Something akin to meeting minutes
Steve Anderson
Friday 15th May 2009
The Otley Arms, Trefforest
In attendance, in order of arrival:
Howard Dickins, Carl Morris, Steve Anderson, Chris Tubb, Pete Prior
and Faith Adelaide
Apologies for absence received from Carey Hiles (laying floor), Ian
Wooten (eating pizza), Matt Moore
What happened:
Howard and Carl arrived at the Otley first, followed shortly by Steve.
All three popped upstairs to scope out the soopah seekrit lair (aka
the function room) which we found to be perfect for our needs - out of
the way of the noise of the pub itself and equipped with tables made
from old treadle sewing machines. After returning downstairs we found
Chris, who would've come to the inaugral gathering last year if he
hadn't been making a cider press from an old fire extinguisher. A
little later, Pete and Faith found us by way of a helpful
sister-in-law. After a pint downstairs we headed up to the lair
because it was easier to talk.
Things we did/talked about:
Howard had his steampunk Nerf gun but couldn't open it up to look
inside due to fat screwdriver syndrome. The idea was to investigate
getting a sound effect device inside it, maybe next time! Steve had
noisy things again (seeing as Carl hadn't seen them before) - the
Atari Punk Console and a Star Wars In My Pocket keychain to show Carl
how much you could make it tweak with a moistened finger in its
innards (oo-er, obviously). Chris had no physical artefacts, but did
have a video of a motor he'd made out of odds and ends on his desk at
work. Carl programmed a 'game' in BASIC on a Spectrum emulator on
Steve's Eee PC - see http://www.flickr.com/photos/twindx/3547049938/ .
Pete and Faith talked about the trials and tribulations of brewing
beer (very apt in a pub with its own microbrewery), and the insanely
cool RFID tag reading catflap Pete's built at their house. Chris
entertained all with his tales of working in a nuclear bomb factory
(he has plenty more stories from there). Star Trek was discussed (the
new movie, not the series) - apparently it's good. Lots more was
talked about - 70s sci-fi, synthesisers, 741 op-amps, plutonium,
throwing eels in a straight line, inverted spheres (Faith understood
what I meant at least), hackspaces, Altoids availability, Linux
(qu'elle surprise) and welding all the doors shut on Howard's car so
that we could inflate it into a ball car. (That's all I can remember -
anyone else want to chip in?)
Conclusions:
The function room in the Otley is bloody great. We need to find a pub
with a similar hideaway in Cardiff. We could feasibly use it for a
weekend daytime meet and hack. We'll definitely be back...
--
Irregular Shed - http://www.twindx.com
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