doesn't involve physical activity, there's bound to be a group on there for something you're interested in.

- Roach

I'm a big fan of meetup.com.

You can find groups on most anything you imagine. I love hiking, for example, and I'm constantly finding amazing people to go hiking with, planned hikes, all over the area, at least twice a week now. It's such a blast.

There's groups that go out and try different restaurants in the area, people who want to bring chihuahuas together, book club meetups, dancing meetups, spiritual meetups... whatever you want!

Do what you LOVE and allow your relationships to stem from your passion, rather than blindly groping around for a person out there somewhere. It's much easier to find friends when you enjoy doing similar things together. :)

http://www.meetup.com/

I had the same problem as you, when my ex-girlfriend moved out; she'd managed to alienate literally everyone I'd previously ever known, including family members.

I joined a Meetup group about 18 months ago, and was eventually made Organizer. I host monthly groups, and out of a resident membership of around 100 people, I get regular attendance of close to a dozen people now. There are also Meetups for just about every possible kind of general interest you can think of, including some which are purely for random socialising.

Nerd fun Boston. Its not a singles/dating group but the name is a filter.

http://www.meetup.com/NerdFunBoston/

And if you don't meet anyone, you'll at least learn something

(disclaimer: I'm affiliated with said group...)

Look at the moron, I doubt he is smart enough to know how they caught up with them. The bad thing is others said he did the same to them...but was not reported. http://www.meetup.com/referralweb/members/7717367/photos/

I think the comments are good too. "yeah, he did the same thing at another company, we just didnt report him. he will be reported now." and the link to his meetup page, "am looking for a new way to improve my business"

You couldn't make stuff up this good.

[John]

If you're in the DFW area, the Tarrant County Libertarian Party is having an Election Watching party at the Cowboys Golf Club. Details here.

I see a ton of value in "cloud" computing ... but in some cases, I'm not 100% certain what the difference between a cloud and a classic farm or cluster really is. I have a simple public-facing SOA call that needs to scale to hundreds of thousands of calls per second, with automatic failover and preferably automatic scaling. GAE gives me some of that; EC2 gives me almost none of that, without something like RightScale. I've talked to the AppNexus people a bit ... not as cheap to get into, higher performance than GAE ... GoGrid doesn't seem like anything special. Rackspace seems to be the same thing. We have a SaaS-aaS startup, Apprenda, here in the Albany area ... curious to learn more about them, but they don't appear to reply to email inquiries. There's a cloud computing panel next week, Thursday the 29th, in NYC, worth checking out if there are still openings.

http://indiemusic.meetup.com/127/boards/thread/4701023

The City of Chicago is trying to pass an ordinance this Wednesday (May 14th, 2008) that could severely damage the live music and theater scene.

In summary:

The "Event Promoters" ordinance requires any event promoter to have a license from the city of Chicago and liability insurance of $300,000, but that's just the start:

* The definition of "event promoter" is so loosely defined it could apply to a band or singer-songwriter that books their own shows or a theater company that's in town for a one-week run.

* "Event Promoter" must be licensed and will pay $500 - $2000 depending on expected audience size

* To get the license, applicant must be over 21, get fingerprinted, submit to a background check, and jump over several other hurdles .

* This ordinance seems targeted towards smaller venues, since those with 500+ permanent seats are exempt

* Police must be notified at least 7 days in advance of event.

I recommend Physical Computing: Sensing and Controlling the Physical World with Computers by Tom Igoe and Dan O'Sullivan. The title of the book itself doesn't sound all that appealing, but this is the book you want. It will teach you all the little tricks that seasoned practitioners know, but that most books won't even tell you about. Other guides I have found useful are the old Radio Shack notebooks. I'm not sure how they're called, or where you'd get them legally. I haven't seen them at Radio Shack and I do not know if they're still in print.

And last, I have to plug this TechShop establishment since they offer classes at very reasonable rates and they were kind enough to host our Ruby Hackfest in their awesome space last month.

People work three months out of the year to pay their income taxes.

Not anymore. In 2008 Tax Freedom Day in the USA is 15 April, 4 1/2 months into the year.

The revolution started because the taxation got to a whopping 3%!

And people didn't like it when President Lincoln had an income tax of up to 5%. They accepted it only because the Civil War had to be paid for.

As promised.

http://forums.gleemax.com/forumdisplay.php?f=347 --- You'll need an account. The sign up process is annoying. http://dnd.meetup.com/ --- Good site, just find your area. Helps if your not in the boonies like me.

Sorry I had more links but purged my bookmarks recently.

I think a lot of folks are just getting tired of the same stale dungeon-crawling that D&D has been pushing for the last 25 years, moving on to bigger and better things (like GURPS, as mentioned in the tags).

I'm very active in the Role-Playing Felllowship of Greater Boston and lately we've been trying many new things. Probably my favorite is a small indy system called Universalis, a GM-less collaborative roleplaying/storytelling system which uses a set of simple socioeconomic feedback mechanisms to regulate the narrative and resolve conflicts without any centralized authority. This has the effect of making the game much more about creativity and interesting stories (indeed the game itself "pays" you to create conflicts in the story) than about playing what is essentially a video game on pen and paper. In a manner similar to brainstorming, Universalis combines the intellectual and creative abilities of the players in such a way that other players act as randomizing agents on your ideas, taking characters and story elements in directions that you yourself would have never thought of. I think it's absolutely brilliant, and indeed a feasible system for brainstorming and generating new and unique stories.

If you live in the Greater Boston area, you should check us out. It's one of the few places you'll find roleplayers willing to try just about anything.