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Geek Pride Hits Boston This Weekend

Posted by timothy on from the please-note-I-said-throngs-not-thongs. dept.

Academic head of the MIT Media Lab Alex Pentland and Eric S. Raymond (ESR), software evangelist and straight-shooting author of some of the Free software world's most influential essays, will be there. If you can cough up zero dollars (or the equivalent in lire, pesos, krugerands, galactic credits, etc.) and get to Boston on Friday (31st March) or Saturday (1st April), you'll be well met at the 3rd annual Geek Pride Festival.

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.

7 of 135 comments (clear)

  1. Flying into Boston... by tokengeekgrrl · · Score: 4
    ...can be really expensive this time of year so anyone who's going might want to consider flying into Providence, Rhode Island through a smaller airline and then renting a car and driving up or, if you know alot of people in Boston, have them pick you up. It's only an hour away.

    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

  2. All we gotta say is.... by Ex+Machina · · Score: 4
    Slashdot trolls will be out in force... why?
    1. Natalie Portman will be within range for all the grit pouring you need. (She attends Harvard!)
    2. 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.
    3. 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!
  3. Free Plugs? by Mike+Schiraldi · · Score: 4

    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

  4. Geek pride - april fool's day. by JudgePagLIVR · · Score: 5

    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
  5. Not even at gunpoint. by Venomous+Louse · · Score: 5


    "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." --
    1. Re:Not even at gunpoint. by _Mustang · · Score: 4

      Frankly I couldn't agree more. The sad truth of our age seems to be nowhere more exacerbated than by events like this one. "Geek pride"? So now all of a sudden being geek falls into the same category as being gay - something for which "coming out of the closet" is an apparent necessity.

      And how wonderful, we get to
      "..Listen to them address the assembled throngs, and ask questions..."
      Since when did we as geeks ever decend to the level of being just another cow in the herd..
      I must say I am very disappointed in the way this whole thing has been presented. Instead of being a herald to the *new and better* way of doing things that we as the most intelligent minds of our times could offer, this comes across as nothing better than a frat-house beer party

      ..there will be food, chair massages, a $500 cash-prize Quake III competition,..

      never before has being intelligent meant so little to moving a cause forward..

  6. Re:They need volunteers! URL to volunteer. by intuition · · Score: 5
    Since the site is /.'d to volunteer you can email me - I am the volunteer coordinator. I will forward you details. (Again volunteers please moderate this up.)

    jason@4u.net