[members at lugog] Hi

[Ian Dickinson]

So four of us made it to the Ring O' Bells tonight (which was a nice
pub - thanks Phil for the suggestion).

Douglas brought a problem with reconnecting his Firefox and
Thunderbird profiles after restoring from a backup - hopefully we've
solved that one.

We talked about:

* Raspberry Pi (http://www.raspberrypi.org/) - simple cheap computer
for building into projects
* various linux distro's du jour (obviously :)
* Coding for Kids (http://codingforkids.org/wiki/Main_Page) and Young
Rewired State (http://youngrewiredstate.org/)
* Hackspaces (http://hackspace.org.uk/view/Main_Page)
* BathCamp (http://www.bathcamp.org)
* this book: http://goo.gl/XiuUO
* and a bunch of other random stuff

By coincidence, Phil and I were both at BathCamp 27 last month,
listening to three talks on robotics. Very interesting, good buzz,
about 60 people in attendance. It made me wonder whether there's scope
for doing something like that in this part of Somerset. It seems to me
there must be a load of people doing cool techie stuff in our area
that we don't discuss or find out about because it's not Linux-based.

Sean phrased the question as "should LUGoG become a wider technology
forum?". I'm not sure I'd propose that LuGOG changes per se, more
asking whether there's an opportunity - and interest - for doing
something in parallel to this group, but rather more inclusive in
topics and technologies. Douglas also mentioned the Sherborne Science
Cafe, a monthly series of science talks, which is also very well
attended and has good momentum.

To stand up and be counted, I'm up for trying to bootstrap a wider
digital-technology focused discussion with a geographic centre around
Glastonbuy/Street (Strode College was mentioned as a possible meeting
venue if we could arrange some talks). Any one else interested?

And yes, it would need a snappy name :)

Ian

PS Phil and I are thinking of car-sharing to BathCamp 28
(http://bathcamp.org/events/event/christmas-spectacular/) on Dec 7th.
I could take a couple more in my car - let me know if interested.