It is reas­sur­ing to know that the salon did not die in 18th cen­tu­ry France, gath­er­ing togeth­er in RL to con­verse, spar, eat, con­nect and dis­play our intel­lec­tu­al charms has not gone out of style.  Recent­ly we have had Pecha Kucha, Ignite and more Bar­Camps than you could throw a pack of Pos­tIt notes at.  Today the open source inclined have been play­ing with their toys at Soft­ware Free­dom Day and this week is full of occa­sions to be wit­ty and pret­ty and geek (slash nerd).

This week brings Nerdnite#2, anoth­er Tues­day night din­ner and Web­stock will be bring us mini-mar­vels and the big unveil of the speak­ers for 2011.

All of these events are non-geek friend­ly (plen­ty of room for fraghags), all you need is an eclec­tic men­tal diet and a love of cre­ativ­i­ty and inno­va­tion, so don’t be shy.  Nerd­nite looks to be tak­ing eclec­tic to a whole new lev­el with geo­engi­neer­ing, sto­ries, witch­craft, and food on the menu at Bet­tys Bar this Mon­day.  It seems the case that peo­ple self-iden­ti­fy as geek but get twitchy when ref­ered to as “nerds”, well per­haps this word is going to be reclaimed as well if this Nerd­nite thing catch­es on.

Besides, geek appears to be con­test­ed term, this week we have had @BR3NDA toot­ing about priv­i­lege and com­put­ers:

 

 Look for­ward to see­ing some of you in the over-lap­ping pri­vate and pub­lic spheres this week.