Can we meet somewhere else? That Starbucks is tiny and too awkward to talk. At the very least the other Starbucks a block away on Oxford St has more floorspace.
We could even just meet at the small plaza at the West Gate of campus.
I've often been curious as to what goes on at these, and this one would work (I'm a researcher at Cal). For a vet: how would describe a LW meetup?
Last time we met up at Starbucks, walked across the street where some people got food to go from Burgermeister, then found an open building at Cal with plenty of free space for us.
Then it was wide ranging group conversation in mingle mode about the wide array of topics sometimes covered on LW. Then everyone was invited to my house to continue conversations and/or drink beer.
It's very casual and very low pressure. No one will judge you for not having read enough of LW or anything.
On a related note, one topic that came up particularly frequently that some of us bonded over was rarely or never contributing. So to anyone out there lurking, don't be afraid to come just because you don't post. You won't be alone.
I believe I will be able to attend.
We might be well-served by finding a new place to meet with more space or seating for the next meeting. The Starbucks got to be rather crowded last time.
I talked to one fellow about GO playing AI last night and I mentioned these Restricted Boltzmann Machines. If the GO problem can be cast as an image processing problem, RBMs might be worth looking into: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AyzOUbkUf3M Here is a more recent Google Tech talk by Hinton on RBMs http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VdIURAu1-aU
Okay, I give up. Unless you went all the way down to the peninsula, where'd you find a t-rex? (Also, I wouldn't have thought that Starbucks sat 20--live and learn. It's the one next to the theater, isn't it?)
Last month, about 20 people showed up to the Berkeley LW meet-up. To continue the tradition of Berkeley Meetups, we will be meeting on Saturday, November 6 at 7 PM at the Starbucks at 2224 Shattuck Avenue. Last time, we chatted at the Starbucks for about 45 minutes, then went to get dinner and ate and talked under a T-Rex skeleton - we'll probably do something similar, so don't feel like you have to eat before you come. Hope to see you there!
ETA: As per User:Kevin's suggestion, we will instead be meeting at the Starbucks at 2128 Oxford Street.