Barcamp Blackpool 2012
Oct 2, 2012 (about 7 months ago)
Last weekend, Becky and I attended Barcamp Blackpool. The weekend started on the Friday night when we met-up with some friends to experience the sights and delicacies of Blackpool. The Barcamp itself was held on the Saturday, the doors opened at 9am and closed at 1am. It was a long day, but as always when you are enjoying yourself, it flew by. Some of the highlights of the event included:
- Meeting with the Blackpool LUG folks, they are always very welcoming and a lot of fun. The guys were manning a LUG booth and demonstrating a host of Linux distributions on all manner of machines. Good show, chaps!
- Meeting with oupsemma, a fellow #! CrunchBang user and forum member. I guess it still surprises me to think that real people actually use CrunchBang. Anyhow, oupsemma is a long-time user, since 2008, and it was good to finally meet her and have a chat.
- 3D printers. These things are amazing and if I had a spare £400, I might consider purchasing one.
- @cjdell’s session, “Concrete 5 - CMS, easy to use, made by geeks”. Chris gave a good introduction to Concrete 5 and demonstrated its features. It looks like a really interesting project and I will definitely be looking at Concrete 5 in more detail; I have at least one project that I am considering it for.
- Hama Beads. A very therapeutic experience, although I was slightly disappointed that no hammers were involved.
- @BinaryKitten’s session, “Web, Mobile and Lots of Monkeys”. I entered this session without a clue and I was pleasantly surprised. Kat demonstrated Brass Monkey, an Android app that turns your phone into a game controller and your browser into a games console. The concept is a little difficult to explain, so if you are interested, I would suggest giving it a try. Anyhow, the highlight of session came when @ollyclarkdotorg attempted to use his phone to defend himself from an onslaught of bloody zombies. Awesome stuff.
- @lallyd’s cakes. Mmm… cakes…
- @alexturgid’s session, “An Introduction to GEOHASHING”. An amusing session about the global phenomenon, Geohashing. Described as a spontaneous adventure generator, it looks like a lot of fun and I will definitely consider giving it a try.
- FREE FOOD! A fantastic spread, courtesy of the Barcamp Blackpool sponsors.
- @alexturgid’s session, “Clive Sinclair Ate My Childhood”. Alex did a fine job with his after-dinner comedy session. During his session, he reminisced over a childhood that was spent with early Sinclair computers. This brought back fond memories of my own childhood, although I was always a Commodore kid myself. Anyhow, it was thoroughly geeky and very entertaining!
- 20lb Sounds, they rocked! Literally.
All-in-all, Barcamp Blackpool was a truly epic event. My only regret, I did not get to attend all the sessions that I wanted to, but I guess that is the nature of an unconference.
A massive thank you to @biglesp and @lallyd for organising it and to the sponsors (FTP Concepts, FARM Digital, Tweetdig, Magic Missile, Bytemark, MediaBurst & Magma Digital) for making it possible. I cannot wait for Barcamp Blackpool 2013!
6 responses to “Barcamp Blackpool 2012”
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Oct 2, 2012 (about 7 months ago)
Hi Corenominal, yes there are people using #! in the real life. I happen to be using Statler at the office (I like me some stability) and Waldorf at home (no big deal if things break, it’s mostly about running firefox, mutt and rhythmbox.)
Oct 2, 2012 (about 7 months ago)
@MekkaGodzilla, good to know, but, it still comes as a bit of shock when I actually meet other #! users in meatspace. I am not sure I will ever get past it :-)
Oct 5, 2012 (about 7 months ago)
@Corenominal,
I finally got around to using #! as my go-to OS. My line starts with Open Suse 6 (Or before point being its was old) With no Wifi so I could not update. Fast forward 4-5 years and a few OS’s to today. Thank to your OS I pretty much stopped distro-hopping. I am running Waldorf-64bit at home and I am loving it. There were a few issues, but nothing that could not be EASILY overcome.
I am a real life user in Pottstown, PA in the US. I am thinking of making a local LUG for mostly meeting online with the occasional meetup in real life just to see where it lands.
Keep up the awesome work, I’m looking forward to seeing the new site! - Alex Kollar (Zilvarael)
Oct 5, 2012 (about 7 months ago)
@Zilvarael, thank you for your kinds words. Regarding your local LUG, you should definitely consider creating it. About a year ago, Becky decided to set-up our local LUG (Lincoln) and it has gone from strength to strength. We meet once a month at our local bowling alley, where we have drinks and chat about all things Linux and tech. We’ve met lots of new friends and learned a bunch of new tricks. So, if you do decide to got for it, good luck! :-)
Oct 8, 2012 (about 7 months ago)
Barcamp Blackpool was nice and I’ve enjoyed meeting you and bobobex. And the stickers were a real plus! You really don’t seem to realize how popular Crunchbang is, http://distrowatch.com/dwres.php?resource=popularity ; there even is a PIBang distro for Raspberry PIs now: http://www.pibanglinux.org/ !
Oct 8, 2012 (about 7 months ago)
@oupsemma, we enjoyed meeting you too! :-)
Regarding PiBang, it looks like a nifty project. I have not tried it myself, yet, but I have been speaking with the developer and he is a great guy. I hope people find it useful.