They shifted the venue from the first floor to the fifth floor. The food part was a pleasant surprise. I was not expecting. But after the first speaker was done, it was food time. After all three speakers got done, I went ahead and ate some more. I did not have dinner later.
During the first break Holly sitting across the table remarked: "You look happy."
"I am a happy person," I said taking in what I thought was a compliment to my general demeanor.
I just received my third email in as many weeks asking me to show up for Sam Lessin's sci-fiMeetUp called Y+30. That is not spamming, that is bombardment. I was sold with the very first email though, even though I was not as impressed with the last event they had, the one on food. Most speakers at that event tried to venture out about five years at best; or I was not able to follow much of what they said. And food as a topic does not excite me. When I think food, I think hunger. I am a Third World guy. I consider myself a great cook, but I cook a very limited number of items. I have never used any recipe or cookbook for anything. The whole recipe talk is designed to make believe anyone can cook anything. I don't buy into that. On food my thought is I like to stay thin.
The next MeetUp in queue is called The Future Of Porn. SamLessin, visionary? Or a visual guy? There is a clip in the movie Minority Report that he might want to show at that one.
But the one tonight is called The Future Of Databases. Now this is really something.
Thursday, May 20, 2010 7:00 PM Drop.io World HQ
68 Jay Street Suite # 413
Brooklyn NY 11201
Like most things, the long-term future of databases is best discussed over beer... With the help of our friends at Basho Technologies we've assembled a cutting edge panel of experts to tackle what databases will look like +30 years.
Our panelists represent the full range of high volume storage engines from the document store avant-garde to the RDBMS old guard and everything in between. You can expect thorough coverage of what "database" means today and what it will mean in the future.
Panelists:
- Ken Ross - Professor in the Computer Science Department at Columbia University
- Dwight Merriman - CEO, 10Gen (commercial sponsors of MongoDB)
- Jonathan Blessing - Managing Partner, 3Thirds Software (NYC-based DB consultancy)
- Justin Sheehy - CTO, Basho Technologies (commercial sponsors of Riak)
In case you have not visited the site recently, Drop.io has gone through a major revamp. The main page is much more minimalist now. That is a good thing. Don't make people scroll. Every milli second counts. Fast is good.
This is going to be my third time at the Dropio offices. The first time was during Social Media Week early in February, the second time was only a few weeks back at a Digital Dumbo party. Two days before that I got to meet Dropio Dude Jacob Robbins for the first time. At the party Jacob told me about the new look of Dropio. In this blog post - Digital Dumbo: Here I Come - I talk about Jacob and something hack. All Jacob ever did was he spoke to me the web address for the page that tells you how to get to the Dropio offices, fancifully called the Dropio World Headquarters.
Having this event at the Dropio offices is a smart move on the part of Lessin. Dropio is one of the top 20 dot coms in town. It is a startup that has crossed that threshold of whether it will survive and do well or what. But even FourSquare, the dot com in town with the most buzz, is scheduled to lose most of its buzz by the year end when it will be in a much better shape as a company - measured by the fundamentals - than it is today. But it is good for team morale to have some buzz. And hosting a get together like this one gives you some buzz in the NY tech ecosystem. And it is not just Dropio, but Dumbo, that unique locale like none other in the city when it comes to tech. The mystique is fast building.