#hackernest

The NXNE Future Land Conference: a peek into the brave new world of Virtual Reality

In my quest to get the most out of my month of “going native” in Toronto it would have been a tremendous oversight to skip NXNE, the North by North East festival. Primarily developed as a music event the festival has diverged into the realms of independent film and digital gaming so I felt compelled to take part in the Future Land Conference.

Having been among the first in my central California…

The last few days in Boston have been a blur of history, adventure, new friends and old friends.

On Tuesday I got some much needed sleep, then decided to walk the Freedom Trail. It starts in Boston Common outside the visitor’s centre where I picked up a brochure for a couple of dollars. This outlined all the major stops on the trail and information about each place. I wanted to make my own way instead of being part of a group and found this was definitely the way to explore. You can get a visitor’s pass for three of the paid attractions and this was definitely worth getting.

 I found learning so much about a city and about a country in one walk was just incredible. I didn’t realise I knew so little about American history and the Revolution until I was immersed in it. Sometimes I get so caught up in my life in the present that I forget how much I enjoy learning about the past.

The museums were great, the walk itself is beautiful and there is just so much information that you can take a whole day doing it, plan for spending time in each location, it wasn’t just a stop and look tour, each place has information about the people and the events involved. (I’ll put up heaps of photos and more about each place when I can find the cord for my camera!!) It’s really not that far when you’re just walking but I could have spent a whole day wandering the trail!

I walked all the way to the North End church and by that stage I was getting a bit tired and it was getting late, so I headed back into town. Was disappointed not to make it up to the USS Constitution, but this will definitely not be my last trip to Boston so I know I can make it back.

Tuesday night I headed over to Cambridge and had dinner in Harvard Square, before attending a HackerNest social meet up. If you’re not familiar with HackerNest, it’s a non-profit organisation that gets people in the tech industry together for beer and conversation. Founded and spearheaded by Shaharris and JJ Beh, these socials are getting more and more popular and are an awesome way to meet others in an industry that can mean you only meet people from behind a screen a lot of the time. I had a great time and was an awesome way to meet a few more people while I was in the US. If you want to know if there is going to be a HackerNest social in your area check out http://hackernest.com