Dear Futurists,

1.) Meetup.com outage

Some of you may have noticed that the Meetup site was off air for several days recently. This was due to a determined DDoS (distributed denial of service) attack on the site, affecting all meetup groups (not just London Futurists).

If you’re interested in the details, you can read this TechCrunch article.

Happily, the attack seems now to be dealt with. This means that you can use all aspects of the Meetup site again. Including – if you haven’t already got round to it – registering for our Anticipating 2025 event happening at Birkbeck College on March 22-23.

In case you’re wondering, Meetup report that all personal data remained secure and intact throughout the attack.

As futurists, we should ponder the risks in relying too much on technical infrastructure that may be vulnerable to devastating cyber-attack. (Hmm, that would be a good topic for a future meetup…)

2.) I’m speaking in Oxford tomorrow

I’m speaking at OxTET tomorrow (Friday 7th March), in Oxford, in the Old Law Library, Magdalen College.

OxTET is “Oxford Transhumanism and Emerging Technologies”. My topic at this meeting is “Anticipating 2025: The key technologies, risks, and solutions”. I’ll be speaking and answering questions for about 90 minutes. See this Facebook page for more details and to RSVP. Attendance is open to all and is free of charge.

This OxTET archive page of some of their previous meetings reminds me that I spoke there once before, almost exactly four years ago. Out of curiosity, I’ve just compared my slide sets for the two meetings, and am pleased to see evidence of progress 🙂

3.) “Why the bankers should be afraid” – Singularity University UK

Our friends at the Singularity University UK meetup are holding an event on Monday evening, 10th March. See their event page, or this EventBrite page, for more details and to register.

Here’s an extract:

The SingularityU London Grand Challenge is now live. Come and join us for the launch event.

Whether you intend to enter the Challenge or not, this event will be a great chance to meet SU alumni, competition judges and advisors, including some of London‘s most exciting innovators.

The theme for the Challenge is “Fintech: Why The Bankers Should Be Afraid”, deadline for entries April 4th.

One lucky winner will spend this summer at NASA in Mountain View, Silicon Valley, working with world-leading experts in exponential technologies, impact innovation and investment.

This event is taking place at the Google Campus, 4-5 Bonhill St, London EC2A 4BX.

4.) Z-Day London 2014

The Zeitgeist Movement (TZM) are holding their own annual event in London‘s Conway Hall on Saturday 15th March. You can register here. There is a significant overlap in the concerns and ideas of TZM with those of London Futurists.

TZM say the following:

The Zeitgeist Movement is a global sustainability activist group working through education and explicitly non-violent means to bring the world together for the common goal of human and environmental sustainability…

Z-Day gives members the opportunity to socialize, make new friends, discuss and hopefully put into action your own ideas with many different people.

This year we have Rou Reynolds from the band ‘Enter Shikari’ giving a presentation, also Desmond Kilroy from the ‘Centre for the Advancement for the Steady State Economy’, Myles Dyer, and Ben McLeish, with more to be announced.

5.) HplusMagazine

The online h+ magazine, available at http://hplusmagazine.com/, is publishing a regular stream of provocative and interesting articles. If you take a few moments to browse recent articles, I expect you’ll find several you want to click into.

Here’s a small subset of the recent articles:

• Best of H+ Magazine, Vol. 1: 2008-2010, now available as eBook on Amazon
• Future Day 2014
• Saving the World with Analytical Philosophy
• Event: Eros evolving – The future of love, sex, marriage, and beauty
• Anticipating 2025 Seeks to Both Challenge and Engage Transhumanists.

The last of these articles features Peter Rothman interviewing me on one of my favourite topics 🙂

// David W. Wood
Chair, London Futurists