Showing posts with label London. Show all posts
Showing posts with label London. Show all posts

Thursday, 6 March 2008

Facebook Garage London


Last November my friends Michele and Vito started the implementation of an idea for an environmental community driven site: greenester.com (will soon be ready- hopefully:) Of course nobody knew it. Of course, we wanted to make it known. How? By exploiting the viral character of Facebook applications, a common practice lately:). So I became a Facebook developer. And last week I received an invitation to attend the Facebook Garage event in London.

Today I went there. It was hosted by Sun Microsystems. It started very good; with canapes food. Then came the pizzas. Then they opened the beers. And then came the belly dancers. I am joking, no belly dancers. Just a girl announcing the begining of the session.

Geeks like fun. So they started with a new anti-Facebook Anthem from YouTube (or YouTunes as we hear in one of the Obama Girl's videos:) After some not-so-interesting speeches, at least for me- we had a break. During it I was approach by a young woman, who showed interest in what I am doing and then asked for my email. No, she didn't want to date me, otherwise she would ask for my phone number, right? Right. I am in London, and I think this is called head hunting or something like that. I told her that I am writing a book, but she didn't seem to care much, because then she asked me if I know php:)

The second part was more interesting, dealing with some legal issues. The case study was the bad people from scrubulus application coping the scrabble game. Finally, the results of a poll application were shown, which was conducted online in real time during the event. "I think that Applications on the site are useful for" was the name of the application, and the winner was the option "nothing" with 54%. The message was clear: we, the developers, had to make useful applications. This was in harmony with the next speech about the Rambo Application. It was created for Sony pictures for the promotion of their movie. The interesting part was an analysis of the 'success' parameters that make an application viral, which the wannabe developer can enjoy at the last picture.

After it finished I got one more free Becks and I went home.

PS Talking about viral spreading, it made me a great impression what happened yesterday after publishing the post on the breaking news about the arrival of the new Asus eee; the last 3 months I had 300 hits on my website. Between 10:00-12:00 yesterday they launched to more than 500 , and after 12:00 almost nothing. Maybe because then the CeBIT started, providing more up-to-date information about the eee. Any ideas?

Tuesday, 25 December 2007

London and "28 Days Later"


Do you remember the movie "28 Days Later"? I am sure it was shot on Christmas day. Why? I will tell you through a story.

Today I was invited by my ex-girlfriend to have a Christmas eve dinner with 2 more friends. I went, had a good time, and left. On the bus I realised that I took by mistake her cash card, don't ask me why. I found it very funny, and called her to ask for her pin number in order to buy myself a Christmas present offered by her, and I couldn't help laughing. Then we realised that my friend had also forgot his bag there. I continued laughing. And after 5 mins I realised that I forgot also the bag with the presents I bought for my family and my flatmates. Then I stopped laughing. (but after a minute I started again). I would leave for Greece in two days, so I had enough time to go and get them. But, had I?

Christmas day is the only day in this city that there is nothing working, and above all the transportation, not even rare bus routes. It is a strange feeling to realize how bounded we are with such fundamental things, like the freedom to move from one place to the other on demand, which we take for granted. I felt like being trapped in my house (well, it's not so dramatic, it's not the first time to stay at home for a day, but it is the first time I have no other choice).

It's not bad of course, since I think these people did it on purpose to let London relax for one day; I will call it striking. My family and friends will call it something like "Dimitri stop thinking these kind of stuff and find ways to improve your memory"

PS I am thinking to have the presents delivered by post to Greece (Btw I live in NW London and Vicky lives in SE - Greenwich)