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Sign up for the SICP Blitz in London happening in June
- yarrel 13y agoThere must have been better names for the event than a "Blitz'.
- lmm 13y agoAye, particularly in London
- frou_dh 13y agoI for one am very faux-offended.
- philjackson 13y agoThere were literally none.
- sandfox 13y agoErrmmmm don't think anyone is offended by the word blitz, or ever has been. It's a pretty common term over here (UK) to describe a period of intense activity of any kind. Everyone from soldiers to school teachers use it. e.g we need to blitz the sink - we need to clean it thoroughly and/or quickly.
- kolektiv 13y agoI'm not quite sure why this a) is restricted to 15 people or b) requires sponsorship as from the information there it seems to be essentially a book-club type format. Perhaps I'm missing something - are there not already groups/clubs that get together and do things like this?
- benjfowler 13y ago'Blitz' name is a bit tasteless. This is what I don't get: this appears to be a self-study group, targeted at hacker-type personalities who want to expand their minds. BUT on the other hand, you're restricting it to an elite audience by turning the signup form into a job interview. This does not strike me as sensible.
- arethuza 13y ago"'Blitz' name is a bit tasteless." The only way I can see that it is really tasteless is if it refers to the Sweet hit of the early 70s: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Ballroom_Blitz http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Ballroom_Blitz
- duggieawesome 13y agoWW2 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Blitz http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Blitz
- arethuza 13y agoMy point being that if a cheesy pop song from the 70s can safely use the name "Blitz" and be quite succesful I can't see any harm in using the same term 40 years later.
- yarrel 13y agoUsing it about a London event shows a degree of historical ignorance that a knowledge of glam rock's excesses is tangential to at best.
- philjackson 13y agoIt's a commonly used word over here in the UK, no one finds it offensive/painful to hear - it just means fast/quick.
- philjackson 13y agoYour point about the form was spot on, we cut it down and watched signups increase. Thanks.
- arctic 13y ago> 'Blitz' name is a bit tasteless. Not at all. Like others have said, its common meaning is understood to be something else anyway. Nearly no one I've met is touchy about it, if any. As a society/culture in general it's not the kind of thing we get worked up about. We make jokes about it. We see it as a sign of our spirit as a nation. If it had been something more recent, then people might be offended a little - but this was quite a time ago. Most of the people alive here were born after it happened or were too young to remember it.
- mebassett 13y agojust an fyi (and a bit of a shameless, and useless, plug) - I was leading an active SICP study group in London from Jan - Apr. http://www.meetup.com/London-SICP-Study-Group/ http://www.meetup.com/London-SICP-Study-Group/.
- james1071 13y agoand very good it was too-Matthew is a very good teacher.
- hackerboos 13y agoDoing this again soon?
- philjackson 13y agoHad no idea this had happened, would have gotten in touch if so. Are you coming along?
- super_mario 13y agoWould you mind sharing your experience a bit more. What was the format of the meeting? what did you aim to get out it? How did you advertise the venue? Was it formal teaching or was everyone expected to read on their own and only discuss interesting points, solve exercises etc? Anything else you might want to mention. Basically, I'm interested in organizing something similar in Waterloo, Ontario, Canada and I'm interested in other organizer's experience with this.
- grapjas 13y agoWish there was one in my area
- SimonInman 13y agoI'm slightly baffled by the structure: "[We will be] completing 3 exercises from each chapter of SICP over 6 weeks, one chapter a week after the kickoff." Firstly, my edition and the linked edition only have 5 chapters. Secondly, it's unclear if it means those 5 sections as the chapters, or the smaller subsections (1.1, 1.2, etc). If they mean the big chapters, then this seems way, way, too fast (with not enough exercises), and if it's the subsections then it still seems like too few exercises. I've been doing one subchapter each week, completing at least half the exercises in each section. It's been a pretty good pace, I think, and I'd probably recommend it to people with similar amounts of free time to me. I'm coming from a maths background and have no previous CompSci experience (save a tiny bit of Python).