Archive: June 4th, 2003

Well, my stint as compère at Silicon Beach is over.

The Sumo Bar didn’t have the most condusive atmosphere for public speaking - we didn’t have a PA and there was music thumping from upstairs.

Still, the speakers rose to the challenge. Dave Phelan gave an excellent and inspiring talk about life, the universe and WiFi.

There was wonderful moment when Dave showed a screenshot from NetStumbler of all the networks he found today by taking a bus around Brighton - I spotted my own home network. Cool!

After that, the Loose Connection people talked about what they’re doing and we had a bit of a discussion.

The noise from upstairs was extremely distracting, though, so I suggested we check out this wireless internet access in the flesh, so to speak.

So we had a mass exodus to The Black Lion pub and that’s where I am now, blogging wirelessly at a table full of geeks and their laptops.

The perfect way to end an inspiring evening.

Dave’s slides are online now - recommended reading.

I was just emailing with Dave Phelan about tonight’s Silicon Beach event. I told him I’d probably be able to recognise him from his webcam pic and asked him to give me a wave.

Apparently, I’m going to be the compère for tonight’s Silicon Beach event at the Sumo Bar on Middle Street.

I’m not quite sure why I’ve been asked to do this. Peter, who normally hosts these things, always manages to look cool whereas giving me a microphone instantly turns me into a crazed-looking dork.

It should be an interesting evening anyway. The topic is WiFi. Josh and Matt from Loose Connection will be there as will Dave Phelan, representing the collective nodes of Consume-Brighton.

Satire: Keeness and severity of remark; caustic exposure to reprobation; trenchant wit; sarcasm.

Parody: A literary or artistic work that imitates the characteristic style of an author or a work for comic effect or ridicule.

e.g. Hercubush.

Richard’s pictures of Venice are giving me really itchy feet.