Category: social-hardware

Who says the Social scene in London is nothing compared to San Fran?

Socialising at the geekdinner with Dave Shea

What the heck is going on? Next week is insane! There are tons of events going on in London next week. I'll outline the crazyness…

Now imagine if Momo Monday, Girl geekdinner and Pub Standards were all added to the mix! Someone needs to sort this all out. Its too insane that all these events are happening the same week.

So getting serious for a while now. To be fair everything is ending up on Upcoming which is a good thing. I was using Eventful for quite sometime but since most of the events are ending up on upcoming, i'm not going to fight it. So things are getting a little more origanised here but the problem is that the actual event holders are not looking at upcoming first let alone posting them. Then add the extra pain in the butt that you need to sign in to register yourself with an event, not everyone likes that. So actually things are not that rosey. I thought the Jigsaw wiki might be a good idea but it seems few people use it for events. Then I thought Techcrunch UK might bring some calm to the crazyness but nope, its not happened.

I've filled you all in on the context but this conversation has gone on a little longer in the TechCrunch comments on the same subject. The suggestion of using a google calendar by D4rr3ll sounds good but I'm not sure it solves the problem of sign up but it will certainly help with clashes. As he said a XSL would mean anyone could see it on a normal webpage, and yes using the API event.add or event new, it would be possible to automaticlly add it to Upcoming and Eventful.

So I've setup a Google account for London Social events which I'll email around to people who run events in London. The Calendar is here – http://www.google.com/calendar/render?cid=londonsocialevents@googlemail.com. You can subscribe to the RSS here and Ical here.

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Werewolf night on 31st October?

Witching hour

So I'm planning a whole night of the game (thanks for the idea Francies) which Simon Willison introduced the London geek scene at BarCampLondon. Werewolf…

Werewolf is a game that takes place in a small village which is haunted by werewolves. Each player is secretly assigned a role – Werewolf, Villager, or Seer (a special Villager). There is also a Moderator player who controls the flow of the game. The game alternates between night and day phases. At night, the Werewolves secretly choose a Villager to kill. Also, the Seer (if still alive) asks whether another player is a Werewolf or not. During the day, the Villager who was killed is revealed and is out of the game. The remaining Villagers then vote on the player they suspect is a Werewolf. That player reveals his/her role and is out of the game. Werewolves win when there are an equal number of Villagers and Werewolves. Villagers win when they have killed all Werewolves. Werewolf is a social game that requires no equipment to play, and can accomodate almost any large group of players.

More information about the game and some tactics can be found on wikipedia page Mafia

Because the game requires between 8 – 25 people, I've set a limit of 30 people and decided to try and use upcoming.org for a signup tool. So please sign up there. I'll stick the event on geekdinner later in the month.

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Yahoo! Hack day vs, eBay DevCon

Yahoo Hacks

Found via Skype Journal, a view of the differences between the Yahoo! Hack day and eBay's DevCon approches. The Typical participant is interesting and I thought it was interesting they both had Musical entertainment. Hummmm, do you think this would go down well at a BarCamp?

Yahoo! are on a roll when it comes to events recently, BarCampLondon, Podcast Academy and now Hackday. Jeremy Zawodny covers the hackday event.

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My leaving do at Souk Medina

Coffee gift tips

So I'm having a leaving do tomorrow night (29th Sept 2006). Its going to be at Souk Medina which is near Seven dials in Covert Garden. I have a space booked from 7pm, and expect to be there for most of the night. So feel free to come down and say hi or wave me off to my new position at backstage.bbc.co.uk. The lady holding the coffee tips will not be there, she had a leaving do there last year so it should be good fun. Hope to see you all there…

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Dinner Tonight with Howard Rheingold

Howard Rheingold

If your in London today and would love to meet up for Dinner with Howard Rheingold of the SmartMobs and Virtual Community fame

This is very last minute and we are going to have a meal rather than the usual geekdinner. So expect to pay for a meal and drinks. The venue is undecided and will be decided on at some point during the evening. But I expect it will be near Victoria or Kensington.

Howard Rheingold is one of the world's foremost authorities on the social implications of technology. Over the past twenty years he has traveled around the world, observing and writing about emerging trends in computing, communications, and culture. One of the creators and former founding executive editor of HotWired, he has served as editor of The Whole Earth Review, editor-in-chief of The Millennium Whole Earth Catalog, and on-line host for The Well. The author of several books, including The Virtual Community, Virtual Reality, and Tools for Thought, he lives in Mill Valley, California.

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Apple iTV video streaming box

iTV

The most interesting which came out of the Apple announcements today was the Apple iTV device which fits right into the area currently occupied by Divx DVD players, Media wireless adapters and of course my favorate the xbox. Taken from engadget…

In an unusual turn of events, Apple has pre-announced a wireless video streaming set-top box to be released in Q1 2007 with the tag line “you can take content to your computer or iPod, but now… TV.” Going by the codeword of iTV, the box looks like a flattened Mac mini — apparently it's around half the height — and features a built-in power supply, USB 2.0, Ethernet, 802.11 “wireless component video”, optical audio and HDMI ports, plus regular ol' RCA stereo audio ports. Controllable by the standard Apple remote, the iTV will come with an updated version of the Front Row interface that shares Front Row's smooth 3D graphics, but differs in that it has a menu on the right side of the screen. Apparently it'll work with both iTunes on both PCs and Macs, and will sell for $299.

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