So it has come to my attention that there are a lot of LWers in and around Berkeley, so I thought it might be nice if we all got together and shot the breeze for a couple hours. I think it would be good to meet at the Starbucks at 2224 Shattuck Avenue at 7 o'clock on September 5th.
ETA: We will be meeting tonight at 7, disregard all comments suggesting a date change.
There are several LWers from the area currently attending Burning Man, which ends on the 6. If you move this back a week, I expect they'd love to attend.
I plan to be at 2224 Shattuck tomorrow at 7 PM, and unless I am gravely misinterpreting his reply to my PM, Lucas will, too.
But my being there tommorow does not decrease the probability that I will attend the second meeting -- even if it happens next weekend.
There is at least one person who prefers the second meeting to be on a weekend, so I will assume that it will indeed happen on a weekend.
On weekends, I have to leave the meeting around 9:30 to make the last bus across the Richmond--San Rafael bridge. Would anyone mind if the second Berkeley meeting starts earlier in the day? One of the meetups in Sunnyvale lasted over 8 hours since people got on a roll about Friendliness theory and did not want to stop.
I also suggest moving this back a week to the 12th, for the same reasons: generally more notice is better, and Burning Man will be over. The post is young, so there's still time for you to edit its title without much reader hiccup.
So we had a pretty good turn out - we waited at the starbucks for about 45 minutes and got 7 people and went to a nearby restaurant. We had some interesting conversations about the computability of the universe, the nature of willpower and godel's theorem.
The first meetup (in Millbrae) was in a restaurant and did not work as well as the ones in people's houses. At the houses, people were much more free to leave one conversation and join another because there were multiple rooms and more space to walk around.
I can offer my apartment in San Rafael close to the Richmond-San Rafael bridge. My building has a big community room with a dozen chairs and a sofa in case the meeting gets too big for my apartment.
It is probably not as convenient as 2224 Shattuck is to public transit however -- even after one gets into San Rafael.
2224 Shattuck is near what BART Station or what cross street?
2224 Shattuck is near what BART Station or what cross street?
It's a block away from the Downtown Berkeley BART.
Well, 2224 Shattuck is more convenient to public transportation than my place is, then.
2224 Shattuck is across the street from the campus, right?
2224 Shattuck is across the street from the campus, right?
Not directly across, but pretty close. There's one block between Shattuck and the street where the campus starts, I think.
Damn, you should have called me about this! I only saw it when it was too late. Did I give you my phone number? I've got yours.
BTW, there is a house in Berkeley full of LW types. Less Wrong user Kevin lives there along with several others. So if we want to meet in a house that would be a spot.
You should definitely give more advance notice, and publicize via more than just a Less Wrong submission (e.g. Anna Salamon's OB mailing list), and try to coordinate heavily with other people.
I'd prefer Sunday or Saturday (9/5 would work for me.)