MK Geek Night

#28 Mar 7 2019

  • In-person event
  • Talks start 19:30

MKGN #28 was held on March 7th 2019.

Topics, speakers & schedule

Timings are approximate

Documentally

The intimacy of Audio - Why sound matters more as we approach 'peak screen’

Listen back on SoundCloud

Over the last 30+ years Christian Payne's audio experiments have lived on cassette, minidisk, cd, usb drive, HTML, P2P clients and RSS. Whether you're new to the recent resurgence in podcasting, or an old hand with a passion for audio narratives, Christian would like to take you on a journey. In this talk he hopes to share with you his passion for audio as we explore different shapes of sound and the tech needed to captured it.

About Documentally

Christian Payne is a writer and creative technologist.

When not training other people how to share better multimedia stories, he's making them.

Besides being @Documentally on Twitter, he mainly brain dumps into a weekly newsletter at documentally.com/newsletter

Documentally
Creative Technology & Communications

Jason Buck

Business Storytelling

Listen back on SoundCloud

Drawing on traditional favourites and introducing new ideas, Jason's stories are told in the oldest and best ways – as live performances, for modern audiences and he has performed across the UK and mainland Europe, blending traditional and contemporary motifs, vocal sound effects and pure, unadulterated fantasy.

About Jason

Jason has brought storytelling techniques to businesses, not just in stakeholder engagement and presentation, but to tap into the narrative techniques that humans respond well to, to articulate customers' needs and behaviours, central to a customer or user-centric approach. Organisations he's worked with include the UK Government, Rolls-Royce, EY, HSBC, Aviva and Southern Water.

He has been a performer most of his adult life, including gurning, comedy and sword swallowing, but his passion lies in stories - there's nothing like getting lost in a story, the pictures in your head are better than film. Jason has written and published three collections of his own stories, won silver at 2017's Grand Annual Lying Festival and recently won 'Best Bard' at Profound Decisions' 2018 'Theatre of Joy and Sorrow'.

Jason Buck

PJ Evans

Click Here To Cause Widespread Panic

Listen back on SoundCloud

“There appears to be a gunman in your school, would you like help with that?”. When PJ was asked to implement an Internet-connected lockdown announcement system for a London school, the moral and technical concerns, and the unthinkable consequences, caused him to question his future in web development. Join us for a trip down the rabbit hole, featuring houses of cards, idiotic points of failure and a potentially catastrophic lack of regulation.

About PJ

PJ is a software engineer, writer and self-confessed Enigma geek. He was a tour guide at Bletchley Park for many years and volunteers at The National Museum of Computing, which you should totally visit.

Enigma machine at Bletchley Park
Enigma machine at Bletchley Park
PJ Evans
Lead Engineer

Jane Jennison

Making Friends With Mr Boole

Listen back on SoundCloud

"Google can give you 1,000 answers, a Librarian can give you the right one"; an insider's guide to retrieving the information you want, not what SEO wants you to retrieve.

About Jane

Jane is a former Librarian, who has now re-trained as a Positive Psychologist. On leaving the hallowed (and quiet) grounds of libraries, Jane was astounded that people did not speak in whispers, and had no idea how to use search engines. Jane works as a Coach and Trainer, with a keen interest in neuroplasticity. Jane is a Director of Autonomous Ideas Ltd, and is a co-founder of Positive Psychology Summit, which happens in April this year. Jane is also a writer and artist and regular contributor to Goldie Magazine, Home for Good and Adoption UK’s publications. She has co-authored 'happier at home; a guided positive psychology journal for parents and carers’, and ‘happier at work; a guided positive psychology journal’. Jane has 2 adopted children and is frequently found dreaming of her allotment.

Jane Jennison

Doug Clow

How To Get To Runter End: Generating Placenames With A Neural Network

Listen back on SoundCloud

Doug trained a neural network on the official database of placenames in the UK, then got it to generate its own suggestions. Some were convincing, some were funny, and some even turned out to be real places. Doug will give a bit of an explanation of how he did it, and show some of the best results.

About Doug

Doug is a data scientist, researcher, and digital project leader, with expertise in a wide range of subject areas. After 20 years as an academic at the Open University, he now works as a freelance consultant. His earliest attempts at AI were on a ZX Spectrum 48K (RIP Sir Clive Sinclair). It would be fair to say that his later work in the field has been more successful in technical terms and of more practical benefit to his clients.

Doug Clow
Data Science Consultant
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