What am I on about?

[ciphergoth]

Just calibrating my posts - here's a poll about my last post - if you haven't seen it yet, wait 'till you've stopped reading your friends list before you come back. I promise this poll has no wrong answers.

Update: I am overjoyed to learn that as of just now, no less than 14 people have some idea what I'm on about. That last chart is the most complex I've produced, I wasn't sure how to explain what it was and I was pretty sure I hadn't done a good job of it, so that even one other person gets it is really nice. All ideas on how to set out the meaning of that chart welcome.

[Poll #1185737]

Comments

[shevek.livejournal.com]

I know this might be out of the blue, but ... would you consider giving an invited talk on this material (or, for that matter, anything else that interests you?) We're aiming to bring new ideas to an intelligent, technically literate audience.

It will be on the 28th July, in Bristol, and there will be a number of interesting things going on. Event title and details not yet announced. My last event was called a "Linux Fest", but in 2008, I think that would be putting the cart before the horse. The interesting problem has to come first, what technology is used to solve it is a secondary question. Any other ideas?

Perhaps I'm trying to read too much between the lines here, but I thought I'd say: I find that although my rubbish "hey, the cat is purple today" entries get the most comments, I find that the ones people talk to me about most are the more literary ones, that don't get many comments. I think, from reading your political entries, that I learn a tremendous amount, and it's hard for me to add anything to what you have presented - please keep doing things like this!

[ciphergoth.livejournal.com]

That sounds fantastic. I can probably even persuade my work to pay the tickets.

Man, now I'm going to obsess about what I'll present. How long do I get? I take it I can project from my (VGA-out only) laptop? Is there a website with more details of the event?

Thanks!

[shevek.livejournal.com]

I think we're going to try to keep the talks short, because it's a general-public event, so up to 30 minutes is our current guildeline. We're trying to make sure that there's always something interesting coming along. We may have a general track and a deep-technical track, so there is probably an opportunity to talk to each. I certainly enjoy the way you make a lot of this material very accessible. :-)

Technically, there's an excellent stage-crew, so anything you ask for, you can have. We don't have an official web site yet, but it'll come in the next couple of days, hopefully with a more formal email.

*panic mode on* eep!

[ciphergoth.livejournal.com]

when you say 30 mins, you mean 25 mins per talk and 5 mins between talks? That's what I'm used to in the crypto world, seems to work very well.

[shevek.livejournal.com]

I'll take your advice on that, if those figures work. :-) We're planning separate explicit social spaces where people are encouraged to meet up after talks they enjoyed, and chat more. I think invited talks will get 30 minutes, and we're going to have an on-the-day "unplanned talks" track which is limited to 10 minutes, but lets people talk about things they only just thought up.

This is actually the first concrete day of planning, and the last event I did wasn't anything on this kind of scale. :-) We're also brainstorming "fun" walk-in-walk-out sessions, perhaps physical puzzles, and hardware mods, and stuff like that.

[shevek.livejournal.com]

http://www.techadventure.org/ - we are now organized! Formal programme is gradually happening! :-)