geek – Page 4 – Cubicgarden.com…

One of the meetup features I miss

I will be first to admit that Meetup.com has some good features, but since they started charging the group origaniser it seems like there has been a move away from its system. The problem is where do you move to? Eventful and Upcoming are my prefered services but there are things like Zevents also. However all of them don't quite have all the features of meetup.

One of the features which I miss from Meetup is the ability to print out signs to attract people to the event when your at the actual venue. Last nights London Blogger's meetup was a small affair but attracted some regulars to geekdinner but I also finally met Jo. Jo printed out the meetup sign and placed it on the long table in all bar one, soho. I certainly miss this.

So I've decide to build a XSL transform to generate one of these for Eventful events. My first thought was to transform the XHTML page which already has microformat data for the event.. But quickly realised that the page isn't XHTML at all, for example my next geekdinner event. So unless I cleaned up the HTML first using something like Jtidy first it seemed pointless. So I started looking at the RSS and ATOM feeds. And there is where I struck gold. In the ATOM feed there is everything you need and more. Unlike the RSS feed which is simple RSS 2.0 with A9 Opensearch and Yahoo Media RSS extentions, the ATOM feed has some google data extention. The schema links no where but contains the event dates, location and more. All defined in nice namespaced elements which means its easy to pull out the data needed for the XSL transformation. I was hoping to adapt the XSL to transform not only Eventful ATOM feeds but also upcoming events. But there syndication is either ical or some odd combined html/javascript yahoo or google export. Which really sucks because its not valid XHTML. I'll post my XSL one I'm done. But I'm also considering a XSL-FO transform instead of CSS and XSL. Although its tempting to use XSL 2.0, I 'm going to resist so people can download it and apply the XSL locally. Humm maybe a simple Greasemonkey script will make this even easier to apply to any eventful event.

So using Cocoon and a simple XSL, you can now see any event from Eventful in a design which can be printed out on a black and white printer and pinned up at the event or before the event. Its not quite the table things I was thinking about before, Instead its a useful A4 poster. To use the service? simply enter the eventful unique code into the url after http://cubicgarden.com/cocoon/eventful/poster/{eventful code}. So here's a list of test events.

Please note you need to view the print preview to actually see the correct poster, because I'm using two stylesheets one for print and another for the screen. Oh and the current XSL is here. Please modify it if you feel the need, its released under a creative commons licence.

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Geek and Geekhag podcast number seven – london geekdinner

My and Sarah's seventh podcast is now available online. Enjoy and please leave a comment if you've enjoyed it or simply hate it.

This time we mainly discuss last week's geekdinner with David Teten. The good, the bad and the fall out. Sarah decides that the podcast is too long but we decide to keep it anyway. There is also a long advertisement for Papa Johns by Sarah. And finally we decide to go for the Terry and June music as recommended by Adam and Helen (thanks for the mpeg3 Adam).

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London’s Geek entertainment dinner TV

Slightly borrowing from Geek entertainment TV a little, I've started to do short video for the London geek and internet scene. Think of these three interviews as screen tests. In the meantime don't permalink to these files as they may get moved to Archive.org. At the moment there all copyrighted to myself till I get written permision from the people being interviewed that its ok to release them under a creative commons licence. The format used is Xvid which will play back using VideoLan's VLC or any decent mediaplayer with the Xvid codec.

David Teten on his geekdinner (8.8meg) and some links David recommends (0.9meg)

Ben Metcalfe on Social Networks (15meg)

Tom Morris on OPML (20meg)

All the videos are now creative commons licenced and free to download and mashup at Archive.org

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Last nights Geek Dinner with David Teten

Ok before I start ripping in to what went wrong last night. Can I just point out that Anina (yes the Supermodel and Fashion goddess) was at the geekdinner and I didn't even realise till she asked a question of David Teten. There's a hour long interview with her at Nerd TV. If I wasn't so damm busy trying to make up for someone not turning up to host the geekdinner, I would have asked her about being a guest at a girl geekdinner or just plain geekdinner. Oh well opptunity missed, unless someone got some contact details for her? Ben? I also regret to say I never actually took any pictures of the event, but I did get 3 good interviews from David, Ben and Tom. Unlike pictures and even audio these will take a bit more time to edit and upload somewhere. I've also promised to show them to the interviewer before uploading them to Archive.org. So expect another few days before there somewhere public.

So on to my major beef for the night. Lee Wilkins. See before this night I've been sitting between Lee and someone who might prefer to be nameless for now about the domain Geekdinner.co.uk. I always thought Lee owned the domain name but he doesn't, actually Nick Swan does. Nick Swan came and offered me the domain because he felt Lee was profiting from the hard work I've been putting into Geekdinner's. He felt it was just simply unfair or maybe unjust? And uptill last night I wanted to just stay out of the disucssion. But then Lee put on the David Teten Geekdinner and didn't even turn up to host the event. I turned up about 8pm to a angry pub owner asking whos charge and about 15 people looking a little lost. David Teten introduced himself to me which was nice of him, but I felt was the wrong way of doing things and so started looking for Lee Wilkins (who I've never actually met). I quickly realise that Lee was not there and didn't seem to be planning on turning up (multiple people tried to phone him). This meant all the food which was ordered would have no one to pay for it. And at 150 pounds worth of food, the bar would not be happy! Hey would you be?

So me, Sarah and Ben basiclly took over and started to host the night. Ben went around and took money from everyone who was still there and Sarah went out and got sticky badges. God knows how but Sarah found stickers at 8:15pm in the area of Leicester Square. Trust me thats some achivement! Anyway back to the geekdinner after finally getting close to the amount of money we needed to pay the bill, the food came out and boy oh boy was it a lot of food. Credit to the polar bear, it was a wide variaty of food and lots of vegatarian food by the way (It was all on seperate plates too). By 9:00pm it was all in full swing with David talking about the concept of the Virtual Handshake (download the book here for free). And honestly David was great, the questions were a little slow to start but before long a conversation was happening. I had to cut it a little short after about 45mins because we had to arrange the Prize draw for a signed copy of David's book, which happened about 10mins later. Davids Talk as I said was really good and caused a little bit of a stir. I was almost tempted to buy his book for 10 pounds right there. I know a couple of people actually did buy it on the night. Its interesting his thinking behind keeping a public and personal profile online. There was lots of debate about how this might be the wrong way of looking at things, but David came back with real world figures and suggested that things may change but not right now.

After all the drama at the start of the evening, things tailed off pretty quickly as people left to get trains home. I know a few people left before the food came out and I'm sorry they missed a good night, but I understand why. It won't happen again if I have anything to do with it.

Ok so I finally got in contact with Lee Wilikins yesterday night via Skype. Lee's partner Jenny went to Accident and Emergency earlier that day. . Yeah I'm really sorry, honestly I do. You know I'm not heartless. But I'm still pretty mad about what happened and stick by what I've said. Once Lee writes a entry or public applogy I will link to it. But I have said sorry to Lee, and hope Jenny is doing better now. I hate talking about what I would have done because were all different and would act differently so I won't. What happens with geekdinner.co.uk and future geekdinner's I don't know quite yet.

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Cooking for Geeks, Ctrl+Alt+Chicken

Ctrl Alt Chicken is a new form of cooking show… one in which the chefs don't know how to cook! In the first episode your hosts Alex Albrecht and Heather Stewart tackle all that is Chicken Cordon Bleu.

Honestly this is fantastic viewing. Its a couple of geeks trying to cook and getting it wrong. Not that I could have done much better but its really good to see Geek media breaking out of the usual genres. Can I also say its good to see a couple on geek media for once. I don't know if Alex and Heather are together or not but they make a good couple in the kitchen.

The really nice thing about Geek media and specially ctrl+alt+chicken is how simple it is to do. It kind of makes you want to do something simlar, or is it just me? Obviously me and Sarah have been doing our podcasts together for a while now, but I think there's some other things I want to try out too. I now have access to a camera and have had the editing ability for quite sometime. So look out for some videocasts in the near future. Oh and trust me its not going to be me peering down a lens, expect something a lot more interesting.

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Geek and Geekhag podcast number six – semantic what?

My and Sarah's sixth podcast is now available online. Enjoy and please leave a comment if you've enjoyed it or simply hate it.

This time we reflect on a few blog posts from me and Sarah's personal blogs. And I attempt to do a short introducation to the semantic web and tagging vs categories.

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Pledges and a Geekcamp update

My pledge's have failed. Actually they failed on the first of March but I've been so busy moving server to actually blog it. So I did really badly on one Pledge and the other one not so bad.

I will setup and run a geekdinner on new years 2006/07 but only if 100 other self described geeks will help out and/or commit to going to the geekdinner.

11 People signed up, 89 more people were needed.

So yeah this one is certainly not a goer. I might give it a another try in October or September when people might be thinking a lot more about christmas and new years. I only need about a few months to find a venue and get together a good group of geeks and special guests. Yes its much harder on the run up to Christmas but not impossible. So anyhow, keep an eye open for a new pledge after summer.

I will setup and help run a geekcamp somewhere in Europe but only if 30 other self described geeks will join me and/or help out.

13 People signed up, 17 more people were needed.

This pledge was much more interesting. There was tons of comments from people about geekcamp. Some came in comments on the pledge others through comments to me personally or emails. Someone told me, they frankly wouldn't ever go to a geekcamp unless it was in London. While Matt Biddulph wrote Sounds intriguing. Location is important – somewhere interesting and inspiring to take people out of context. Not England! The best geekcamp event I've been to was CCC (http://www.ccc.de/camp/), which was in tents in a huge horse-paddock by a lake just outside East Berlin in 2003. My feeling was that it would be somewhere like Devon or Cornwall but I would have prefered somewhere tucked away in Spain or Holland. Someone suggested Brighton Beach as it has Wireless and would be mind blowing if we could get power somehow. This wasn't actually a bad idea and started thinking this could be done if we got a generator. But I don't think we will get the permission to do such a thing easily. Saying all that, on Bournemouth beach last year it was easy enough to have a full on beach party without too problem. But honestly I don't think sea and computers go together really well. But hey its maybe something we should at least try once.

Another issue came out of the comments, time. See in the UK we get about 5 weeks off a year and people don't like to take time off without there partners. So the idea of Geekcamp is maybe very difficult to justify to others. My first thought was to keep it down to a weekend but that limits how far the camp is. For example if it was in Spain, would you take a plane to go for 2 days? Cost a side, its still too short. Even Devon and Cornwall can take sometime if your going by Train or Coach. But then Sarah (my wife) suggested a long weekend might be better. So you go on the Saturday and it all starts on the night. Then it finishes on Monday morning which gives people time to get back before work on Tuesday.

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London girl geek dinner with Cory Doctorow

Katy your host for the evening with a couple of guests

London Girl Geekdinner – Excellent times, great people and good work Katy and Sarah. You can read more here and here. Just a shame I missed most of it.

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Geek and Geekhag podcast number five – Tesco too big for its boots?

My and Sarah's five podcasts now available online. Enjoy and please leave a comment if you've enjoyed it or simply hate it.

This time we talk about joint/partner websites, Sarah says sorry to Blojsom creator and how Tesco is becoming Walmart in the UK and it would seem trying to beat Walmart at its only game in America with Tesco Metro's (starbucks style?).

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Real women and their male counterparts

I sent the following around to some of my friends which are women. Its taken from Rachel Clarke's blog post titled What real women want. Which is actually a copy of what Gia wrote here.

Girls should grow up valuing their Brains over their Looks.
Boys should grow up valuing women's Brains over their Looks. (yes, yes, I understand genetics… but your boys will have much better relationships if they desire a woman they can fondle AND talk to…)
Girls should grow up understanding they have control over their bodies.
Girls should NOT grow up believing that menstruating is a curse and something to be ashamed of (without going into a big long explanation, I believe that deep seated shame and revulsion because of a natural bodily function is at the heart of a lot of women's emotional and psychological problems… but that is for another day…)
Girls and women should not define themselves exclusively by their relationships with and to other people (ie to put being a mother, wife, daughter, sister, friend before being an independent person)
Smart women should be proud to be smart.
Women should show off their intelligence at every opportunity. Flaunt it.
Smart women need to take their place in public eye rather than 'just pretty women'.
Women should never feel they have to put up or shut up.
Women should always use their gender if it will get them ahead (I mean, if wearing a low-cut shirt at the interview will actually get you the job, then go right ahead. You'll only really *keep* the job if you can actually do it… )
Women and girls should always remember, 'Well-behaved women seldom make history.”

I'm in almost total agreement with this list. I've been thinking if I was to ever bring up a little girl in this world, these are some of the values I would want to instill in her. My god-daughter Megan is currently number one for values right now.

Some points however, point number 2. Yes I understand Genetics too but come on, have we not evolved passed the dog humping stage now? I agree Boys should grow up valuing women's brains over there looks. Its something I've always done. Looks are subjective and what most of my work mates see as stunning I usually don't find the time for. See for me it was always about the personality and the intellengence. I mean who wants to go to a movie and then somewhere else for coffee and have a conversation about how Donnie Darko was too confusing. Geez, shoot me now. Honestly I don't think men do a very good job respecting women's intellengence. I still hear comments which almost hinge on sexism. I do try and pick people up about these comments but you just know there not going to repeat there sexist comments in front of you again. But will carry on making those comments either way. Its a shame but its there loss.

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Geeking the difference between San Fran and London

Ben's been doing a comparison between London and San Francisco and honestly it sounds like heaven for a geek like myself.

Sure, in London we have geek dinners and there’s lots of opportunities to meet up with other peeps who work at BBC (lunch in the White City canteen, in the local BBC bars, etc). But it’s not every night…

I mean can you imagine hanging out with geeks most of the time when going out? Geez, sounds like good to me, no offense to anyone in London of course but its good to be around like minded people sometimes. Moving on…

The other great thing about San Francisco is the coffee shop culture. It’s 18:30 on a Sunday evening and we’re in Ritual Roasters with our laptops out sipping on large cups of extremely tasty java. And of course there is free WiFi (every coffee shop has wifi). Looking around me there must be at least a third of the café’s cliental using laptops. Having your laptop out in a coffee shop in the UK would not only be slightly unusual but also pretty fruitless – or expensive — as most coffee shops either have no wifi or wifi paid for by the hour.

Wow, if only. Now I hear London has more wireless that anyone else but I swear most of it is owned by BT, McDonalds, Tmobile and the Cloud. Usually if you look around you can find coffee shops near wireless points but its rare. Electricity isn't so much of a problem but yeah connectivity is usual left to your 3G or GPRS phone. On the plus side there is tons of pubs and bars across London, some more laptop friendly than others and they shut about 11pm unlike coffee shops which shut at about 7-8pm (at least in the UK). But Ben's next paragraph strikes a cord with me.

In the UK, we have pub culture – which doesn’t suit me at all. I don’t drink alcohol and I don’t particularly like smokey atmospheres. And there’s only so much lemonade you want to drink. Coffee on the other hand is not only my solitary vice but I’m also quite the connoisseur. WiFi in the pub, I don’t think so… Spending the equivilent of £2 on a coffee and being welcome to sit in a cafe for as long as you like using their chair, table and wifi in London… Forget it.

See its so odd, Ben and me are a like in our distaste of alcohol. I don't know what it is but the only drink I will drink if I have to is something soft with vodka. I will drink red wine with a nice meal but usually I much prefer to have a nice can of Redbull over rocks. And honestly I could happily and would much prefer to go to a coffee shop till late. Coffee shop culture maybe thought of as a American thing, but I'm not so sure because going out in Berlin and other large western european cities has always been a coffee shop type experience. Its pretty cool to go out and drink a few cups of strong blended coffee with friends before heading to a club or party. I'll be honest and say I would happily give up pub culture for coffee shop culture.

I'm very interesting to hear what the San Francisco ‘Out of Towner’ with Ben Metcalfe event will be like on March 2nd. Good on you Ben, but I still can not see myself moving to America any time soon. Canada maybe.

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Geek and Geekhag podcast number four – Mum its about the White boxes

My and Sarah's four podcasts now available online. Enjoy and please leave a comment if you've enjoyed it or simply hate it.

British geek and his American geekhag wife talk about geeky stuff like explaining podcasting to your mum, online identity, owning your personal online data, Blojsom for dummies, folksonomy.

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Geek dinner with Paul Boag

Another successful and great Geekdinner, this time with Paul Boag from the Boagworld design podcast. This time around I decided to try a local designer doing good stuff for the community. PaulBoag fitted the bill perfectly since I've been listening to his podcast for a while now. Around 30 people showed up and enjoyed the evening with Paul. Now this may seem small compared to the 70 of Dave Shea but its not far off Tim O'Reilly and Molly type attendance. What I found interesting is the percentage of new faces and regulars. It always seems to stay around the same percentage no matter what guest. I've not worked out if this is good or bad yet but we'll see at the next one I guess. Something else which did change this time was the percentage of women. It went down this time which is a shame but I know quite a few women who simply couldn't make it this time.

So as usual people turned up before even I got there which is always a suprise. Paul and Marcus turned up just after myself which was about 18:30 ish. Between 19:20 and 19:45 the bulk of the people came which is usual. And before you knew it the food was being handed out. This was great because usually people ask me when the foods coming and I usually have to say soon, honestly soon. But this time it was so early that it even took me by suprise. I had not even collected the money and given out sticky name tags yet. So I'm glad to say that the Polar Bear will be come the home of Geekdinner unless they have it booked for other events (they have June booked out for the World Cup or something). Its big enough for 100 people and we have complete control over music, noise and the lighting. There's a complete DJ and Mic setup so its possible to record talks and even finally broadcast the speakers talking to the whole room without the speaker shouting out loud and loosing there voice.

But back to the night, by the time everyone had a chance to get there food and digested I had introduced Paul and we were away. Paul's talk was mainly a public reply to Molly's post How to sniff out a Rotten Standardista. I won't recite much of what Paul said but it was pretty funny in parts and it was recorded by Marcus and another person (can't remember your name sorry). I know the Boagworld is planning a special podcast with the recordings they made, so I'm hoping to be linking to the ~~podcast soon enough~~Podcast. But after talking about Molly's post and the fact that we look inside of the design community too much, Paul started on Web 2.0. He was convinced its all smells too much like a bubble. Before long Paul was being beaten to death with questions and comments. In the end, Paul had to give in and make it clear that something like Digg.com smells like a Bubble type site while Flickr before it was bought was not because they at least had a business plan. Honestly Paul was great, he really took it all on the chin and was glad to admit he might have changed his mind a little. Paul also gave a nice talk about how we and the pros are actually making it up as they go along. If we were more honest about this things might actually be better overall. So without spilling any more tasty beans, I got to say Paul was fantastic and Marcus was great too (i can't believe his arm never fell asleep. holding the mic for almost a hour I believe?) I actually closed my eyes at one point and seriously it sounded like the batter of a usual Boagworld podcast. Great stuff and thanks again to Paul and Marcus for making the trip up to London and taking part in a great Geekdinner.

For those who don't know there was a special competition which included a trip to Austin Texas to the South by South East interactive conference (SXSW). Not only did the jammy winner get tickets to the conference but he also got his hotel paid for and flights paid for by the little bit of sponsership which sits on Geekdinner.co.uk now. The names were pulled out of my grey hat by Paul Boag and Simon won, much to the disappointment of everyone else who entered. Kinda of wish I could have entered myself really too. Simon's already offered to fly the London Geekdinner flag for us and plans to meetup with a couple of people who have already booked there tickets to go. Good luck Simon, have a great time!

I spoke to so many people during the rest of the evening but I would like to say thanks to everyone for coming and making it a great geekdinner. It was less people but it was nice and friendly and there was plenty of food to go around for all. Oh by the way Jen and other vegatarians, the polar bear serves food on single plates so the meat is easily avoidable. Tom asked me if it was ok for a Vegan and I couldn't honestly say yes, but I believe even he was able to find something good and safe to eat. Another reason to stay at the polar bear I guess? Whatever it is, there is a flickr group I set up here and my own photos tagged geekdinnerwithboag here. Can't wait to arrange the next one now.

Oh by the way Simon that lucky guy and Rachel have a good review of the evening too.

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WikiWednesday in London

Wikiwednesday in London was a interesting affair. Its the first time I've ever been and I honestly can't remember how I found out about it. But about 12 people turned up and talked about everything web based. I know the theme for the evening was wikis but I don't think I spent much time talking about them past the intitial conversation with Shelia and a guy whos name which escapes me right now. Anyway before long more people turned up and we hooked up with the rest of the group which were already somewhere else in the bar. Like most events in London there was quite a bit of drinking, some snacks and a lot of good conversations. Before long people were leaving (about 9:30pm) which seemed a little early, but we all got work tomorrow.

Time for some name dropping I guess. Kathy and Nina for there fun and funky atitudes to geek culture. These women make any event so much more fun. I also learned that Kathy is actually from Bristol too, but sadly moved to the rivial city Bath (a very boring place for the young).I know the next geekdinner with Paul Boag is at a difficult time for quite a few people but Nina tried to convince me that I should change the date just for her alone. Nice try Nina, but you will be missed. A couple of stayed till the very end even after Ross Mayfield had left. Lars is one of those guys I've seen on wikis and blogs around the web but never met in person. Me and geez I'm bad with names talked about blogs, rss, aggregation and social networks for a while on the last lot of drinks. I can't remember this guy's name either but he works for Skype localisation and travels back and forth between Italy and England every 3 weeks. Although it sounds great, he admitted that its quite tiring and he never really gets to go out that much.

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