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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.
What ever happened to the classic drinking contest? Sure you dont learn something useful like you would in a soldering contest but at least at the end all the girls look significantly hotter.
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.
And we finally have a definitive answer to the question asked at least since the time of the Roman Republic: how can we segregate those with new wealth but no cultural sophistication away from the rest of society without isolating their money from the larger economy?
The apparent answer: soldering contests with expensive drinks.
"I zero-index my hamsters" - Willtor (147206)
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;
Here in South Florida we have Night Life, but no Techies. Seriously, there is no social interaction for geeks down here. You find 2 or 3 smart people and hold on to them for dear life. Nobody seems to socialize in a group larger than 5. Part of that may be how freakin huge our state is and how spread out we all are, but there are just no technology meet-ups in south florida of any decent size or regularity.
"a night life that involves actually talking to creative people doing exciting things."
Pretension still doesn't count as "substance."
'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
I predict a total sausage fest.
Come on, ladies.
Geeks are great, once you get to know us.
[citation needed]
Do you mean:
I predict a total sausage fest [citation needed]
or
Geeks are great, once you get to know us [citation needed]
or both?
Rule of Slashdot #0: You and people like you are not representative of the larger population. - A.C.
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).
*DUCKS*
Dedicated Cthulhu Cultist since 4523 BC.
What about geek ladies?
10 FILL MUG WITH COFFEE
20 DRINK COFFEE
30 GOTO 10
The event was actually pretty fun. It was in a biggish bar/lounge so there was plenty of booze and it was *packed*. The crowd was a mix of geeks, artsy types and business folks. A bit loud, but hey, it's NYC.
The main thing was a bunch of 5 minute presentations. They were NOT demos or requests for funding as someone else implied. The talks ranged from funny (how NYPD conducts undercover prostitution busts) to weird (guerilla knitting) to informative (how to raise money from angels) to cool (a prof from NYU's ITP who showed a bunch of new tactile interface ideas) to preachy (helping out in third world countries). Most of the speakers were pretty good. One guy even did his in rap/hip-hop style.
All in all, it was fun and everyone I know who went was glad they did.
Rob
I think you're a little too tough on our fairer-sex cohorts.
In my estimation, it's probably far more about the risk-taking, high stakes, self-confidence that is required to be successful at most things, but business in particular.
This is not really a newsflash: Women are attracted to men who act like, yes, men. A guy who doesn't need his hand held and who doesn't need constant stroking of their sensitive ego.
You don't have to be rich, gorgeous, or muscle-bound and tattooed. You just need to possess the same kind of self assurance that guys that DO have those things regularly display.
In geek speak: The default position here is you not going out and not getting laid. So anything you do has no downside. You act self-assured and self-confident and it turns out she's not receptive to it, worst case scenario you're back where you started, home, alone, with a bitchin macbook and BSG on your new 48" LCD.
And yes, I'm a software developer. A pretty good one, actually. And I totally think like this:
me = new Person('shane', 'male');
her = new Person('april', 'female');
me.desireQueue.push(her);
Clearly, if my brain works like this, and I can find compelling women to share an evening (or even a cup of coffee with) you can too.
Woah, really? Then where did I get these? :o
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.
Usually they're the shallow ones whose beauty is quite literally only skin deep.
Indeed. You can't really know what kind of woman you've got until you remove the dermis [I recommend a potato peeler for this, along with suitable restraints (duct tape is surprisingly effective)].
They'll try to scream (a ball gag helps here, by the way), but what else can you expect? Nobody ever said true love was easy.
Now if you'll excuse me, I need to go write a filesystem for Linux.