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NYT Techie Night Life Reprogrammed
securitas writes "Almost a decade after the Internet bubble collapsed, the New York Times reports on the revival of the Silicon Alley technology social scene — with a twist. It's now about substance. Gone are the "glitzy club ... minor celebrities, go-go dancers, an open bar and pricey giveaways" in favor of unconferences, Ignite, Pecha Kucha, ideas and 'a night life that involves actually talking to creative people doing exciting things.' Most major cities have a geek social scene like the NYC Soldering Championship [video link] featured in the article." Not surprisingly (for anyone who reads O'Reilly's Make magazine), Bre Pettis is one of the event organizers mentioned.
Sounds leaden.
I'll take the open bar.
Sometimes balance means shutting off those overly acute powers of perception and going with the animal brain every so often.
Dropping the bubbly excess sounds great, but everything doesn't need to be turned into a intellectual engineering exercise.
"Almost a decade after the Internet bubble collapsed, ..."
The bubble burst in 2001. Internet "decades" are much shorter.
Research shows that 67% of those who use the term "research shows", are just making shit up.
Yeah, because I work all week with geeks all day long just so I can hang out with them after work on the weekend. Yeah...no.
Give me the old scene any day of the week. The social scene is about unwinding and meeting interesting people who help you expand your mind, not a bunch of people who think exactly like you and only are willing to challenge you in a game of Warcraft or in a heated discussion about design patterns and antipatterns. If you can't do that at work, then yeah, maybe you need that kind of interaction...but most don't because they get it all day long. Unless you're unemployed, of course.
I figure just throwing a bunch of nerds and alcohol will produce more "intellectual" stimulating exercises than this whole pre-planning will. I mean, nothing wrong with a soldering contest with beer, but I'll take a bunch of napkins and spur-of-the-moment scribbled ideas after a night of drinking with my fellow guys than attend an organized town-meeting.
I mean, who HASN'T had a a great/horrible idea when drinking?
import system.cool.Sig;
'a night life that involves actually talking to creative people doing exciting things.'
withering away one's life in a dark bar corner with sleazy sluts and calling it fun didnt make much sense ever anyways.
Read radical news here
Actually, that's a "cutting analysis" of "women with a fetish for CEOs who, in their mind, must have money to spend on them." It's got little to do with women liking geeks, and everything to do with the idea that someone women will go after anything that spends money (and nothin' spends money on a woman like a lonely geek with disposable income).
What about geek ladies?
10 FILL MUG WITH COFFEE
20 DRINK COFFEE
30 GOTO 10
I'm slightly miffed that you believe that I'm unable to find a "compelling" woman to share an evening with. My current single state is, believe it or not, due to a prioritizing of female companionship below other concerns. I'll get over it, though :D
However, I also know from experience that women who do not figure financial resources (or, should I say, "resources" in general) into their model of what they find attractive in a man are relatively rare. Even the smart ones (and sometimes specially the smart ones) do such, consciously or not. Since we are not that far removed from our hunter-gatherer origins, mates with significant resources are still (though filtered through our society models) sought after due to the higher likelihood that both the mate, the attracted, and the offspring will survive.
I also realize that most of the time, geeks in this type of conversation are complaining they never get dates/attention/laid. However, in this case, I was merely relating what I've experienced in the past.