London Hacker News meetup will be on Wednesday, 27th March | Hacker News Reader

London Hacker News meetup will be on Wednesday, 27th March

meetup.com

48 pointsdmitri198134 comments

I've noticed that once the wheels of conversation have been greased (via beer and a few presentations), during the interval people really seem to mingle and chat. To my mind this is the golden 10-15 minutes of the hacker news meetup.

Here's the rub, there's usually only a 10-15 minute break. I'd argue that these conversation are largely the point of the whole meetup. Dmitris' introduction quiz was a good idea, and I think worked well. However ultimately people need time to develop and evolve a conversation.

My suggestion would be to cut one of the talks in the second half and let the mid-session break stretch on for 30 minutes .

The break this month is scheduled for 20 minutes but I have been keen to extend it. I'll have a chat with Dmitri and I'll see what we can do.

also, an after-event pub announced before and in between the talks so that people can hang out later on.

I completely agree.

I normally skip many of the presentations in order to talk with people outside.

The whole point on these events for me is to find good hackers or business guys to work with, I can sit coding or watching biz/tech presentations the other nights in the week. :)

My team (TfL Online) has a hackathon coming up soon based on our new API, it would be good to hear how we can get that out there for the attendees to be aware of?. (I'm sure you are pretty jam packed on the schedule this time round though)

Drop me an email. Info in my profile.

I have to say you've done a fantastic job with the Tfl API. Any chance you could put up a link to the hackathon here? Or at least give us a few more details?

We're just in the process of nailing down the venue, but aiming for the end of May / start of June (essentially once we've managed to do some more testing and integrate some new data sources).

Without giving too much away (I'll get shot by the press team!), its a single API covering all modes of travel in London and surrounding areas, mostly for the first time, think fares, enhanced accessibility options, geodata etc.

Drop me a mail and I'll get you on the invite list if your interested.

Sounds great, email sent.

Looking forward to see a HN meetup in Shanghai, China. Does anyone have any plans? I'd be willing to help organize.

You should put a way to contact you in your profile like an email so that anybody who does have plans can let you know.

thanks for pointing it out! email added to profile

Cool. I'm in Shanghai at the moment. Looking for coding events. Saturday is BarCamp!

What a coincidence, I'm travelling to London this Sunday. I was hoping to go to node.js group meetup the same evening, but this seems much more interesting. See you there.

edit: Is there some way to pay via credit card or wire transfer, as PayPal is not available in my country?

If necessary you can pay in cash on the night but obviously we'd prefer if folk paid via meetup as we won't be carrying change or taking many on the spot payments.

Is the number of attendees limited? If so, I'd like to somehow book it.

Technically it's limited to 400 and we usually reach that figure however we have 'emergency capacity' for an additional 200 so I promise you won't have any issues getting in. Drop me an email (info in my profile) and I'll give you my mobile number so you can call me if you have any issues at the door and I'll sort it.

This event has traditionally booked up fast, although the new (modest) fee has helped slow down the rate at which that happens. I wouldn't wait too long.

I'm considering joining. Just one question (and sorry if it's already answered on the meetup page, I did read it but didn't see the answer). Are the topics usually a surprise or are they related to the sponsors (though I notice your headline speaker isn't one of the sponsors)?

Not usually connected to the sponsors although one of the speakers is due to popular request.

The remaining speakers will be announced very shortly.

With the inevitable clashing, it clashes with Josh's Biz Dev for Early Stage Enterprise Startups event:

http://www.meetup.com/unsexystartups/events/109255182/

It's literally impossible to arrange a tech meetup in London without it clashing with another event.

Yep hence the word "inevitable" :)

If there are any previous attendees monitoring this, we'd be happy to hear any feedback or suggestions on what you think we can do to improve the event.

I second xedarius's suggestion above (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5399845) to have more 'meetup' time.

Pretty minor, but it tends to get quite stuffy by the time the final speakers are on - if it's possible to open some windows then that'd be good.

Valid point. I'll make sure there is plenty of ventilation.

Leave some pizza for the brake it gets devoured so quickly ;)

That's just crazy talk

Looking forward to see a HN meetup in The Netherlands, does anyone have any plans? I'd be willing to help organise.

is this a monthly event? i will not be able to attend this one but would love to attend the next.

Indeed it is. Usually the last Wednesday or Thursday of the month.

Is Sanderson compering? He really made the event in the past.

Unfortunately no. Due to his recent significant fame increase, he's in high demand and his schedule clashes with this months event. I have it on good authority that he is definitely returning next month.

Until then, you're stuck with my angry ramblings during talks.

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