I was in the second day too :( just late
On Sun, Mar 31, 2013 at 6:07 PM, Shlomi Fish <shlo...@shlomifish.org> wrote: > Hi all, > > happy second Passover holiday, and it's also Easter today and April Fools' > Day > tomorrow. > > I'd like to write a short report about the booth we had for > http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Free_and_open-source_software at the Olamot > (= > "world") Science Fiction/Fantasy/etc. conference that took place this year > (March 2013) during Passover in Tel Aviv. See > http://www.olamot-con.org.il/2013/ for the site - mostly in Hebrew. > > First of all, the obligatory photographs: > > * http://www.flickr.com/photos/shlomif/sets/72157633111982891/ - from day > two - > I didn't bring a camera at the first day, and people challenged my claims > on > IRC, so I made sure to bring one along the next day. > > Other links: > > * > > http://www.facebook.com/pages/%D7%9B%D7%A0%D7%A1-%D7%A2%D7%95%D7%9C%D7%9E%D7%95%D7%AA/167055123352441?ref=ts&fref=ts > - the site of the conference on Facebook > > * http://www.facebook.com/zingabo - Amir Eldor - helped with the booth > during > the first day (thanks!). > > * http://www.facebook.com/moshe.nahmias.9?fref=ts - Moshe Nahmias - helped > during both days (thanks!). > > * http://www.facebook.com/groups/98034147518/ - Israeli society for > Sci-Fi and > Fantasy. > > * http://www.hamakor.org.il/ - Hamakor's site. > > * http://www.mozilla.org.il/ - Mozilla.org.il. > > ================================= > > OK, here is the report: > > #. The booth was mostly well-organised: we had demonstrations of the > programs > involved, of the Raspberry Pi (which could run the Blender demo films > adequately, but web-browsing/etc. was very slow), and of other stuff. > There was > a lot of swag and merchandise to give away for people who were interested. > > #. Many people stopped by and asked questions. If they told me they didn't > know > what open source was all about I gave them the Wikipedia as an analogy for > online collaboration and the fact that «Everyone gives a brick, and in > exchange, everyone gets their own house.» and said that that was the case > for > open source software too, where one can use a browser from organisation > #1, a > video player from organisation #2, an image browser from organisation #3, > an > vector graphics editor from organisation #4 , etc. > > #. We also ended up telling them that they don't have to contribute if they > don't want to (just happily use the gratis "FOSS"), and that there are ways > to contribute that do not involve coding (such as reporting bugs, trying to > reproduce bugs, helping in the forums etc.) and that they can find help > using > web searches or various online forums. > > #. As you can see in the photos, the conference was very colourful with > many > people coming in costumes, or with various props, or otherwise well > dressed, > and lots of cool attractions. Geekery at its best. I recalled there were > much > fewer females in the Icon conference I attended back in Sukkoth at one > year, > and now they were all over the place. > > I noticed that some of the cultural references of the costumes have escaped > me, due to the fact that my popular sci-fi/fantasy culture is stuck > somewhere in > 2001, but people were happy to tell me what they were dressed as. Very > cool. > > #. The booth nearby was dedicated to registering people for the > Israeli organisation of Manga/anime, and while they had a computer > dedicated > for the registration application (a desktop one written in .NET - :-( - > long > story), they didn't have a screen displaying the actual films. I told them > they should in the future, and they agreed. > > #. We kinda lacked good business cards or sheets of papers that we give > away, > that we could note some URLs at the back. At least some people were able to > E-mail stuff. > > #. Self promotion: I got an idea for a new screenplay during the > conference: > http://www.shlomifish.org/humour/Summerschool-at-the-NSA/ - «The Hollywood > actresses Sarah Michelle Gellar and Summer Glau conspire to take the NSA > (= the > United States government’s National Security Agency) out of the equation. > See > how they succeed in doing that. », which I started to write. I decided > that my > previous major creative writing project, > http://www.shlomifish.org/humour/Selina-Mandrake/ («Selina Mandrake - The > Slayer (a Buffy Parody)») is now in a mostly usable state, and will be > placed > on the back burner, as I move to newer stuff. > > I also have collected four factoids about Buffy the Vampire Slayer so far: > http://www.shlomifish.org/humour/bits/facts/Buffy/ and hopefully newer > ones are > upcoming. Girl power! > > ====================== > > OK, this is my perspective, which may be skewed beyond all imagination. > Thanks > to everybody who helped with the booth. I'd like to share some more > anecdotes in > a later post, but this will have to wait, because I am anxious to go > outside now > before it darkens. > > Chag sameach! > > Shlomi Fish > > -- > ----------------------------------------------------------------- > Shlomi Fish http://www.shlomifish.org/ > Beginners Site for the Vim text editor - http://vim.begin-site.org/ > > Flock aims to be the browser for the social web, but I found it to be the > completely anti-social browser. > > Please reply to list if it's a mailing list post - http://shlom.in/reply . > _______________________________________________ > Discussions mailing list > Discussions@hamakor.org.il > http://hamakor.org.il/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/discussions
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