I originally wrote a long spiel about Barcamp Brighton, but it was far too boring. Suffice it to say that I had a fantastic time; everyone was friendly, interesting, interested and good fun to spend time with. The free food was amazing---pizza, sushi, buffets, croissants, muffins, etc. etc. etc.---and the general atmosphere was more like a party with friends and acquaintances than a conference.
Special thanks to Glenn Jones and the other organisers, but I'd also like to give a hat-tip to the talks I saw:
(Saturday)
- Glyn Wintle for his two-minute explanation of how to defeat DRM with consumer-choice legislation
- Ryan Carson for his dream of the 4-day week
- Tom Morris for a demonstration of using RDF for actual fun things
- Jeremy Keith for explaining how social networks can work together without necessarily losing users
- Paul Annett for revealing the secrets of his truly world-famous card trick
- Jim Purbrick for explaining how humans are engines for web-enabling stuff
- Norm Francis, Steve Marshall, Tom Coates, Ryan Alexander and [name forgotten, despite his excellent Werewolf moderation: oops] for letting us ask them anything, but only really remembering that Steve still lives with his parents
(Sunday)
- An unnamed northerner, for his RESTful rabbits and the joys of a Nabaztag
- Andrew Godwin for his beautiful graphs and the how-to behind them
- Natalie Downe for her show and tell
- Matthew Somerville for explaining why Cornwall is part of England, and Wikipedia is dead
Barcamps are a blast. Support your local unconference.