San Francisco, and science hack day discussions

(This was from Sunday)

In an attempt to get over the jet lag, myself and Dave headed over to San Francisco yesterday, we had a good walk around, got lost twice, and then met pup with the lovely Ariel Waldman. I had to drop off some mendeley schwag for the upcoming San Francisco science hack day that Ariel is organising (we are giving a little sponsorship, yay!). It’s going to take place in two weeks, and it looks lie it’s going to be an awesome event.

These science hack days grew out of a panel discussion that Ariel let at the last south by southwest conference. Jeremey Keith organized the first one that took place in London. I was at the London event, and that rocked,

Some key things for hack days, not too much sugar, keep the beer for later, near the presentations and find a good way to capture some of the context from which the hacks emerge, the description of the hacks from the London event are a good reminder if you were there, but not so great for people looking in from the outside.

We got chatting, and of course that just threw up a whole bun of people that both Ariel and know, she was about to have dinner that evening with argon smith, I’d just met him two weeks ago in oxford, small small world.

After that Dave and I headed around San Fran for a bit of exploring (science fiction and fantasy bookshops, climbing walls, comic sea lions, and antediluvian coin operated fortune telling machines all featured in a rather event packed evening), then back on the cal train to our hotel and a minor battle with the jet lag.