Slashdot Readers Visit Meatspace

Several readers sent in notes about their Slashdot Meetup experiences; we'll start with tuxedo-steve 's report from Melbourne: "Just a quick wrapup from the Melbourne, Australia /. Meetup. We ran into problems due to the assigned meeting place being closed at the scheduled meetup time, but ended up getting a fair few people (20-30 probably) herded up before moving to a bar that would provide us with service. A good night ensued, fueled by tech-related conversation and a fair amount of beer for those so inclined. For those yet to have their meetup, be sure your meeting place is going to be open!" Below are a few more local reports -- feel free to add yours in the comments.

Nest, jmccay writes: "The New Hampshire meetup was great. We didn't have a host, but somebody reserved a table. I think it was the meetup people. We talked geeky stuff (and complained about the new word based karma system). We had the hardware comparison (and one-up contest for a couple of people). All in all I enjoyed it and I am looking forward to next time. I hope more people show up next time (only 5 out of 24 showed up this time {I just checked}). I think voting begins Saturday for the next meetup place!"

MattyBoy.bigBalls() writes: "So the first Slashdot Meet Up is done in Toronto. Lets see ... I got pretty blasted ... talked about programming/video games/movies/science ... basically everything on slashdot ... someone asked me my user name and I had the pleasure of responding MattyBoy.bigBalls() hahahaha ... I met some girl who's into skateboarding/linux/punk rock and slashdot.. that's just odd And since im in Toronto on the subway ride home I had a conversion with some world youth day kid about god.. yikes ... thats scary when I'm wasted ... Rock OUT!"

InfinityWpi writes: "Just a quick reporting-in on the Slashdot Meetup Day in Fargo, North Dakota. We had 11 names on the Meetup list, four people RSVP... and three show up, one of whom hadn't RSVP'd. Still, the meeting went on until almost ten."

Finally, mmarlett writes: "The Wichita, Kan. Slashdot meetup just wrapped up. It was a tight, eight-person group. There were some interesting facts, though:

• Most of us sustained some sort of heavy electrical shock as children, either by inserting metallic things into outlets or cutting hot wires. Monitor coils were also popular.
• No one brought a digital camera, but everyone said they'd bring one next time.
• None of us could remember anyone's name. Once we paid the tab and removed the nametags, it was a lot of "what was your name, again?"

We had a great time and talked about everything from the Soviet Union's introduction to newsgroups (Dennis, a.k.a. wetcat, was there) to problems with Linux installs to antiquated hardware installs. I took down the sign I made ("Know who CmdrTaco is? [slashdot logo] Who are you?") around 7:30 when it seemed like everyone was there and people at other tables started staring."

Comments

To Bobby Sue, it was great meeting you

[Anonymous Coward]

Read using that thing you whispered in my ear.

-----BEGIN PGP MESSAGE-----

jA0EAwMCaOx31yDrLpNgyelbtvsW1rA9ix+2QSMI3TUH4pQAo/ LtWgzoIsNWF7ME
VMJ9xvy9rNEp55eU2YiAm+wKpZaRbtxV9fDJ8mlQd265SYShnb XAIu+QennlyJHn
eafTuZA3hrU/llX1kGXik91yhZRcn40ZSsrx0OuvkAN+yL12Vh GoCNc5n7DOBHvo
RKxBnVJyQ5OPJqHENGuZFzRaOaoRoZmERHc8XK8Ii+kT0tzzEd VKWKF40EwXDs9o
b11/IwmGVaHLUlD2Raxx//bn5qDsoqLaKwsMtDhqrX8BHi5fA5 dejhCE4B8Yyba1
ZNf5OUHq0PnEnPKsdFd4cW3af1E216Nr1aeTRRNhQQjCYpI2FC 5GOWFpffrs44aC
dJFHBNybIbWwVb3ZpNEnOjdvYkNA5M7JUT7lD0Cd+I1Lc83nyD Ddb96/z1geGOFA
pzm6Tvi1ETMOoyYF5C/K3SunBuDhAjvBapE1LYk3dJAnui/SRE uZF+sKzEl8c7RT
QFD9PWQa+tW8SSieFNwzXYO9thDYaCnoOvchIWH4J5Fi7ZoE1J 0ptIsPUlkD4GzA
zjCknycgXHuaCw90sw/atx8Y3qrFxlk4qATEnam/ZS1gNbfzCx FInkTIlYaNeiLJ
VavjY5x0jKoMSQlOIjGpm5wU6Za5abmrHY8LTdbTpHKhfpK4cZ t1TT8QrWXkq3y2
UXZWIAUPPzl+LE2CCQiFIUOQk1nfFG8AB62yOUqq8vd1Sf3N/h /vWMSOmFLki4LC
nWRVRqeJ4AphDh+DpGdkAfcHIk/qpYsz+6UtqwinuTkXMI/ZhE 033fMoJZJ6DHaG
LCEYoMUZWif5VbhAjawyBXw0XXd2hmyc
=2DBa
-----END PGP MESSAGE-----

Did anyone notice....

[TheLocustNMI]

Sjender's "Pacific Solution" game about the australian pacific-refugee problem?

http://home.pacific.net.au/~sjender/pacificsolut io n/

A choice bit of rhetoric from the instructions:
[pic of boat]
A leaky craft full of filthy boat people. Must be stopped at all costs, for the good of the nation. Say it with me: We don't want people like this in our country!

Wow, here in the US, we had people who might say such things -- they were call the Ku Klux Klan!

What a jackass.

Re:karma

[bmetzler]

I still think it would be nice to assign additional points to people with a high karma so that I can view their (probably) insightful views even though several idiots have marked it as "Redundant" or "Flamebait".

You can! Notice the little pushpin looking doodad at the end of the username/date line, right after the message number. Click on it. Now, make that person your friend. Next go into your preferences and put a +6 in the friends box. Wala!! Every post that your friend makes now looks like a very insightful 5 post.

Note that you can also do this with your foes, and put a -6 in the prefs.

-Brent

Re:karma schemes

[rmadmin]

babes [...]

Hrm.. interesting

Karma: BOING! (mostly affected by moderation done to your comments)
Karma: Hoe (mostly affected by moderation done to your comments)
Karma: Ex-Wife (mostly affected by moderation done to your comments)

Re:karma

[sllort]

Announcements were made in a very informal manner in CmdrTaco's journal

For more in depth coverage of Moderation and META-Slashdot issues, check out my journal - here's coverage of the karma obfuscation update and my an open forum on Under/Overrated.