Barcamp 13 is a general tech and nerdery unconference in London. In its current incarnation it is a one day event at an academy school next to the Tottenham Hotspur stadium.

Although most of the topics were technology related the analog sessions were amongst the most memorable, in particular the Cèilidh session was really fun and a total change in energy. I wasn’t expecting to dance when arrived. I also enjoyed the Minimal Viable Zine session which was about making single sheet zines for communicating urgent information indirectly but person to person.

The work relevant sessions included Nested CSS, which I’ve now started to adopt for my CSS work and looking at how to apply retrospectively to my hobby projects.

I also went to a session about tackling polarisation which was quite interesting as it had both self-proclaimed leftists and Hungarian fans of Orban. I was curious as to why the convener felt that polarisation was new and a problem. The answer the group came up with was that if the polarisation results in shrinking the envelope of who are considered people or a reduction in the rights of people in society then you are potentially talking about life and death. We’ve seen this in the treatment of both refugees and trans rights.

A few things that came through in this session was that there was a strong belief in the power of media (traditional and social) to change social attitudes. I think that would be something interesting to follow up on.

There was also a session on AI-generated music which was interesting but also worrying and which I think probably deserves a post in its own right.

I learned some things, I had fun, I enjoyed chatting to the other attendees and I managed to not be on fire. It was a super interesting day and I will definitely make an effort to get to the next one.