Slashdot Mirror
Geek Pride Hits Boston This Weekend
The Festival is free and brought to you by Andover.Net / VA Linux, Addison-Wesley and SwitcHouse.
Also in attendance will be the esteemed Cmdr. Taco himself, Rob Malda, and Christopher Locke and David Weinberger, authors of The ClueTrain Manifesto. Listen to them address the assembled throngs, and ask questions. In addition to speakers, there will be food, chair massages, a $500 cash-prize Quake III competition, an install fest with support from the Boston Linux Users Group, and booths representing groups like Perl Mongers, the Free Software Foundation and more.
Roblimo will be there, enjoying the street party he secretly believes is being thrown for his and lovely wife Debbie's wedding anniversary, and JonKatz may be there as well. The first person to ask Katz about his dog and the manhole, then transmit a recording of his reaction to hemos, will win an as-yet-undetermined fabulous prize. If you can't make it to Boston for April Fool's Day, you can vicariously experience the gathering via downloadable video and audio, available for the same price as the festival, less the cost of getting there.
I'm really tempted to go but I'm already going to be going to Boston later in the summer to visit my grandmother and cousins and old college friends.
- tokengeekgrrl
"The spirit of resistance to government is so valuable on certain occasions
- Natalie Portman will be within range for all the grit pouring you need. (She attends Harvard!)
- Boston baked beans make a good substitue for hot grits down the pants. As an added bonus, they taste the same even after festering in some AC's shorts all day.
- MIT might pull one of their pranks for the occasion.
What can YOU do, mere Anonymous Coward? When Rob speaks I think we should shower him with hot grits. The first person to write "First Post" on a bathroom wall will get the respect of AC's everywhere!Don't forget to bring hardware to swap!
As long as we're plugging events that are only of interest to the small fraction of Slashdot readers who live in or near a particular city, i'd like to announce that
Richard Stallman will be speaking in NYC next Monday.
--
--
Mod up a post Rob doesn't like and you'll never mod again
Am I the only one afraid of what a thousand hackers will do when gathered into a small area on april fool's day?
Judge Pag, the Learned, Impartial, and Very Relaxed
"Geek Pride" my ass. What a ridiculous crock of shit. Thousands of at-least-semi-intelligent young men, most of whom can't get laid, all standing around and telling themselves they're the master race because they know how to configure sendmail.
If geek pride didn't involve inventing bogus excuses to sneer at everybody else, I might be able to take it seriously.
Furthermore, the prospect of meeting Eric "You're Endangering My Tribe" Raymond is about as appealing as a headwound.
Even if I did want to play Professional Geek this weekend, I can't: I've got to be in the office. I've got code to write.
"Christianity neither is, nor ever was a part of the common law." --
I used to work for Prof. Pentland, and he's definately a good guy to hang out with, not to mention having a packed head (as Ender would say).
However, when I first heard of this thing via the MediaLab mailing lists, I had to wonder about the sanity of those involved. Or, at least, the common sense.
I mean, the Lab has done some really strange stuff over the years (anyone remember the original "fashion-show-with-wearable-computers"?), but I have to say, getting a group of nationwide geeks together is kinda weird. I mean, when I used to work there, you already had the biggest bunch of geeks together in one place.
Oh well, I'll probably fly cross-country to get there just for giggle (and to see my friends).
Fight advice: Check out the specials from the various airlines starting today for flights leaving early Saturday morning and returning Sunday or Monday. I can usually catch a flight from SFO to BOS for about $300 or so. I got used to seeing $150 from most East Coast cities for such a jaunt. And, when you're there, buy a 3-day T pass. It's cheap, and Boston has excellent public transporation.
Tourist Advice: go to RedBones in Davis Square (off the Red Line) for some tasty BBQ. Check out the MIT Museum for some randomly nerdy exhibits and a cool display of MIT hacks memorabilia. Go to E.L.I. computing on hampshire st in cambridge for a look at all the wonderful old recycled computer parts (they used to be the only place I could find PDP-11 parts). And, of course, go see the Boston Computer Museum (conveniently next to the Children's Museum).
Have fun!
-Erik
There are always four sides to every story: your side, their side, the truth, and what really happened.
Alex Pentland, academic head of the MIT Media Lab he is, and Eric S. Raymond (ESR), software evangelist and straight-shooting author of some of the Free sofware world's most influential essays he is, be there they will. If you zero dollars (or the equivalent in lire, persos, krugerands, galactic credits, ec.) can cough up and Boston on Friday (31st March) or Saturday (1st April) get to, well met at the 3rd annual Geek Pride Festival you will be. Free and brought to you by Andover.Net / VA Linux, Addision Wesley, and SwitcHouse the Festival is.
In attendance the esteemed Cmdr. Taco himself, Rob Malda he is, and Christopher Locke and David Weinberger, authors of The ClueTrain Manifesto they are, will be. The assembled throngs listen to them address, and questions ask. Food, chair massages, Quake II competition for $500 cash prize it is, support from the Boston Linux Users Group an install fest with, and booths groups like Perl Mongers, the Free Software Foundation, and more representing they are, in addition to speakers there will be.
Be there Roblimo will. The street party is thrown for his and his lovely wife Debbie's wedding anniversay believes he, and enjoy it he will. Be there Jon Katz may as well. The first person to about his dog and the manhole ask Katz and to hemos transmit a recording of his reaction win an as-yet-undertermined fabulous prize he will. For April Fool's make it to Boston. Do not make it and experience vicariously the gathering via downloadable video and audio -- for the same price as the festival less the cost of getting there, available it is. There is no try to make it.
You guys might want to point out that it's presented by Andover.Net and VA Linux, who are the owners of Slashdot. I know, in this case it's something they're sponsoring, not something they're trying to promote and make money from -- but now that Slashdot is sponsored by the big boys, you guys should start putting a disclosure statement in things involving Slashdot ownership.
Btw, for those of you like me who have no hope of making it on such short notice, I saw this on the site:
jason@4u.net
It's unrealistic to expect slashdot, a software-centric site to cover all stuff relating to nerds and geeks like us.
/.ers have set up geeky.org running Scoop (not slashcode) for the true range of geeky stuff. Get your early #'ed account now!
I don't know about geeky being cool; it seems cool here because we're all geeks! Out in RL it's really not as hot as hollywood makes it out to be. Yes, Jon Katz, we're still a persecuted minority! And what are YOU doing about it?
*slap*
Thanks, I needed that.
Anyhow, a couple of us
Not much there yet, but we plan to fix that in the next day or so. Feel free to submit something.
-JD
> Hope that helps. If you've never visited the
> Commonwealth before, I wouldn't recommend
> driving here. We're notorious for road rage and
> poor driving skills.
Well I dunno about that....I like to think of us
as "extra Skilled". In other states, one wouldn't
imagine turning left from any lane except the
left lane.... we here in boston are not so
limited in our thinking.
While in other places people yeild until an
opening to make a left turn, we in boston are
assertive. We even have our own "Boston Left
Turn" which entails creeping out until the
traffic on ones left is completely blocked
off...then creeping forward further until the
peoplke on the right have to stop...thus making
an opening.
(the best part is...those of you who don't live
here may be tempted to take this all as a joke,
or an exageration)
Now remember...this is the city that is known
for the expression "You can't get there from here"
and...it is true fairly often. While your
destination may be only 2 or 3 block away "as the
pedestrian walks" but, for you it could be a 4
or 5 mile drive through all manner of streets...
the path would often entail leaving the city, and
re-entering from a differnt entrance (this is
fairly common in cambridge where their motto is
"All one way streets going the wrong way, all the
time"
Also remember, all roads lead to a "square".
A "Square" can be thought of almost as the
singularity of a black hole, which warps all
space around it such that all paths lead
directly to it.
Unlikc black holes, you can escape a square, but
you must go through it. Generally a square
diverts all nearby roads through it such
that the only way to get to the other side
of a square is through it.
The "squares" are not places where you actually
WANT to drive (unless your destination is actually
IN one, even then your best not driving to it...
there is usually no available parking anyway).
Since I mentioned parking. Do remember, double
parking is not merely the "exception to the rule"
it IS the rule. Some of the wider streets in
boston proper (usually in residental areas with
lots of high priced apartments) usually have
cars double parking on both sides. You should feel
free to do like we do...act as if its perfectly
legal to park anywhere, for any length of time,
as long as your four-ways are on.
To illistrate this point, once I parked at a
parking meter and had no change. I ran to the
store half a block away to get change. When I
returned less than 5 mins later, there was a cop
just putting a ticket on my windsheild. he said
that he already wrote the ticket so he couldn't
do anything about it but... "You should have just
put your four-ways on".
-Steve
(I am not making any of this up...I am sure other
bostonians will attest that all of the above is
true)
"I opened my eyes, and everything went dark again"