HN Explorer

Tell HN: HN London Meetup

199 points by connorlu ↗ HN
While browsing the other day I discovered that there used to be a meetup for London based HN readers[1] that appears to have fizzled out when the organiser moved over to America. This type of thing seems to have been relatively wide-spread in tech hubs at the time[2].

To try and rekindle a local HN readers meetup in London, I have arranged a meetup event here: https://www.meetup.com/london-hacker-news-meetup/events/288139501/

If you are in the London area, feel free to come along and say hi!

[1] http://www.coderholic.com/hacker-news-london-meetup-a-year-on/ [2] https://github.com/antontarasenko/hacker-news-groups

126 comments

[ 3.1 ms ] story [ 195 ms ] thread
jgrahamc
There used to be and it was great. If you give more notice next time I’ll try to turn up.
connorlu
Will do, I hope to make it a monthly recurring event.

If you join the group on Meetup you should get a notification when the next event is scheduled.

jaredlt
Great idea! Can't make this one but have joined the group to look out for future meetups.
connorlu
Thanks, hope to see you at one in the future!
[deleted]
(comment deleted)
onemiketwelve
I just want to say thanks for taking the innitiative and setting it up. Although I'm not in london I would've gone if I was nearby. YC just did an official one near me in Boston and there seemed to be lots of enthusiasm.
cachvico
HackerNest is another good one, I hosted a couple of these when I was part of a co-working space - https://hackernest.com/events
connorlu
This is cool, I'll sign up to their September event when it's published.

The hackathon section is interesting too. Do they host hackathons, or just help companies organise them?

abusaidm
This is great, I am on Leave outside London ATM. I will join the group, this is a great opportunity to meet and share ideas post lockdown
connorlu
It's a real pity that events haven't started up again completely post-lockdown. One of the reasons that I started out in tech was the active and welcoming European Hackathon community, so events have been a big part of my experience.

Hope to catch you at an event in the future!

ealexhudson
Bit short notice for me but I've joined the group and would love to come in the future. Thanks for taking the initiative!
connorlu
Of course, hope to see you at one in the next few months.
geoah
Same here, will join the next one :D
synu
Anyone in Amsterdam interested?
Sakos
With enough of a heads-up, I might travel from Cologne to hang out. The London meetup is way too short-notice for me.
connorlu
Sorry! I’m going to make this recurring so hopefully you can come to a future event.
Sakos
Looking forward to it.
asdadsdad
Great stuff. Thanks for doing that! #golondon
yodsanklai
As much as I like reading and commenting on HN, I'm not sure I'd be comfortable socialising with opinionated geeks :)
harindirand
Socialising with opinionated geeks sounds like the best way to have interesting conversations!
eafkuor
You must be under 26-27 years of age? Because that sounds exhausting to me, but I would have enjoyed it a few years ago, probably
lhnz
Don't belittle people for wanting to speak to people like themselves by acting like this is a sign of immaturity or something that they will grow out of...
nyokodo
> sign of immaturity or something that they will grow out of...

Or perhaps they meant that it’s a sign of youthful vitality and openness that they lost via the detriment of aging?

boboralice
I'm way older than that but I work from home. I actually just made an account after a long time of lurking because the lack of lunchtime tech rants is starting to feel isolating.
harindirand
Ha! 26. I sympathise - but have to admit, I am quite excited for this! I just know there are going to be so many interesting people there, doing so many interesting things!
mihaaly
Opinionated may have ment the 'fight for your view till death' kind of folks perhaps. In which case it is being far from fun.
powerhour
I've definitely run in to those types at meetups. They're there to ruin the event for everyone (although I'm sure they themselves have a good time).

Thankfully it's possible to convince a smaller group to ignore them (don't feed the trolls etc) so you can have interesting conversations.

chrisseaton
Nothing interesting about arguing with someone who just defends their point to the death, never listening to anything you say.
bluetomcat
On HN, there is the effect of clusterisation. People tend to comment and communicate with others on topics in which they have interest or significant knowledge. One set of topics would interest startup founders, another set would interest lonesome tinkerers, a third set would interest artsy types.

To put all those people on one table certainly might help in exchanging different perspectives, but the conversation probably wouldn't have the same depth.

HPsquared
The mode of interaction is totally different in person. In a text discussion I can skim through several pages and find a point that resonates, then respond with something topical/helpful. In person, you're limited to a single stream of conversation (maybe more if you walk around), there's not the same 'wide area scanning' mechanism.
robertlagrant
Maybe we need a vim/emacs tickbox option so we know how to seat people.
dougmwne
I enjoy talking to people on the spectrum for their different perspectives, but a whole room sounds overwhelming:D
msantos
HNLondon run until at least 2018[1] and were well organised IMO. The speakers line up were mostly very interesting. And some of the recordings of the talks are still available at https://vimeo.com/hnlondon

If I'm not mistaken the organisers of HNLondon in its final years were Dmitri Grabov[2] and Stevie Buckley[3].

One recurring issue that I recall was the typical audience member trying to hijack Q&A to promote stuff - i.e. "can I ask a question?" then proceeds to make a comment and pitch their product instead. But that's not isolated to HNLondon.

PS: Big shoutout to Dmitri and Stevie for the awesome events that they put together back in the day.

[1] https://twitter.com/HNLondon/with_replies

[2] https://twitter.com/dmitrigrabov

[3] https://twitter.com/StevieBuckley

connorlu
Thanks for this, I’ve reached out to both Dmitri and Stevie to chat about the community. They definitely paved the way for this, so their knowledge would be invaluable.
Saphyel
In most of the events only sponsor are allow to do spam or say they are recruiting. Normal attendes are not allow to do that and they will be ban for the next events.
fungil
I remember going to one of these, many years ago. Sounded cool, hackers meeting up. I was pretty adept at reverse engineering and was just getting into vulnerability research, so I figured it would be right up my street.

Unfortunately it ended up being a talk about making websites with some framework or other, and some uninspirational speech about some startup. I didn't bother going to another one.

Though from this I did find out about the HN website itself, which is worth a browse now and then. So I suppose it was worth going anyway.

Aromasin
Unfortunately I've moved from London to Oxford recently. If the location is anywhere near Victoria Station I'd consider the trip though :)
connorlu
If you check back on the event at the start of next week, I’ll have a confirmed location. I’m hoping to keep it reasonably central.
Jaruzel
I've signed up. It's a bit short notice, and I don't know if I can rejuggle to attend, but I'm definitely interested in future meetups.
connorlu
Hope that you can make it, and if not I look forward to meeting you at one in the future.
jtemplestein
love to see this - the london HN meetup is where we found our first few engineering hires at monzo!

we owe a lot to dmitri, stevie and that meetup

my email address is first name at monzo.com if you're looking for a place to host it

connorlu
Thanks Jonas, I’ll email you later today. On the move right now.
glcheetham
I organise meetup groups in Manchester. I have a venue nailed down. Who is interested in a similar HN Meetup but in Manchester?
jbrooksuk
Me! I'm in Staffordshire, so would be better to travel to Manchester than London.
onion2k
I wonder if there's any interest in a meetup in the North East, probably Newcastle. Or if it'd just be me drinking in a pub on my own.

Either way, I'm tempted to organise it.

dan1234
I'd be potentially interested in a Newcastle meet-up
tailspin2019
This is a good idea. I'm not in London much at the moment but could be tempted to attend an event at some point in the future.
connorlu
It would be great to see you there if you can make it for a future event :)
rambambram
I organized a popular coding meetup - called Let's Code Together - in 2018 in Nijmegen (The Netherlands). I'm thinking of doing the same kind of meetup thing in Arnhem/Nijmegen area (The Netherlands) for HN. Anybody interested?
tpoacher
I just registered.

Important question (probably the most important in such events):

... will there be pizza?

connorlu
I will do my best, can’t make any promises at this stage. I do appreciate the vital important of pizza from my hackathon days though :p
ilikerashers
I'll sign up! A lot of meetups have died recently so there is a definite desire to get going again.

The quality has been fairly low from the stuff I've been to lately (not to name any names).

lostgame
Has there even been / would anybody be interested in a Toronto HN meetup?

I feel like this city is certainly tech-heavy enough that we could organize something nice!

Please let me know here if that’s something that potentially interests you.

I am a fan of in-person Internet forum meetups and have had some of my best social memories from them. :)

emmanuel_1234
I was literally searching for tech / dev meetups in Toronto earlier today, as I moved here a couple months ago. The results were a bit disappointing. Most group are either dead or online only.

That's a way to say: YES, if that happens, count me in.

izolate
I would join from Buffalo! If I can help in any way, let me know.
TomGullen
Went to a bunch of the original meetups years ago, good times! Pizza was great :)

Dmitri did a great job organising it all and kindly let me speak about our startup at one of the events. I was completely overshadowed by an amazing talk on quantum computers by a very educated and funny guy afterwards though, 10/10 best talk I've ever seen.

connorlu
Glad you enjoyed, hope to see you at a future event :)
TomGullen
Would love to come this this one but am away in Scotland, future ones will be sure to come down if there are more :)