OggCamp 12
18 - 19 Aug 2012 at Art & Design Academy, Liverpool John Moores University

Loved it. More please. Five minutes isn't enough, but ten or fifteen would be. Allow more time for questions, because restricting it to one question was a bit silly. Mark did a good job of being the harsh taskmaster that moved things along and that aspect is definitely needed though.

I agree with Dominic that multiple sessions are needed - if done over two days and in CFM then that would give the chance for the second session to be scrapped if not enough people volunteered talks, though judging by the popularity this time around, hopefully that would not be an issue.

This would have worked a lot better if the question master and scoremaster had known what they were doing. Too many people talking over each other, technical problems and just plain confusion drowned out the presentational skills of the podcasters.

I don't even think that the questions were necessarily too specific; I think that if there had been fewer people involved, with the two teams having a chance to prepare for it as they would prepare for their own podcasts, then their skills could have carried it off. As it was, the teams did not know what was going on, and neither did the hosts.

This was what I would consider almost a textbook example of how NOT to give a presentation.

It started off by playing what was quite clearly an illegally downloaded copy of an episode of The Good Wife without any introduction, so the audience was left not knowing really why it was being shown. The speaker just sat there looking at us while it was playing. Clearly the episode was about Bitcoin, but with no introduction I was left unsure as to the point of why it was being shown, and if I didn't already have some knowledge of Bitcoin I would have had no clue as to which parts of the video were speculation, fact or fiction.

The speaker then began a rambling rant about Bitcoin, skipping from point to point without ever really finding a coherent narrative. It was heavy on politics and rhetoric and light on practical application.

It seemed like there had been little preparation done, because inevitably questions were asked surrounding the lack of legitimate uses for Bitcoin at present and the talk then got bogged down in this. It should have been entirely predictable that these questions would arise, and that a concise answer would need to be given before moving on.

In attempting to demonstrate uses of Bitcoin, the speaker brought up a Reddit page through which (apparently primarily) women sell sexually explicit videos and images of themselves in exchange for Bitcoin. The speaker's point appeared to be that Bitcoin was enabling this service to exist because a payment provider such as PayPal would likely shut these womens' accounts down, and therefore that Bitcoin is a tool for free expression.

While that is true, that was an extremely poor example to use at an event such as Oggcamp and the speaker seemed completely unaware of any issue with that. A member of the audience eventually had to ask the speaker to take down the page full of suggestive images of women.

I am not suggesting that porn should be banned or that it is anything to be ashamed of, or that there isn't a legitimate market for it. My point is that it was a bad choice to pick on during a presentation at Oggcamp in a talk that was not billed as having adult content. As it was the speaker was "lucky" that there were only about 15 people in the room. I am sure that with a bit of forethought the speaker could have come up with a better example.

Having said all of that, the speaker did seem genuinely passionate about the subject and I'm sure he is a very nice guy. I could see he had some great things to talk about and I just really wish that he had done so in a less intense way, with a more controlled and structured style.

This speaker knew his stuff and had pitched his presentation just right. Extremely informative and presented in a way that was understandable even to a novice in cryptography matters.

I had hoped this this talk would show some interesting uses of 3d printers together with Raspberry Pis, however it wasn't as in-depth as that. In fact the only link between raspberry pi and 3d printing evident here was the speakers' motivation to print cases for his Raspberry Pi.

Even so it was quite an interesting light introduction to the world of 3d printing so overall I did enjoy it.

I found this talk quite patronising. It seemed to espouse the speakers' own choices as being the most correct when I suspect the real situation was very much more complicated.

A tedious repetition of "I do this to feed my kids", and even a comment along the lines of "even if you don't have kids now, you will one day" to which someone shouted out, "not everyone will have children!" only to receive the reply, "I agree, some people are unable to for whatever reason".

Really good talk, ranging from the business aspects of developing the RPi and their aims through to the precise layout of the PCB. It was 75% a repeat of the previous day's talk (Stephen Fry's "warmup act") but good.

A great session, I only wish we could have had more. I think there were more attendees who had a lightning talk within them...

Consider putting them in CFM next year (assuming people do use it) or making the notice board big and prominent in the entrance lobby as it was a bit hidden. Split it up into multiple sessions (either around the two days or multiple adjoining rooms at once) and have people fill in particular time slots so everybody know what's on when and where.

Really not as good as the live show last year, which actually introduced new content rather than rehashing bits of podcasts even the presenters couldn't remember.

I can't imagine it'll make a good podcast itself if released, as the whole affair would be confusing with microphones not being used, audience members shouting in etc.