Slashdot Mirror
Slashdot Meetup Reminder
Just a little reminder that Slashdot meetup is today! Sorry to the folks on the other side of the dateline for not posting this earlier. Check it out at slashdot.meetup.com we've had some 5000 people register all over the world so we thought a reminder ping was in order. The original story is available too. We won't be there this month as we're at OSCON today. But we'll be there next month perhaps. If you do go to a meetup put in a submission about it and we'll do a wrapup tonight or tomorrow sometime.
I've got a hot date with Warcraft III.
So did any of you trolls turn up and dilate your rectums while screaming "first p0st!"?
Too bad the slackers in the wilkes-barre scranton area couldnt get at least 4 people to rsvp! Otherwise I would be going.. We need some community support around here!!
=-@_@-=
*sniff* This should've been posted a lot earlier.. You had to confirm that you would be coming and 4 or 5 had to confirm or the meetup would be cancelled. I RSVP'd right away, but from our lot (Rotterdam, Netherlands) I was the only one. Only 1 other confirmed just before the deadline so the thing was cancelled :(
I was looking forward to wearing my Slashdot tshirt that I bought at Thinkgeek too.. *sniff*
...should go to the Sheraton Hotel & Marina. You can add 1300 people to your meetup. ;-)
--clambert
...Because there were only 3 people who signed up. Oh well.
Personally, I don't want to see any of you in person. Attaching human faces would only make it harder to flame your stupid opinions. =)
Every year during my review, I just pray the words "slashdot.org" aren't mentioned.
If I Ever^w^w^wWhen Meet You I Will Kick Your Ass!
I don't live far from Lavalounge. If things work out then next time maybe we could repeat my 802.11 from the apartment to the bar! See ya there!
I'm a writer, a poet, a genius, I know it. I don't buy software, I grow it.
Do you really want to see all the unwashed (m)asses that call themselves Slashdotters. Bring a clothespin if you are.
how can you tell where the meetup is anyway?
four-oh-four
The Grape Escape, 500 Commerce St., Fort Worth, TX
on Thursday, July 25 @ 7:00PM
No can do here, but everybody be sure to head upstairs to the lounge and knock back a few for all the /.ers that aren't there. Oh, and if Brendan Heddle is VJ'ing, tell 'im Randy says hi. :)
I won't dance in a club like this...All the girls are slags, and the beer tastes just like piss! -The Specials
Sorry to the folks on the other side of the dateline for not posting this earlier.
;-)
First, you give away the ending to the Lone Gunmen to early, cause you didn't think about PST, now you post this late because you didn't think of the other side of the dateline.
Someone give this man a watch that can hold multiple time zones!!
Good quote, too many chars. Seriously, the slashdot 120 char limit sucks!
Who will be attending this meetup?
So far, the following people have signed up:
AssFace
Ummm...
...or your venue might turn out to be a parking lot.
The Livejournal Meetup was on Tuesday. Here in Springfield, Missouri, the closest of the three venue choices to me turned out to be something called "Farmer Brothers Coffee." I checked the map, and it seemed kind of odd that a coffeehouse would be far out on the east side of town toward the expressway, where mainly office buildings could be found...but I figured the Meetup people knew what they were doing, and voted for it.
Enough other people also voted for it that it became the selected venue...and when I got there, a half hour early (since I was the host), I discovered that it was not, in fact, a coffeehouse...it was a suite in an office building, for a restaurant coffee supply firm. Closed, of course.
So I waited out in the parking lot for the other confused souls to show up, we all had a good laugh about meetup sites that apparently pick their venues by grepping online yellow pages, and then we went somewhere else. We had a good time, all things considered.
Still, I wonder how many other meetups have taken or will take place in parking lots?
Editor Emeritus and Senior Writer, TeleRead.org
Is the WIPO Troll planning on attending? I'd like to see all you Slashdotizens sprayed with faeces. Mmmm, fun will be had by all.
i registered... but the san jose meet up is at the chili's right by my house.
;)
CHILI'S??? we couldn't go to a decent bar or something? or even just a data warehouse and eat hot pockets sitting on the floor.
i don't understand how CHILI'S is going to spur any kind of socialization whatsoever. plus, i'm a baller extraordinaire and hanging out with you losers would hurt my rep!
MARIJUANA, SHROOMS, X: ONLINE?! - E
Toronto is already number one - booyah! Seriously though, I can't believe Toronto beat out places like Manhattan.
Probably the best sex they will ever get is at this meetup. Of course, this means absolutly NO GIRLS AT ALL.
I'd love to attend the meeting in Rochester, considering I'm in Syracuse which is right near by. The problem is I, like many people, have a JOB and can't just decide to drive somwhere a few hours away on a mid week day. The one in Syracuse, to boot, is cancelled because not enough people signed up.
Wouldn't be a bad idea to move this to a weekend day, I'm sure more people would attend.
- tristan
Seattle was, at one time, the 2nd geekiest city - now it's only 5th :-(. Not too bad considering we're so close to the "evil empire".
:-). Don't worry, I've got my EFF t-shirt to make up for it. Yes, that's right, I'm a Windows developer who gives hundreds to the EFF each year. Reconcile THAT!
BTW: If you are going to the Seattle Sit 'n' Spin meetup then you'll identify me by my ASP.NET hat
There is no longer anything that can be done with computers that is nontrivial and clearly legal. -- Paul Phillips
I question the wisdom in gathering Linux users in public. It will give the impression that we are incapable of forming relationships with those outside of our close-knit and slightly bizarre community.
Many people will see a bunch of pasty, slightly chubby white guys with longish hair drinking beer and laughing about Babylon 5 or what have you, ask what's going on, and then think something along the lines of, "so that's what Lunix is all about...I'll stick with Windows, thanks," before they go back to hitting on cute girls.
Our image is tarnished enough. Let's keep it underground where it belongs.
Karma: Good (despite my invention of the Karma: sig)
Due to a screwup in zipcode searching(I think), we now have two boston meetings....a larger meeting at some cafe near the cambridge galleria(I think) and a smaller meeting at Jillian's.
:)...but I think neither group knows about the other. It would kinda suck if a few people show up at Jillian's all by their lonesome, wondering where all their fellow Boston slashdotters are, and a huge crowd at the other location... :(
IM'd/emailed meetup staff, no response(yet, only been a few minutes
500 nerds, all getting together? HOW IS THIS NEWS FOR NERDS?
the only meeting that REALLY matters ;)
Chili's Grill & Bar, 5650 Almaden Expwy.,
San Jose, CA
on Thursday, July 25 @ 7:00PM
beware of and plan around traffic!
"I would say that 99 per cent of what my father has written about his own life is false." - L. Ron Hubbard Jr.
Well, it looks like there are plenty of meetups in the T.O. area, but I've already got tickets to see Goldmember tonight. Who's brilliant idea was it to schedule it tonight?
Could we reschedule?:)
J:)
Oh well, no point in steering now.
Toronto is top of the list.. even with the Pope in town! BUNG! .. wait.. geek.. catholic.. interest in science .. catholic.. i dont think these go together..
i bet my coworker that there would be 2 girls there.. if i win i get a free lunch.
I saw this for livejournal.meetup.com. I didn't feel like registering due to spam concerns. ATalk about an uninformative website.
That site sucks ass.
what?
who?
when?
but NO WHERE!
I am totally blind I guess but I cannot find the WHERE portion. please enlighten me!
I'm rather worried that during a meetup, a goatse.cx troll will quietly sneak off to the bathroom, strip down, prepare, and comeback as the goatse.cx dude. In person!
My hosts file wont save me then!
Moneyed corporations, non-working 'poor' and criminal prisoners are turning productive citizens into tax-slaves.
I'm so confused, 2 Boston meetings, which one will I pick. Do I follow the larger crowd and go to the North Boston Suburb, or should I stick to the actual Boston meeting. Kinda wierd that there isn't just a Greater Boston meeting with all 90 or so people instead of 2 meetings 5 miles apart. This is why geeks and social functions don't mix ;)
There were a lot of messages in the Lansing one for people laughing about how it would be a bunch of men hoping to meet women, I laughed because I'm female and will probably be the only female there. 'Twould be nice to meet a fellow female geek. Oh well.
To those geeks in Columbus who don't want to give your email out (can't you register a hotmail addy for this? Sheesh!):
Virgin Megastore
3965 Townfair Way
Columbus, OH
Thursday, July 25 @ 7:00PM EST
That's the Virgin Megastore in Easton Town center. Easton is huge and leet, so if you don't want to hang out in Virgin (ha!) Megastore there's Adobe Gillas, Fados, etc -- lots of pubs and such all around there.
Thanks,
--
Matt
A check of the top cities shows Toronto(!) with 169 members, London(!!) with 153 and NY with 126.
The rest to 9 are US cities.
Hmmm... new wrench in a US-centric Slashdot universe.
It's no wonder that Open Source hackers and Linux users are so poorly perceived by the general public. Here is yet another picture of the father/grand daddy of Open Source. That's right RMS himself.
For God's sake, couldn't some one have told him to button his shirt and get a haircut before giving a keynote speech.
That was fascinating. Thank you.
I have to admit that my shits are often dark brown and rather stinky. And, no, they don't float.
Damnit, where's The Turd Report when you need him??
Decisions decisions decisions. . . .
/. meet and hopefuly try to outrun any mob of people who want me dead. . . .
;`(
Go to park with friend, get eaten by mosqitos, but have fun, go to
DOH!
Need help treating your acne? Come here!
being 19 i cant get into the meeting... im pissed...
Then the terrorists have already won.
I signed up to be our host here in tech valley but i don't think i'm going to be able to make it! It seems a certain wife has planned certain activities I may not be able to get out of without enraging certain unliked and vindictive legal relatives.
Drink a latte for your megabyte, please!
Hey freaks: now you're ju
my closest meetup is in boise, idaho.
that's still 300 miles
First off, I didn't even know there were /. readers in Bismarck, second, who signed up for it?
forget it.
I fked up and didn't come. I'm into next time. email me @ shayne[mandatoryspamblock]@guild.murdoch.edu[mores pamproof].au for plans whatever.
Sorry guys. I did mess up.
Excuse the Unicode crap in my posts. That's an apostrophe, and slashdot is busted.
So not only do I have to register, but then THEY pick the meet I go to. I'm told not enough people RSVP'd to go to the San Bernadino meet. Well why can't they just post the address to some local bar anyway and let people decide if they wanna go down and see if anyone shows? The minimum of 4 RSVP's is stupid. Just give out the addresses and let whoever shows up, show up. Oh and it would also be nice to not have to lie about my zip code if I decide I want to attend the Los Angeles meet instead of San Bernadino(since it was canceled)
Neither of us are single, but I thought we should post a PSA anyway: yes, there will be two geeky females at the San Francisco meetup. Our SO's won't be with us, either! Oh yeah, and my friend actually likes using vi. Does she pass the geek test?
Simpli - Your source for San Jose dedicated servers and colocation!
You'll be pleasantly surprised. :)
wouldnt this make a better poll option?
Will you be going to your local meetup tonight?
Yes
No
Only if CBN picks my ass up in his rusty el camino!
3 people signed up for Honolulu, so its a no go, but maybe next time. I know there has to be more geeks in Hawaii that read /.
How do you take a picture of the best moment of your life?
Thanks.
This is another view of the world.
Slashdot nerds were upset when they learned that store keepers can stop them from stealing merchandise at the door.
"This isn't right. I even heard that they have cameras in the ceilings. That is an infringment on our rights," one such reader was quoted as saying.
It is all over when property owners take a stand for their property.
I'm so there!
And I mean, WAY up!
Given that I'm not really an early adopter/beta tester I'll wait and see how the DC one went, and then jump on next month's bandwagon.
Besides- I have deadlines.
In the future, I would want to not be isolated from my friends in the Space Station.
All other venues in Kansas City are hereby cancelled for the Slashdot meetup. All slashdotters will meet at the DB Warehouse or Club XO. There will be plenty of hot guys around so we don't have to be in the closet.
in an undisclosed location -- just in case anything happens to the other Slashdot fan.
(+1 Funny) only if I laugh out loud.
I thought about going to the meetup, but I'm scared of the Slashdot effect...
All those people, all those hundreds, possibly thousands of hits.
So no, I won't be going to the Slashdot Beatup.
- Serge Wroclawski
All of the bayarea cities (SF, SJ, Oak-town) are having their own meetup, yet they're all within spitting distance of each other. If they teamed up it would be the largest gathering, and those crazy canucks wouldn't have bragging rights.
--
ecc
...are Linux users.
Well I was at the London meetup at 7.30pm today and asked 2 of the people who worked there about the /. meetup and got silly reply's from both.
Did anyone got Navajo Joes or was the whole thing a prank?
It needs to be better organised, perhaps even reserved, so people clearly know where to go, and don't waste their time!
ya, it will be a freak fest
we should tell brian about it, tell him we're going to meet him there and to just try and fit in
The Monkey bar? It'll be a nice place for a bunch of geeks to get beaten up by frat boys. I'll be sure to show up wearing a Stormtrooper costume for good luck.
riding round the world on an old motorcycle
Even if it is crowded I doubt that the /.ers will have any trouble recognizing each other.
Lasers Controlled Games!
>And what are you going to do in a RECORD STORE?
>At least pick a restaurant, bar, or book store
>where people can talk casually without weird
>looks by the owner.
One of our choices was a bowling alley, for chrissakes.
The "Newark-Jersey City" meetup wound up being located in Parsippany, a suburban enclave about 20 miles west of either of those cities. And, I might add, smack in the middle of an adjacent Meetup territory, namely "Northern New Jersey".
Well, maybe the small group of people you know... I know several /.'ers that are more social than that... But, I guess I'll see how the Rochester crowd is. I'll know at least 4 people there, maybe more if some old-school BBS'ers show up outa the woodwork.
-- Liberalism is a mental disorder.
Whoa! I didn't realize people in San Bernardino (you forgot the "r" :P) read slashdot, let alone had computers. Being the meth capital of the world and all....
:P)
(I know, I'm in Redlands
Please get this modded up high enough that people see it.
? pageid= 4490
o ga llery.htm
The Gallery Cafe offers a nice riverfront view/patio, net connections($5 for the evening), etc.
Its also MUCH easier to get to than Lansdown street. Directions are here:
http://www.sonesta.com/boston/mainPage.asp
I whipped up a quick map to show people how to get from Jillian's to the other location. If you're extra nice, please print it out and slap it somewhere near the entrance to Jillians so people know!
http://www.users.cloud9.net/~brett/meetup/jillt
PLEASE RSVP IMMEDIATELY SO WE KNOW HOW MANY PEOPLE WILL BE THERE!
But I've got a LUG meeting tonight!
'cause all the hardcorpse slashbot fanboi gruopthinkniks are socialist homos from the north-north U.S otherwize known as canadia.
all you fuckers export are shitty comedians and shitty beer.
This meetup thing i just found out about today. But it happens once every month? Cause there is no way i would be able to meet today on such a short notice, but in a month from now, that would be a different story.
There were also two DC area Slashdot meetups, but one got canceled because everyone signed up for the other one. At least now I don't have to decide which one to attend.
- Eric, InvisibleRobot.com
Don't forget to use this opportunity to network with other geeks on the best dumpsters to get food from. And prime bridges to sleep under. Maybe some quiet place that will let you plan out your latest free software project relatively free from the rain.
I showed up at a Second Cup (coffee shop) downtown about 15 minutes after the specified time. I had my laptop with me so the /. people would recognize me.
They did. They grabed me, pulled me into a booth in the corner and the meetup began for me. One of them grabbed my laptop, booted it up and started installing Gentoo Linux on it after finding out that it runs Win98. Another one started a long monologue that praised Linux and bashed Microsoft. A third one was wearing a tinfoil baseball cap and handing out his PGP key to anyone who entered the coffee shop.
After brainwashing me for a while, my fellow slashdotters and I went for a beer (for which I paid, for some unexplicable reason). The rest of the evening is a blur, as one beer turned into more than I can count. Kind of like the Linux Beer Hike, but without the hiking.
I can't wait till the next one.
Comment removed based on user account deletion
I am not going to the Seattle /. meet, the mosquito bites I got yesterday are driving me up the wall, I get off work, err, right now, so too-friggin-ta, I got ice cream and barbecue to eat!
Need help treating your acne? Come here!
Get this, all of Hawaii has a meetup list of get this 4 people! To compare, Missoula Montana has a list of 7! Believe it or not we do not live in grass huts out here as this signup would suggest. In fact when I checked the Census list there are approx 1,224,398 people that live in Hawaii compared with 57,000 for Missoula and they have twice as many people on their list. Can someone explain this to me?
All right Chimp, I'll see you there. I don't know how I'll manage security at the moment, but something will strike me, be it an idea, security, or Frat boys. Who's novel idea was it to host the Sacremento Meetup in a bar?
Urgo: "I want to live. I want to experience the universe and I want to eat pie!"
Jack: "Who doesn't??"
Has anyone dealt with SOAPS automating testing. Is there a product unix or windoze that you used to deal with SOAP.
...was a shit venue full of tourists and yuppies with enough free standing room for a half-dozen people.
About 100 registered. If any of them did show up, they clearly did the same as we did - scope the joint, saw not a single likely Slashdotter, and fucked off somewhere else.
Of course, we're a long way ahead in the timezones here. Let's see if more than a couple dozen people on the entire planet see something other than a complete fuck-up. I doubt it.
The location is actually the address of a once-nice shopping complex that's currently being DEMOLISHED. Lots of bums and hobos. Not many slashdot users.
Oh well. I'm 21, I'm hitting a downtown bar. If anyone going to orlando sees this, I'm at Wall Street Cantina, right on the corner of orange and wall street.
Funny. Very funny.
--Dan
We had about a dozen people (I'm estimating) show up at the Lord Nelson Brewery in the Rocks. At first it was difficult to find each other and we just sat at separate tables amongst all the business people trying to spot fellow geeks. Eventually one of the hosts made himself known and soon we had about eight people crammed around a large table. It was a lot of fun. Much beer was consumed, and conversation ranged from the extremely nerdy (how to hack into various Sydney university wireless networks) to the dangerous (everyone's encounters with deadly Australian wildlife). Later another enclave of people was discovered on the other side of the bar. Most of us decided to head off to The Rocks Cafe for some late-night grub. I really enjoyed meeting everybody, especially as a new arrival here that doesn't know many people (much less ones that can discuss the relative merits of different operating systems while getting drunk). And much to my surprise, I was not the only girl! There was one other that showed up. I *was* the only person with a digital camera, though, so I snapped a couple of pictures. You can see them at my site here. I'll definitely go along next month. It was a lot more fun than I expected!
To whoever set up the juneau alaska meeting, it would have been really nice if you held this thing somewhere besides a bar so that those of us who are under 21 and don't own a good fake could get in. *sigh*
Maskirovka
Um, where did everyone go? There was one guy showed up that looked like he could be one of us, then he picked up an Exchange 2000 book up off the shelf...thus removing all doubt.
Well, I headed up to the Springfield, Missouri Slashdot meetup location, The Bar Next Door/South Avenue Pizza Co. Put a sign up on the table and everything. Waited 'til 7:30...and nobody had shown up, so I called it quits and came home. 14 people registered, 4 RSVP'd...and I'm the only one who showed up. Oh well, maybe next month.
Editor Emeritus and Senior Writer, TeleRead.org
http://www.cafecocomo.com/infonf.htm
Looks like it's a dance club. Am i reading this wrong? Is there some slightly more geek-friendly part of this place?
mahlen
Families, when a child is born
Want it to be intelligent.
I, through intelligence,
Having wrecked my whole life,
Only hope the baby will prove
Ignorant and stupid.
Then he will crown a tranquil life
By becoming a Cabinet Minister.
--Su Tung-p'o
I'm glad you posted this because I just spent about 30 minutes trying to find that place.
I was positive it would be on the downtown side of I4 because the other side is pure ghetto.. but the numbers didnt go to 145 or whatever it was so I milled around in the ghetto for awhile then gave up.
Grr.
Pandora did a great job hosting. Approx 24 attendees. All normal. Only one suit in site, mine. Kyocera6035 does Slashdot.
Get thee glass eyes, and, like a scurvy politician, seem to see things thou dost not.--King Lear
Good turnout for the area I guess..
.. had a poll where Cowboy Neal wasn't an option!
We had 7 and 8 had RSVP'd, only the sponsor didn't show up (figures I guess)
We had the obligatory M$ bashing.. talked about some recent articles... sipped some coffee... thought we may have seen some AC's lurking in the crowd (though none threw any little crazy haired troll dolls at us!)
So all in all it was pretty geeky.. location wasn't the best, but it worked out alright.
I'd be willing to go out on a limb and say I'll turn up for next months.. SO if you're in the piedmont NC area make sure to signup, it was good unwholesome fun!
Just got back from the meetup. There were three of us, two of which RSVP'd only a half hour before it started. I was the only one who RSVP'd days before and actually showed up. We were surprised that even the host didn't show up.
:' )
It was nice. One Java programmer (me), a neuroscience grad student and an undergrad electrical engineer. In my head, everyone who reads slashdot is a computer programmer
It was originally at an expensive restaurant, so after waiting about twenty minutes we walked to a good gourmet pizza place (Lombardi's on 18th, just north of Rittenhouse Square, best in the city) and talked for an hour or so.
I'm going again next month. It should be at Lombardi's. Cheap and good food.
Thumbs up.
Fire me an e-mail back or post on here.. and we'll meet up anyways.
-Pat
Granted, I was very late (1.5 hours) to the Atlanta meetup, but no one else was there when I did finally arrive.
I had expected that this sort of event would follow other geek meeting-at-a-place-with-food traditions and last well into the night, but not only were there not any people still there with the slashdot meetup crowd, the employees at the coffee shop the meetup was scheduled to occur at didn't remember any large group or any "slashdot" group showing up earlier.
Given that there were at least 65 people rsvp'd, from what I remember, (now that the meeting start time has passed, slashdot.meetup.com doesn't allow you to see who all rsvp'd or read their comments), I would have though that at least 20-30 people would still be there.
I'm wondering if this might have been a hoax--Did other folks have similar experiences in other cities?
stand out the front and shoot everyone who gets dropped of by their mums?
I want to see what nuclear and rocket scientists look like. Since the ones around here often seem to be quite immature.
War crimes, torture, lies, illegal spying... Would someone give Bush a blowjob, already, so he can be impeached?
I had to leave early to go to work, but I'm definitely coming back next month. The great sysadmin stories were just starting to warm up as I had to leave. Next time I intend to take off work and get a designated driver so as to better enjoy myself. :)
If anyone wants to get in touch with me, I was the one guy at the table with a tie. Reach me at sviluppo@NOSPAM.mac.com
Cheers,
Mzilikazi
Random Musings at Rum Smuggler
"So it's sorta social. Demented and sad, but social."
Thanks to Starbucks for hosting us.
Howdy! If you went to the FW /. meetup and didn't find one of your hosts, namely Texchanchan, that is because I was sitting at a restaurant in Handley waiting for a tow truck. Alternator chose this afternoon to go out at 820 and Lancaster. Sincere regrets.
Total Sausage Fest. But what could you expect.
4 out of the 5 that rsvp'd showed, The place scheduled for the meetup had been renamed. So i wonder if that was a factor.
Seriously though. Met some cool guys, drank some beers, talked geek and made some money. No shit, when I left the bar there was a wad of bills sitting one parking space away from my car. $58 so I actually came out ahead on the deal.
Some poor drunk is being beat up by his wife for losing the grocery money as I type.
Chris, the web guy, the other guy that had to leave for work (sorry I'm real bad with names) Good time! see you at another one.
Who run Barter Town?
Only one other person showed up. We spent a lot of time talking & still had a good time. The people at Corner Pocket Billiards (which is only 5 minutes from my home) weren't aware of the event. If we get a decent crowd next month, it should probably be moved to Georgie's Alibi, which is right next door, but has a lot more room & serves food.
I tried to go to my local slashdot meetup, but it was held at a bar, and, seeing that I am under 21, and don't look like I'm over 21 either, I could not attend. I did step inside for a few minutes, but it appeared that I was the only person who showed up. I even asked the management if there was a party going by the name of slashdot, to no avail. I hope those people that were able to attend had a good time, and I've suggested a new location for my area that will allow people under the age of 21. Hopefully, they'll give that as a choice rather than the bar.
Meetup was cool (we have +102 F outside) and cozy.
7 people showed up and it was warm talk about everything.
Thanks for meetup idea!
Sigh. I hope those folks decided to go to somewhere else.
I'd also like to see locals suggest venues, instead of the meetup reps. I was reading this thread earlier this afternoon, and other posters were complaining about bum destinations, too.
Need a Linux consultant in New Orleans?
Same shit here. Whoever came up with our venue didn't bother to check with the establishement. First, they got the name of the bowling alley wrong (Bowling alley, sounded like a chinese food restaurant to me). Oh, and Thursdays are league night - /. is not a league.
So in short, thanks for wasting my half tank of gas, time, money, and patience.
Things like this is why I have to remind myself that Slashdot is not a community. K5 is a community, Slashdot is is a communism .
Hey, at least the meetup thing here flopped so I can at least have the rest of my night to do something productive, like PT.
What are you going to distend your anus to be the goatse guy?
I said the same thing last month about Phoenix/Mesa/Tempe/Scottsdale/Gilbert/Chandler/Gle ndale/Peoria blah blah blah stupid lamers...
I recall seeing something that said that diets high in fat will produce turds that float, since fat is less dense than protien, and carbs. However they did warn of dark brown coloration.
Just thought I'd drop in while I'm at the meetup to say that this was a fantastic idea.
Now, how smart it was for the bar to include computers for us to post on is up for debate.
Good to meet you all!
That green slime had it coming.
Back when there was the Mozilla release we had a sattelite party listed in St. Louis, but it said TBD on location/time through the weekend following. I left that aside and decided to do this, hoping someone else organizing the event would happen. Scheduled for 7PM at a Starbucks very near me, which was cool. Well, I go there, and the place closes at 7! WTF! So I wait a little bit and don't see any other confused souls, which really confuses me since we had 57 people listed. I drive home and hit reload and the location has changed since I reloaded at 6PM to confirm it! Its now at a Starbucks further from me but still not to far. I'm annoyed at the driving, but damnit, I'm going so the previous trip wasn't a waste. I got there and parked (no lots, downtown city business area design) around 8PM and found about a dozen people outside. No name tags or apparent leader, but easyt to spot as the only large group and and O'Reilly t-shirt present.
So, yay! I'm there, we got other geeks there, it turned out fairly well. I also said to hell with the St. Louis Open Source Scene but it worked out. It sounded like a fair number of the people were interested in meeting monthly, but unfortunately I'll be in a different city for college most of the year. It was still great to meet some other geeks and just take a few hours discussing everything/anything. Most of the group left a little after it started to get dark, probably 9:10 or so. One other person, her daughter, and myself stayed until about 9:45. Unfortunately none of us brought a digital camera. Maybe next month someone will and then you all can have a view of the St. Louis OSS (minus myself).
Venu Voting
/.), but no real names, no contact numbers, no nothing. So when shit like what happens tonight (major FUBAR) happens, what's my lead? What is my incentive to even bother going. We're GEEKS - if we had outgoing personalities and social skills, we wouldn't need meetups!
Okay, so you get three whopping choices. You now, we get three choices every four years and nobody is happy with that. Who comes up with these choices anywho? I never heard of any of the three spots, and the one that was chosen was not correctly named, and oh yeah: Thursdays are league night. It should be arranged to allow the actual participants to nominate locations. What, does meetups get a kickback or something?
RSVP'ing
What's the point. I RSVP'd, couldn't find the place, came in 15 minute late (after 45 minutes of driving), nobody there - fuckit, I went home.
4 RSVP Rule
Doesn't work. Any fool can RSVP and not show up. I didn't RSVP till the last minute, which probably failed to incent enough other people. Really gotta rethink this issue...
Other Issues:WTF Is In Charge Here?
So, I've got a bunch of cartoon nicknames (which I recognize from
Other Issues:Choosing a Date/Time
For starters, Thursday is fucked. Wednesday is much better for me, because it's hump day and there's usually b33r specials. 7:00 is dually fucked. I have a workout regiment that I will not compromise for anything, and I've got 4 recruits that depend on me for motivation and guidance. It is simply not an option for me to miss because I still have a little ways to go in my PT, and it doesn't set a very good example for me to knock-off early to "hang". But then, I'm not special. Some people work nights. Some people would prefer saturday mornings, or friday nights. The bottom line is, this arbitrary date inconveniences a goodly portion of potential attendees. There needs to be a way for meetup groups to self-manage the venue, date, and time.
Other Issues: Consolidation
Okay, I live with about 4 million other people here, and we could easily have the Phoenix/Sun Valley metroplex up on the list. Instead, we (like so many other places) are fragmented. If we could get all the cities together, we could have a hella LAN party. There needs to be an option to allow smaller groups to integrate with larger groups.
Other Issues: The Interface
It's clumsy. Simple, elegant, but fractured. You need to have a menu with all the activities a person can do for their meetup account.
Final Analysis
I've got two months before I ship out - I don't honestly think I'm going to bother with the next great meetup. It's a great concept, I was psyched about it, but the flopping noise from the meetup in my area startled me, and I think I would've been happier going to the sneek preview of the new Austin Powers movie. Keep working on it, and quick - before someone steals the idea, does it better, and gets the girl, the glory, and the fame.
I noticed in another city's group that someone had posted a URL link in his "personal description" that went to his website where he had set up a Forum so that his group members could communicate before they actually met. Did any of you have any other methods of reaching the group before you met up and presumably exchanged email addresses?
Where:
2002/08/25 19:00MDT Old Chicago, 1102 Pearl St, Boulder, CO 80302
Summary at:d erSlashdot.html
http://www.dim.com/~mackys/irregular/current/Boul
o/~ Join us now and share the software
Myself and a friend also spend a considerable amount of time looking for the venue, hobos and bums promised us to help for 64 cents?
We should reschedule guys
Mine was held at the place that I work at, but only two people (myself and one other) RSVP'ed... Which was stupid... So it was cancelled. Luckily, i took the night off from work.
Mike
I be thinking others may have tried to come and got lost. There was a StarBuck$ sign on the Safeway across the street and Safeway was not open. So only 5 people came of which 3 were actually Slashdot readers. Of course 4 out 0f 5 were EUGLUG folks too. Maybe next time you lazy geeks!!
Though I and our DC group had various questions not answered by the MeetUp group, we managed fairly well.
I and Sphynx (Thanks dude!) hosted this event, and at last count 23 people actually were around to be counted. These brave folks waded through nasty parking issues, being shy, being female (6 showed, whoooo hooo!), and my being a little too shy to talk to everyone. Much geek talk prevailed, and a good time seemed to be had by all. Many of the group were quite enthused about our community in DC coming togther. Folks out here in DC are stricken by several factors that make it difficult to keep in contact with our peers.
Though I am really not quite ready to announce this, I want to tell anyone in the DC area that I've been working on a site to get us all together. With the help of MeetUp, this can be done. And don't think that because your on one of the other SlashDot MeetUp lists around here that your not part of our community. Please visit this site for more information, and be kind, I'm the admin and I've not even regsitered the domain yet.
DC Metro Geeks
Hi -
The South Bay / Long Beach planned meetup was a fiasco. I think we could have organized something better ourselves, as we did with the recent Moz 1.0 party in Santa Monica.
First, a location inside the Del Amo mall was chosen, meaning we could have stayed there no later than 9 PM. Many computer people work late, plus rush hour traffic here is bad.
Secondly, like many others, we fell victim to the event being cancelled because not enough people had RSVP'ed
IMO, the other L.A. ones had problems also. The "Pasadena" one should have been in colorful Old Pasadena rather than at Uni City where you have to pay $8 for parking, and Jillian's is pretty loud.
And, the O.C. one was at the Irvine Spectrum which although it is perhaps the coolest mall in the L.A. area, it is on the South Edge of O.C.
Finally, my advice to have the San Diego one at the Sheraton hotel due to OSCON 2002 was ignored.
I think the general idea of these meetups are great, but I think we can plan them better ourselves and get better locations if we find a way to do it outside of the slashdot.meetup.com web site.
TWR, Torrance, CA
About 14 of us met at T.G.I Friday's for the Nashville-area meetup. Ages ranged from 17 to early 30's, and amazingly both genders were represented, so conversation was lively and covered a multitude of topics. Slashdotters exchanged friendly greetings with such gratuitous puns as "We've slashdotted the server," etc. The somewhat unexpected turn-out provided ample opportunity for the professionals to share some much-needed advice with the students, advice that may soon be put to use in apprenticing/interning positions. The overall experience was rewarding, providing us geeks with a techno-fellowship we don't often have the opportunity to enjoy offline. Even after the meal and the departure of a few working slashdotters, conversation continued in the parking lot and even as I type this, slashdotters sit behind me in my house discussing esoteric filesystems and their applications - and this is 5 1/2 hour after we first met up. I think I can safely say that the Nashville-area meet has been a definite success. Kudos to whoever came up with the idea, and I hope all the other meets turned out as well as ours did.
need I say more?
well if you think so... There were like 40ish people and not just that but there were 2 real (no I didn't check) girls....
All in all I think it must have been the best meetup
do you dare disagree?
---------
Toronto the center of the UNIVERSE
Considering that there IS location voting going on, I have to wonder WHO exactly voted for these locations that were coming up bad?
Although correct that they shouldn't be in the database to begin with, I would expect people who LIVE in an area to KNOW that something doesn't exist anymore. I hit a few other meetups on the site, for other topics, and voted for locations that are (a) closer to me and (b) i know exist! heh
Seriously, if there's bad information in the databases, these guys need to know this.
So, how's it feel to be beta test everyone? lol
"Champagne for my real friends - and real pain for my sham friends!" http://ericblade.postalboard.com/
It was in a bar so excluded those under 15h. And this really loud band was playing. Overall around 9-bh showed up. Quality geeks though--I got some good contacts.
Having been to a semi-successful MeetUp (Ann Arbor, Michigan), I'd like to add in a few comments that I hope get modded UP so that people will see them, and make their Future MeetUps (if they intend to have them...) a lot easier to deal with.
.. what.. 12? 13?) had the wonderful thought of reserving a spot for as many as he saw on the RSVP board, and then the waitresses got to help put us together.. though by that point, we had amassed into a group of 5 not-at-all-looking-like-we-would-be-together people, so when the next person wanders by they're like "oh, you're slashdot."
/. hat or t-shirt, that's probably a REALLY good indicator, I just picked the geekiest looking thing that I could find.. (yeah, I know my employer's not THAT geeky, but i didn't want to wear my Sprint t-shirt as that got me deluded with insults the last time i wore it to a gathering) Since my vehicle is pretty beat up, I might just spray paint a big "/." on the hood of my truck next time. lol.
Pick a restaurant, or other relatively well known public place, that you know EXISTS. This is what Venue Voting is for. If you see places that don't exist, you might want to contact MeetUp, so that they don't continue to get people looking for places that don't exist! If you're in an area where people might be travelling long distances, vote for a site that's EASY to find for people who might not be familiar with your area - something near a Highway/Interstate, or at least near some major crossroads. Our location was just about perfect - although packed as heck, and we had to wait 40 minutes or so for a table, at the corner of US 23 and M17/Washtenaw is a pretty easy to identify location.
First person there (or, even before hand) should let the staff know that there's a group of people by the name of "slashdot" (or "slashdog" if your waitress is too busy checking out Reverend George, when you tell her the name). Get some space reserved. I thought 8 people was pretty decent, esp since there were only 5 RSVP'd when I last checked before leaving for the restaurant. Brendan (probably the youngest person at any of the meetups - 7th grade makes you
Second.. wear some geek clothing, or something. Just by chance, Tomo and I happened to pull into the parking lot, and park nose-to-nose at the exact same moment, and then after not finding anyone, we returned to our vehicles to hang out.. obviously looking like we were waiting for something. If anyone owns a
Third: Stick around. if you're going to a spot that's got food, even if there's only one or two people that pop in, grab some food. play some video games. Just hang out.. do SOMETHING at the location. We're geeks. Many of us are habitually very late. Many of us are referred to by our co-workers as operating in our very own time zones. People will come in late. Also, people might be driving in from a way away, and not familiar with directions or traffic issues.
Fourth: voice your concerns with the people at Meetup. Obviously since slashdot represents the largest number of people on meetup so far, it's quite new. I think the people who set it up did an excellent job on the site, but obviously there's a few things that need to be addressed. If they don't soon setup any way to communicate amongst people in the site, then I'd like to welcome everyone to come and make use of the message boards and instant messaging at my site ( http://mage.kicks-ass.net/ ). Yes, Slashdot is a big message board. It's sheer size makes it almost a difficult medium to use to communicate with people, back and forth. I rarely see any CONVERSATION on slashdot, just comments on stories.
Fifth: Have fun!
Hey.. did anyone show for the meeting in Southgate, MI? I went to head over that way after I got back home and did what I had to do there, but encountered some really bad construction zones that yahoo's driving directions took me through, and all the street signs were missing, so i couldn't find anything.
Thanks for showing up George, Martin, Eric, Brendan, Tomo, Jason, anyone I forgot...
-out
"Champagne for my real friends - and real pain for my sham friends!" http://ericblade.postalboard.com/
It was nice, but the host didn't show up ;-) ...) and talked just about everything.
We wend thru all the religious wars (distro, editors,
Excellent evening.
Pour ceux qui n'ont pas mon e-mail, passez sur ma home page http://jorune.net/~case/Contact/ pour me donner votre mail, je fais une mailing list séparée.
A+ Laurent
In my opinion, Scientology is a cult you should avoid.
Only 2 of us showed up, and Starbucks closed at 7pm. We had a good old geeky chat though, rambling through fave hacks, censorship, quantum mechanics, and np maths problems.
I was disappointed to see that each of the small groups of folks that arrived didn't interact with the other groups very well. Each group seemed to keep to themselves. If there is another of these such events, a predetermined topic of discussion may be a good way to "break the ice." It was nice, however, to see that there were nearly 20 people there to support the event.
Sleep: A completely inadequate substitute for caffeine.
Four folk showed/found each other - meeting outside wasn't such a bright idea since half the pavement (sidewalk) was under construction.
Sorry I forget everybody's name (I'm hopeless like that) but it was an interesting cross-section:
C++ grrl
uber-hardware geek boy (the equivelent of mainframe disk pack in his rucksack!)
math geek
COBOL revisionist (me)
Much beer consumed, and many interesting discussions across a range of geeky topics. Much fun had (and maybe a couple of Go converts!). Thanks guys, catch you next time - and let's see the rest of you Dublin geeks next time!
need a free COBOL editor for Windows?
Crystal Palace, Logan's Run, DragCity, any of those ring a bell? :)
I went, but couldn't find you guys. How many people were there?
My dingo ate your honor student.