GeekDinner

Today is November 21, which, in 1996, was declared “World Television Day” by the United Nations. Apparently there were no wars or famines or anything in 1996, because the UN General Assembly found plenty of time to argue about whether or not this should be done - Germany complained that there was already a World Telecommunication Day, and a World Development Information Day, and that a TV day was biased in favour of rich people.

I would be opposed to World Television Day for different reasons: TV is a passive medium, where you sit and watch whatever gets fed to you, with no interaction or control. And this, of course, is why I like things like GeekDinners: they are organised by their attendees, who are also the people that give talks, and listen to the talks, and suggest talks, and pick venues. It’s a new, interactive world.

So, yeah, my point is that there’s just under one week until the GeekDinner next Thursday, and I’m just reminding you about it. If you’re on the list, but can’t make it, please remove yourself. If you didn’t make the main list (which is now full, as usual), put yourself on the waiting list, and remember that in the last few days (and hours!) before the dinner, the list moves rapidly, and you are almost certain to make the main list if you want to come.

The details are, as ever, on the wiki.

See you there!

Announcing the tenth Cape Town GeekDinner. Funnily enough, even though September is the ninth month, the name is Latin for “seventh month” - the Romans named the actual seventh month after Julius Caesar. On the subject of names, we’ve decided to call this one “Jubilant Jujube”, which can refer both to those little chewy sweets, and to the Chinese date tree.

Here are the details:
Date: Monday, 29th September,
Time: 18:00 for 18:30,
Place: Asoka, on Kloof Street

See the wiki for more info.

Wednesday 28 May 2008 at Mel’s Kitchen in Rondebosch, 18:30.

See the wiki for details.

Another GeekDinner has come and gone, and we want to thank everybody who came and made it the success that it was. We had a huge turnout, and we’re getting loads of new people coming - this is great, and it’s thanks to the community that makes these things happen.

Secondly, we’d like to thank Sloppy Sam’s for hosting us, and putting up with the rather special demands that GeekDinner imposes on a venue. Huge thanks also go out to Stormhoek for providing us with some excellent wine - it’s always nice to have you at a party!

Finally, of course, we want to thank all the speakers who volunteered their time and energy to speak to us about what they’re passionate about. Thanks to you all, and we hope to see you at the next dinner.

Many of the folks behind GeekDinner are also taking part in organising StarCamp, which happens this weekend (8th and 9th December). It’s kinda like GeekDinner over two days, without the restaurant, although hopefully with some food. Hopefully free food, if we can organise it. The StarCamp organisers (which could include you, if you want to help out) want it to be the event for those interested in technology, new media, and social networking in Cape Town.

Over the past few months, we’ve had help from a number of quarters. On the first day I mentioned it to them, Amobia and ProsperIS said they’d help out. And, more recently, the QuirkStars offered to sponsor the event T-shirts. They’re holding a competition to elicit some designs from the community - do you want the glory of winning? Unfortunately, the competition closes at mid-day tomorrow (Tuesday, 4th December), so you’ll have to work quickly.

We’re up to 78 Geek Diners for Eccentric Eggplant, the fifth Cape Town GeekDinner, to be held at Ferryman’s Tavern at the V&A Waterfront on Wednesday (ie, the 28th November 2007).

According to the sign-up page, only 2 more people are allowed, but there are always a couple of last-minute cancellations when people remember that it’s their anniversary and their spouse will kill them if they’re off geeking instead of taking them to a nice dinner.

(Extra points: Take the spouse to the GeekDinner. Don’t get killed, and get to geek out at the same time.)

This will be our first attempt at Slideshow Karaoke - where we volunteer two victims (Jonathan Hitchcock and Bryn Divey in this case) to give a talk on a subject they may know nothing about with slides prepared by others (Russell Cloran and Jeremy Thurgood in this case) and given to the speakers at the same time the speaker is giving the talk to the audience. If it works, I think we should have a few slideshow karaoke sessions at StarCamp…

This is to announce the fifth Cape Town GeekDinner, which will be held on Wednesday, November the 28th, upstairs at Ferrymans in the Waterfront, at 19:00 for 19:30.

Details of the menu and talks can be found on the wiki page.

Sign up to the wiki if you want to come along, and tell your friends!

If you want to give a talk, add yourself to the wiki, along with details of your talk.

We will also be having our first Slideshow Karaoke session - somebody will be giving a talk based on slides they’ve never seen before.

Hope to see you there!

A big thank you to everybody who helped organise, spoke at, or attended the September GeekDinner last night. Special mention to Summerville for hosting us, and, of course, to GetWine for supplying the wine.

GetWine have also very generously offered a special to the attendees of the dinner last night: If you email johan@getwine.co.za and mention the dinner, you can get 12 bottles of the wine we had last night, for only R210. The wine is Senga, and you can get 6 bottles of red and 6 bottles of white, which would normally cost R324. This special will last for a week only, so mail him now, mention GeekDinner, and order your wine!

Jimmy Wales (the founder of Wikipedia) and Heather Ford (from the iCommons) have hatched a scheme to hold 50 parties in 50 cities around the world, with an Open Content/Creative Commons/Free Software sort of theme.

One of these parties is happening in Cape Town, next Saturday, at Deer Park Cafe in Vredehoek. This also happens to be Software Freedom Day, so why not come along and celebrate with Jimbo Wales, the wikiers and iCommons people? Just sign up on the wiki and come along.

For more information, see:

• Software Freedom Day
• Heather and Jimmy’s 50 Great Parties Club
• The 50 Parties Wiki

If you’re keen to attend the Cape Town party, go and sign up at the wiki. Don’t forget the party rules.

The fourth in the new series of Cape Town GeekDinners will be held on Thursday, September the 27th, at Summerville in Camps Bay, at 19:00 for 19:30.

Details can be found on the wiki page.

Sign up to the wiki if you want to come along, and tell your friends!

We also need speakers - if you have an idea or something interesting that you want to talk about, let us know. Talks are only 5 minutes long, followed by a few minutes of questions, and everything is very informal.

Also of interest to geekdiners might be the CLUG talk happening tomorrow evening: Corey Burger will be presenting a talk on OpenStreetMap - see the CLUG wiki for more details.