Thanks for setting it up eventually.
Feedback: I think the fun/interesting thing about being in a house with ~25 LessWrongers is being able to circulate around and jump in on conversations that sound interesting. Skype/google hangouts, however good the eventual sound quality, can't recreate this because you can only talk to the person who comes over to the screen. Even if they're talking about something besides the poor sound quality, it feels pretty forced. So I don't think technical fixes are going to improve the experience much.
I agree. Thanks for testing it out and sticking through to the end, despite some poor planning. I have several thoughts which I'll be posting in a separate thread.
Too bad I'd wake people up if I was talking so I can't join this :(
I think I might lurk however...
Edit: Pretty interesting demonstration of feasibility. It has convinced me that (small) virtual meets would be practical. If it wasn't for the late hour (and waking up my host for tonight) I'd probably stay around for a bit longer. I do wonder if anything like a rationality workshop or set of group exercises could be done in this way.
I'm about to set up another node in a different room, where a smaller number of people are talking, and then turn off the sound in the presentation room.
I just signed off to make room for one more (we had two laptops running). Does anyone know if there's a way to engage in the group chat function without taking up a video slot?
FFFFFUUU- so close yet so far away. Can't do voice without waking people up + shyness/not being presentable + needing to go to bed soon... Missing something like this is downright PAINFUL. D:
Any ideas on how to get around this? I can stay awake for maybe an hour or two more.
Right now it's mostly focused on the presentation, so I wouldn't be too worried about not being presentable.
(I realize this isn't necessarily a great thing, since it means there's not as much interaction as I was hoping for, but I'd just go ahead and log on if you can. You can also turn off your own video and audio, there's a little camera/audio icon, I think)
By "waking people up" do you mean at your own house? (I assume headphones aren't an option?)
Well, if it's not interactive that sort of ruins the point. Good to know I don't need to feel all that left out and missing something great thou.
And I have headphones, but I couldn't speak myself. I could just unplug my webcam and speakers and I could listen in fine but a) that'd miss the whole point which is interaction and actually being social, and b) it feels like it'd be terribly impolite to just snoop in, taking up a limited hangout spot yet not contributing, taking advantage of others making themselves vulnerable by being on camera without returning the favour, etc.
While this wasn't clear at the time, we eventually learned that extra people can log in, but will be restrict to the chat function. (We had two people at the event running "Hangout nodes", and eventually I had to log off to make room, but then it became clear that I needed to be logged in at least to respond to chat messages, and when I tried it said "due to the number of participants you are automatically muted).
Lots of audio ended up causing problems, although people are communicating in the text-chat sidebar. We addressed some issues in the second presentation by having people submit questions via chat which were then read aloud.
I think a really workable interactive conversation is going to require everyone involved to have better sound equipment.
It was an interesting demonstration of possibilities for me. I'm pretty sure virtual meets would be practical. If it wasn't for the late hour I'd probably stay around for a bit longer. I do wonder if anything like a rationality workshop or set of group exercises could be done in this way.
Today is the East Coast Less Wrong Megameetup. We'll be trying an experiment - running a Google Hangout in the main discussion room. To participate, you'll need a Google+ account, but if you have any kind of Google account (for youtube, e-mail, or anything) you can easily add a Google+ account without filling out much additional information.
The schedule for the day is:
3 PM: Hangout starts, followed by an hour of freeform discussion
Talks start at 4 PM, and continue through 9
4 PM: Nutrition/Health by Jolly
5 PM: Leverage Research by Geoff Anders
6 PM: Consensus Technology by Oliver Carefull
7 PM: Psychology by Jasen Murray
8 PM: Rational Communities by Raymond Arnold
https://plus.google.com/hangouts/e641e55fa340e98d8d10ecad8f2a86abd13c4e06?hl=en&authuser=0#