After http://lists.alug.org.uk/main/2004-May/018849.html, Craig seemed in favour of meeting at the internet cafe, but hadn't checked the place. No-one else has any opinion?
On 3 Jun 2004, at 12:58, MJ Ray wrote:
After http://lists.alug.org.uk/main/2004-May/018849.html, Craig seemed in favour of meeting at the internet cafe, but hadn't checked the place. No-one else has any opinion?
I could check the place out today as I'm heading into the city for a bit. I'll try my best :)
C.
On Thu, Jun 03, 2004 at 12:58:24PM +0100, MJ Ray wrote:
After http://lists.alug.org.uk/main/2004-May/018849.html, Craig seemed in favour of meeting at the internet cafe, but hadn't checked the place. No-one else has any opinion?
I walked past the cafe yesterday and had a bit of a look through the window, personally I don't feel it would be a suitable venue for an evening meeting due to the following things.
Beer :) Lack of availability of food Really comfy chairs (the city gate has extra comfy chairs imho) If everyone ends up sitting around browsing the web and not talking face to face then we could just sit at home and IRC for the same result really.
Now I figure that part of the success of the Norwich evening meetings has been because there hasn't been much kit present, that there is beer and comfy chairs and a lack of internet access so all of us chat about things (not necessarily Linux) instead of being head down at a computer. Norwich Internet Cafe looks like a good place to go if you want to grab email or use the web etc. when out and about in Norwich but using it as an evening meeting venue didn't seem to be a viable alternative.
What do other people think? Personally I prefer meetings without kit now, after a couple of lug meetings when I have been moaned at after installing an unfamiliar version of Linux for someone when they wanted a specific distro installed, and then getting moaned at because the winmodem wouldn't work in Linux or the other time because I couldn't get the obscure sound card working. (this isn't to say that I don't mind helping people out, but when they are rather rude and ungrateful that you have just spent 2 hours setting up a machine for them that if it was being billed for they would have had to pay me at least 50 quid for the pleasure you wonder if you can be bothered in future)
Oh, and I have adsl again now, so if bandwidth encumbered people want distros (or other Linux related or Free Software) downloaded and burned to CD then let me know (preferably about a week) in advance of a Norwich evening meeting or a weekend meeting and I will see if I can sort you out (payment in beer tokens or giving me blank CDs in exchange would be nice but not necessary) or if you want a distro stuck in the post then I will do it "for cost" as I don't have an income right now (again contact me offlist).
Adam
On 2004-06-03 14:14:52 +0100 adam@thebowery.co.uk wrote:
I walked past the cafe yesterday and had a bit of a look through the window,
Aw, didn't you go in to try to accost Lewis?
personally I don't feel it would be a suitable venue for an evening meeting due to the following things. Beer :)
Beer is hardly tricky to find in the vicinity and meeting in a pub does limit a little. Could probably relocate after an "active" bit of meeting, or ask whether it's OK to take alcoholic drinks in (not sure on the law myself)?
Lack of availability of food
Sort of impossible to avoid when many computers are around, I suppose. You could always eat at the excellent nearby Waffle House beforehand. ;-)
What do other people think? Personally I prefer meetings without kit now,
From what you write, I think you dislike meetings without kit-fixing, rather than kit in general?
Oh, and I have adsl again now, so if bandwidth encumbered people want distros
Likewise. I currently keep up-to-date copies of: The Comprehensive R Archive (5 CDs or 1 DVD) GNUstep LiveCD (1 CD) which I'll copy and post at cost, or deliver as I amble out from Lynn. I also have the current: Morphix LightGUI (0.4 I think) GoboLinux (011 I think) but I don't promise to keep them always.
On Sun, Jun 06, 2004 at 06:51:26PM +0100, MJ Ray wrote:
On 2004-06-03 14:14:52 +0100 adam@thebowery.co.uk wrote:
I walked past the cafe yesterday and had a bit of a look through the window,
Aw, didn't you go in to try to accost Lewis?
We were showing a monsta around Norwich at the time and due to a lack of time in the monstas visit we had to hurry to make sure we showed her the better bits of Norwich before her train left about an hour later.
personally I don't feel it would be a suitable venue for an evening meeting due to the following things. Beer :)
Beer is hardly tricky to find in the vicinity and meeting in a pub does limit a little. Could probably relocate after an "active" bit of meeting, or ask whether it's OK to take alcoholic drinks in (not sure on the law myself)?
What does meeting in a pub limit? certainly the amount of mardling accomplished is much higher than kit meetings.
What do other people think? Personally I prefer meetings without kit now,
From what you write, I think you dislike meetings without kit-fixing, rather than kit in general?
Nope. I prefer meetings without kit because people talk about much more interesting things other than "yeah, this has 2700 DDR Ram and a 7200rpm disk, I want to upgrade it to a faster cpu and GFX card" (which is similar to what I spent lots of the last meeting discussing, but that was more interesting for me as it was about my laptop ;)) I reckon that much more interesting subjects get talked about when there is lots of beer to be consumed other than computers (which many of the members who work with computers probably want to forget about them until the next day when they have to use, support and fix them)
Adam
On Sun, Jun 06, 2004 at 07:10:28PM +0100, adam@thebowery.co.uk wrote:
On Sun, Jun 06, 2004 at 06:51:26PM +0100, MJ Ray wrote:
From what you write, I think you dislike meetings without kit-fixing, rather than kit in general?
Nope. I prefer meetings without kit because people talk about much more interesting things other than "yeah, this has 2700 DDR Ram and a 7200rpm disk, I want to upgrade it to a faster cpu and GFX card" (which is similar to what I spent lots of the last meeting discussing, but that was more interesting for me as it was about my laptop ;)) I reckon that much more interesting subjects get talked about when there is lots of beer to be consumed other than computers (which many of the members who work with computers probably want to forget about them until the next day when they have to use, support and fix them)
I'm with Adam on this; I find I get to hear about a lot more interesting stuff when we sit around in the pub rather than there being lots of kit around and people spending ages just fixing one little bit of it. I'm not even that fussed about there being beer; I'd be happy to have meets at a coffee shop or something instead. (Though either good beer and/or good coffee are important. ;)
J.
On 2004-06-06 19:33:46 +0100 Jonathan McDowell noodles@earth.li wrote:
I'm with Adam on this; I find I get to hear about a lot more interesting stuff when we sit around in the pub rather than there being lots of kit around and people spending ages just fixing one little bit of it.
It'd be better if we could do something other than just fixing random kit. I remember first seeing UML, accelerated 3d and hard disk video recording first at LUG meetings.
Thank you to everyone who took the time to comment on our offer of the Internet Cafe in Norwich Market as an additional venue for ALUG evening meetings. It would appear from the replies, so far, that a pub is still the much prefered venue. No matter, I am quite fond of beer too and often to be found in the Fat Cat sampling the Adnams.
Whatever, we welcome any ALUG members who would like to try our services in the Internet Cafe. And as an inducement if you wave a copy of this email we will be pleased to let you use the computers free of charge (first visit only).
Our connection is currently 500kbps but in a few days we are upgrading to low contention 2mbps which they tell us will support 20 to 30 computers (!). Should speed up the downloads a bit.
Best wishes Regards Lewis Allen Norwich Internet Cafe www.norwichinternet.com
On 2004-06-06 19:10:28 +0100 adam@thebowery.co.uk wrote:
What does meeting in a pub limit? certainly the amount of mardling accomplished is much higher than kit meetings.
Some people won't or can't enter a licesned bar area, for legal or religious reasons. Don't know how many of those are in the Norwich area ALUG, though.
If all that's looked for is chopsing about non-computer stuff, then no worries. I think you'll have a job to get many more there for that, though.
The message 20040603131452.GF17621@thebowery.co.uk from adam@thebowery.co.uk contains these words:
On Thu, Jun 03, 2004 at 12:58:24PM +0100, MJ Ray wrote:
After http://lists.alug.org.uk/main/2004-May/018849.html, Craig seemed in favour of meeting at the internet cafe, but hadn't checked the place. No-one else has any opinion?
I walked past the cafe yesterday and had a bit of a look through the window, personally I don't feel it would be a suitable venue for an evening meeting due to the following things.
Which café? The one in the market?
Beer :)
Is this meant to mean beer, or the lack of it?
Lack of availability of food Really comfy chairs (the city gate has extra comfy chairs imho) If everyone ends up sitting around browsing the web and not talking face to face then we could just sit at home and IRC for the same result really.
True. An idea is brewing....
Now I figure that part of the success of the Norwich evening meetings has been because there hasn't been much kit present, that there is beer and comfy chairs and a lack of internet access so all of us chat about things (not necessarily Linux) instead of being head down at a computer. Norwich Internet Cafe looks like a good place to go if you want to grab email or use the web etc. when out and about in Norwich but using it as an evening meeting venue didn't seem to be a viable alternative.
An internet café would mean I had to get another system of accessing the net.....
What do other people think? Personally I prefer meetings without kit now, after a couple of lug meetings when I have been moaned at after installing an unfamiliar version of Linux for someone when they wanted a specific distro installed,
Hmmm. I have an unfamiliar distro which I should like to play with - it's what you might call 'heritage' - Linux FT.
However, I should also like to learn to fly my Debian without having to refer to the handbook - on a CD (run on the Winbox), CD kindly provided by a kind listmember....
and then getting moaned at because the winmodem wouldn't work in Linux or the other time because I couldn't get the obscure sound card working.
Hmmm. I wouldn't countenance a Winmodem on *ANY* platform. Everything I have in any computer since my 386 was pensioned off (but still being used as a word-processor by someone else) is allegedly Linux-compatible.
I know that a lot of folk will have come to Linux without having had the notion at the backs of their minds for a long time, but anyone with enough sense to se the advantages of Linux should have enough savvy to know that a hell of a lot of hardware was only manufactured with Windows in mind.
(this isn't to say that I don't mind helping people out, but when they are rather rude and ungrateful that you have just spent 2 hours setting up a machine for them that if it was being billed for they would have had to pay me at least 50 quid for the pleasure you wonder if you can be bothered in future)
Humph! I'd better refrain from comment as I've just been sampling some of my homebrew....
Oh, and I have adsl again now, so if bandwidth encumbered people want distros (or other Linux related or Free Software) downloaded and burned to CD then let me know (preferably about a week) in advance of a Norwich evening meeting or a weekend meeting and I will see if I can sort you out (payment in beer tokens or giving me blank CDs in exchange would be nice but not necessary) or if you want a distro stuck in the post then I will do it "for cost" as I don't have an income right now (again contact me offlist).
It's amazing how kind offers like this are usually made by those who can't really afford to do so.
There's a rather pleasant pub in Norwich which has a fair amount of space and a really good selection of cask-conditioned beers. I hope to sink a pint or two of mild there tomorrow, so I'll ask if a Lugmeet could be contemplated.
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adam＠thebowery.co.uk -
Anthony Anson -
Craig -
Jonathan McDowell -
Lewis Allen -
MJ Ray