We had several new folks at Huntsville’s West End Grill for this Tuesday’s Beer and Blog. It was great meeting all of you! For those of you who couldn’t make it this week, following is a recap of those conversations that I had the pleasure to participate in:
Barcamp Updates
- Venue - After discussing the feedback I had posted to our planning Wave, it was decided to keep looking for another week or two. If anyone has access, or knows someone who might have access, to a great place to hold the Huntsville Barcamp for few if any bux, please post to the Wave, comment here or drop us a note through our contact form.
- Discussion Tracks - Tracks are categories that will be used to define the discussions held in individual workgroups. Attendees fill in 6 topics under these tracks that they would like to learn more about. Each topic will be the focus of discussion for 45-minutes to 1-hour, so we need tracks that our community would be interested in.
- The Tracks discussed included:
- General Tech
- Social Media
- Open Source
- DIY Revival
- Suggest More Tracks - We will be collecting track suggestions for the next week. You don’t need to be a Beer and Blog attendee. Just give us track suggestions that you can think of at least 6 topics under that category that you wouldn’t mind either leading a discussion on or learning more about.
- Vote for What You Are Interested In – Next week, we’ll post a poll and the tracks with the highest votes will determine the Barcamp’s agenda. Please participate. Tell your friends. Get those track suggestions in, and then come back to vote to ensure this Huntsville Barcamp will be a great community event.
- Suggest Great Presenters You Know – Point your knowledgeable buddies and peers our way, please. Participating in Huntsville’s Barcamp as a presenter will be great professional exposure and the interactive venues are a ton of fun, too!
Thom’s eBook
Thom had a resolution this year to complete his blog’s first eBook on lifestyle management by early April. We’ve been poking him at each Beer and Blog for motivation and this week he let us know that he is almost ready to release his free first chapter! Next week, maybe we can get the date… or the link! We’re proud of our member’s accomplishments, so don’t forget to let us know what you’re working on when you stop by at our next meetup.
Makers Local 256 Happenings
- Groundhog Day – To make up for Punxsutawney Phil’s nasty declaration of six more weeks of winter, Makers Local 256 announced they would be playing the movie, Groundhog Day, for a little cheering up following Beer and Blog. If you weren’t there, guess you didn’t get the invite… just one more reason to hang out with us each Tuesday afternoon from 5 to 7pm!
- Helping St. Louis Hackers – Last week, when ice storms were shutting down the entire south, Raymond, Nathan, Tim and Justin bravely headed up to St. Louis to help set up a new hackerspace. The only injury occurred to a windshield wiper that couldn’t quite handle the ice build up, but no funerals: the gang repaired it on the spot in true hacker fashion.
iPad Release
Talk wasn’t so much about the iPad or its features, more about the humor of the release day activities. The biggest horror story came from one member who had to sit through the entire event, watching streaming video at his work place here in Huntsville. When that came out, everyone contributed stories they heard about that video stream that wasn’t even supposed to happen… It was fun stuff, don’t miss out next week!
Conan O’Brien
Much speculation over what motivates Conan and where he will go next. Main options comprised Revision3 and follower to the Daily Show and Colbert. One member made the observation that “The Daily Show, Colbert Nation and The Conan O’Brien Show all in a row would constitute over two hours of straight news”. He didn’t know if that would fly.
The rest of the conversation revolved around the definition of “news”. It was determined that more Beer and Bloggers consider The Daily Show, Colbert and Twitter their primary news filters. Who needs CNN? 
Twitter News
The O’Brian discussion led to how people track news on Twitter. The most popular result was creating streaming search tabs for terms you are interested in and then adding minus filters, as needed, until you’re only seeing what you want.
For example, if you live near Huntsville, Alabama, and want a local news channel, try a “Huntsville” search term, minus “Canada” and “Texas” to start with. Then, if you don’t want to see election news, try adding minus “campaign”. Keep going until you’re only getting updates on the local happenings that are relevant to you.
Lost – Final Season
I’m sorry, I tried to totally tune out this conversation, but it did happen… way too many folks in the group were into this show! I think the major conclusion of the conversation was that Lost isn’t really going to tie up all loose ends this season. They are pulling everyone’s leg and anyone who believes them is a sucker…. of course, that’s a conclusion of someone that wasn’t really paying attention…
Tidbits:
- Kiosk book making – some libraries have the on-demand printing systems now – Not Huntsville, but still, they are out there!
- Audible internet commercials rock!
- Nathan paid his quarters for the lost Apple Tablet bet!
- Everyone should see Pirates of Silicon Valley – it’s on Netflix – download it!
- The Dr. Who reference is “He will knock four times!”
That’s all the conversations that I jumped into this week. There were more, but inquiring ears can only absorb so much at once. Still, not bad for a couple of hours of hanging out with interesting people, kicked back with my sweet tea and French dip sandwich and fries, huh?
Please continue the conversation by leaving a comment below. Better yet, join us any Tuesday afternoon between 5pm and 7pm at West End Grill on Old Madison Pike, just east of Hwy 255 (Research Park Blvd).
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