IN-PERSON MEETINGS ON HOLD: COVID-19

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FourthWorld
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IN-PERSON MEETINGS ON HOLD: COVID-19

Post by FourthWorld » Wed May 06, 2020 12:23 am

Given the uncertainty surrounding the COVID-19 pandemic, all future meetings of the SoCal LiveCode Group are suspended until further notice.

Meeting venues will eventually re-open, and when they do I look forward to resuming our monthly LiveCode gatherings.

In the meantime, Heather from LiveCode Ltd. announced the company is hosting free monthly LiveCode video meetings via Zoom - see you there:
http://lists.runrev.com/pipermail/use-l ... 59015.html
Richard Gaskin
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Re: MEETINGS ON HOLD: COVID-19

Post by chipsm » Wed May 06, 2020 4:57 am

FYI the former meeting place - Dupar's - has finally closed.
When we resume our meeting, we will need a new venue.
We - sort of expected - Dupar's was not going to survive, even before the pandemic.
I hope that we will be able to meet sometime in the near future. In the meantime should we be considering some kind of online meeting option?
Keep in touch and please be safe.
Clarence Martin
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Re: MEETINGS ON HOLD: COVID-19

Post by FourthWorld » Wed May 06, 2020 7:14 am

With Heather running the monthly general LiveCode meeting I figured we might give those a go and see if we need another in addition.

I haven't seen her publish a date for their May Zoom meeting, have you?
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Re: MEETINGS ON HOLD: COVID-19

Post by bogs » Wed May 06, 2020 7:23 am

I had meant to ask whether or not all were aware of the issues involved with Zoom, which has gotten quite a lot of press lately (here anyway), not only concerning the 'meeting bomb' type of intrusion, but the privacy issues etc....

A large number of companies and educational facilities have outright dumped it, some of the ones that come to mind would be Google, Tesla, NASA, the NYC dept. of Education...
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Re: MEETINGS ON HOLD: COVID-19

Post by FourthWorld » Wed May 06, 2020 9:24 am

Yes, I've been following the CVEs on those. Most noteworthy is how quickly they've been addressed, in some cases less than 48 hours.

As the CEO explained in an interview last month, Zoom was initially marketed for enterprise use, where VPNs and other practices are commonly managed in-house. With CV-19 things exploded, with lots of new users in consumer markets they'd never focused on.

Their pivot to keep up with demand hasn't been ideal, but in our imperfect universe what is? Overall I've been impressed with their responsiveness to change.

And TBH I'm glad they're not part of The Big Five that control pretty much everything on the global Internet. When it comes to privacy I have no great trust in any of them, they all have incentives for aggregating and cross-indexing what we do on the 'net.
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Re: MEETINGS ON HOLD: COVID-19

Post by bogs » Wed May 06, 2020 9:49 am

Well, I suppose if you feel fine with what they (Zoom) do, who am I to argue? It is certainly up to the user to determine their level of ... um... comfort in using something I suppose.
FourthWorld wrote:
Wed May 06, 2020 9:24 am
And TBH I'm glad they're not part of The Big Five that control pretty much everything on the global Internet. When it comes to privacy I have no great trust in any of them, they all have incentives for aggregating and cross-indexing what we do on the 'net.
I would point out 2 things about that part, though...
1.) there are a lot of other options not controlled by the "Big Five" out there and...
2.) at least with a product of the big five, you can be fairly sure most of the bugs have been worked out.

As for privacy, your trading that for the free usage no matter who you are running with, it is the amount your willing to trade that makes a difference. From all I read and came across, this particular software was the most brazen in what it would not only take in, but sell out.

However, again, I'll assume anyone participating is comfortable doing so, I suspect your all over 18 :P
{If your not over 18, then I will add I am also not your father}.

By the way, I am currently being forced to use it myself despite my strenuous objections. You can bet your sweet bippy I have done as much as I can to isolate my overall system from it. In my case, I view it as an unfortunate side effect that could not be foreseen. At least in this case (LC), the people going in are at least fairly technical and understand the up and downsides of the situation.

In my case, the situation is a lot less balanced.
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Re: MEETINGS ON HOLD: COVID-19

Post by FourthWorld » Wed May 06, 2020 10:20 am

True, lots of options. I'm rarely in a position to choose; I use whatever my client orgs prefer.

But as for #2 above, I wouldn't be so sure. ;)
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Re: MEETINGS ON HOLD: COVID-19

Post by bogs » Wed May 06, 2020 11:27 am

Your right, that should read -
bogs wrote:
Wed May 06, 2020 9:49 am
2.) at least with a product of the big five, you can be fairly sure most of the bugs have been worked out *relatively speaking.
* Relative to the size of the respective user base, i.e. if your a small fish with a couple thousand users, you are not as likely to find the amount of bugs that a bigger fish with a user base 50 to 100x your size is going to find just based on users. Most of the bigger fish also have attractive bug bounties that you can't afford either, but that is another whole topic.
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Re: MEETINGS ON HOLD: COVID-19

Post by FourthWorld » Wed May 06, 2020 4:42 pm

Audience size helps, but what that really boils down to is number of participating developers. And for that, a smaller org with an open source project can have more eyeballs on its code than a giant company limited to the number of people on payroll.

Lots of factors play into privacy and security. I'm definitely not in a position to say that any software is the first nontrivial system to be shipped without bugs. I encourage folks to do ther own research and use what fits their needs.

Nextcloud 18 recently added video conferencing to it's already-wide range of apps. And as a self hosted solution, most privacy concerns are fully under my own control. But being a self hosted solution also puts it out of reach for those who don't have in-house IT.

What works for me may not be best for others. Caveat emptor always applies.
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Re: MEETINGS ON HOLD: COVID-19

Post by jiml » Wed May 06, 2020 8:52 pm

Richard,

Thanks for the update.
Very prudent!

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Re: MEETINGS ON HOLD: COVID-19

Post by tim2RZ » Tue May 12, 2020 11:21 am

Yeah, thanks for that. I hope this pandemic will pass away as soon as possible.

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Re: MEETINGS ON HOLD: COVID-19

Post by chipsm » Fri Jun 12, 2020 3:35 pm

I have attended one LiveCode Zoom conference and I thought it was good.
I have also hosted my own personal Zoom conference with a person that I work with and it was pretty cool.
I think our user group could have a Zoom Conference, at least try it out, and see what happens.
Having a Zoom conference eliminates traveling and conference room issues and people can attend and ask questions, present issues, and provide feedback.
The "No Alcohol" problem won't be solved unless you provide your own - but that's cool. Richard will not be able to buy me a beer, but that's ok too.
I thii=nk we should try it.
Any votes? Yea or Nay?
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Re: MEETINGS ON HOLD: COVID-19

Post by richmond62 » Fri Jun 12, 2020 3:45 pm

I have been using Zoom for the last 10 weeks to teach online EFL classes:

1. Not particularly good for young children as they find concentrating on a screen more difficult than classroom activities.

2. Be wary of people NOT turning on their webcams as it comes across as rude, and it is very difficult to work out
when it is OK to interject or turn-take.

My wife (the Head of English in our local University) is, similarly disenchanted with Zoom (and Jitsi-Meet, et al) for teaching,
but says that meetings (about 75% of a head of department's life) are, actually, better that way rather than in a committee
room.

In July I shall be teaching some online programming classes to children, both locally (in Bulgaria) and further away (in the Philippines)
so I shall see how that works.

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Re: MEETINGS ON HOLD: COVID-19

Post by chipsm » Fri Jun 12, 2020 3:58 pm

I also realize that our regular meeting date was the first Thursday of the month, that would be July 2nd. But since we don't have to reserve a room anywhere we can be flexible on that.
Let's hear from y'all and see if we can get this done.
Hell, I'll even host the meeting.

First, let's see if you are interested.
Next, let's select the date.
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Re: MEETINGS ON HOLD: COVID-19

Post by richmond62 » Mon Sep 21, 2020 6:51 pm

I really wonder if there is a single person world-wide who has not been affected by Covid-19 in one way or another.

Very glad that my younger son and his partner have moved from Los Angeles to Edinburgh in Scotland: so
they can experience a Scottish semi-lockdown after a Californian total lockdown. :?

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